Berta Gleizer Ribeiro e as artes das vidas amazônicas

Abstract

This article honors Berta Ribeiro, close to the centenary of her birth, in 2024. The text does not present an in-depth analysis of her contribution to the ethnology of different Brazilian indigenous peoples, given the limitations imposed by a journal article. Rather, it constitutes a celebration of Berta Ribeiro and her work, which contributed to the consolidation of Brazilian and Latin American anthropology. The reflections that follow focus on the approaches to which the anthropologist paid special attention, such as those connected to the study of everyday objects, to Amazonian aesthetics, to the mythology of the indigenous peoples of the upper Rio Negro, and also to ecological issues. Berta Ribeiro’s work provides fruitful connections and dialogues with contemporary anthropology, offering inspiring reflections and practices that reach us in the present.

Keywords

• Berta Gleizer Ribeiro
• upper Rio Negro
• Brazilian ethnology
• material culture
• indigenous art
• Amazonia