On October 17, community and team members of the Oga Pysy Project (led by Raffaella Fryer-Moreira) visited the EMKP to personally deliver their digital collection. Guarani and Kaiowá shamans involved in the project—Nhanderu Tadeu, Nhandesy Fausta, and Nhandesy Roseli—had indicated their desire to conduct a ceremony to deposit their sacred knowledge into the EMKP repository. Honoring this request, PI Raffaella Fryer-Moreira and collaborators Fabiana Fernandes, Beatriz Marins, Doriano Morales, and Kelvin Peixoto facilitated their journey to London.
The Oga Pysy is a ceremonial house and the focus of ritual life in Guarani and Kaiowá cultures (Nhanderu Marangatu territory, Antonio João, Brazil). However, with recent increases in religious intolerance, the houses have also become foci of targeted attacks by neighboring non-indigenous populations. Since the project’s start, no less than four Oga Pysy have been razed to the ground.
Over five months of multimedia documentation, the Oga Pysy Project has preserved the material processes and technical knowledge used to build and maintain ceremonial houses. The project methodology incorporates technologies of sensory emergence like VR, 360° video, and ambisonic sound alongside more traditional documentary methods. In collaboration with the project team, community members produced almost all of this documentation themselves.
The day began with a purification ritual of the Museum and all those inside both for the shamans’ safety and to protect the knowledge they were bringing to the collection. Nhandesy Roseli remarked that the stagnant spirits in the museum could disturb the well-being of staff and visitors if they were not engaged more often. After lunch in the staff canteen, the shamans and the Oga Pysy Project’s collaborators engaged in a lively dialogue with EMKP head Paula Granados García and curator Orly Orbach on the significance of the Oga Pysy in their culture and how they hoped the data could contribute to the repository. A private tour of the Americas collection and the Wellcome Trust Gallery with SDCELAR assistant curator Diego Atehortúa followed. Laura Harris provided essential English-Portuguese translation throughout the afternoon’s exchanges.
At 4, the visitors reconvened in the AOA conference room to carry out the ceremony. Paula Granados García and Raffaella Fryer-Moreira prefaced the audience—which included a group from Kew Gardens—with a statement of the project, its goals, and the intention of the ceremony about to unfold. Raffaella then yielded the floor to Nhanderu Tadeu, Nhandesy Fausta, and Nhandesy Roseli. As they began their chant, their attention rested on the hard drive containing their data atop the conference table. Then they shifted to Paula Granados García, who sat prepared to receive the donation. As they bestowed the drive on her, they placed a necklace over her head so that they, the shamans, could ‘remain here with their sacred knowledge.’ But the sobriety of the room from this handover soon broke as the shamans invited attendees to join hands while they uttered protective incantations. The visit of the team and community members of the Oga Pysy Project and the attendance of our colleagues from Kew Gardens made this a memorable day for EMKP and the Museum. We want to extend our gratitude to all the colleagues who helped us make this a special day for our visitors and we hope more such visits will occur in the future.
Stay tuned for more news from the EMKP!