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In the Nixi Pae Paths : movements, transformations and cosmopolitics.

Abstract

This project seeks to map a recent movement driven by the ritual use of nixi pae (ayahuasca) and other forest medicines in the Kaxinawá indigenous lands of the Rio Humaitá and of the Rio Jordão, also extending to urban centers in several states of Brazil and abroad (in addition to the indigenous lands, observation in this research is concentrated in Brazil’s southeast region, especially in the state of São Paulo). In such rituals, which have the presence of non-indigenous in the cities and in the villages themselves, as in the occasion of the festivals, a series of transformations in the "traditions" and the "culture" of these people have been initiated. In delineating the associations between the actors involved in this movement, in which the cosmologies of Amerindian peoples, ayahuasca religions and the New Age movement are interwoven in specific ways, we enter into a cosmopolitan dimension of debate, in which the nixi pae appears as a fundamental non-human mediator in the mobilization of networks of exchanges, confrontations and alliances. Keywords: ayahuasca, kaxinawa, healing, diplomacy, cosmopolitics.