https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-019-00517-8
ABSTRACT: The archaeology of colonialism has been recently reconceived as the investigation of persistent cultural practices that connect the past and the present which values alterities and cosmologies. In São Paulo, the singular alliance between Tupiniquim and the Portuguese starting in ca. 1502 CE generated practices that linked knowledge structures from the pre-colonial period to the present. This study compares three types of ceramics and interprets incorporative cultural practices of the Tupiniquim that explain how they bring in the Portuguese “other” – as people and as pottery practice – as a way of persisting; and explores the ways in which this relationship is different to allies and willing partners in the colonial process. The complexity of colonial relationships modified cultural practices, and the exchange and articulation of knowledge resulted in the society of São Paulo. Tupiniquim women transformed Portuguese ceramics into Paulistaware, which signifies not a cultural loss, but cultural persistence.
Ceramic vessels with handles and wings (a) Tupí colonial, Torres, Rio Grande do Sul, photo by Ângelo Corrêa, courtesy of the Centro de Estudos e Pesquisas Arqueológicas, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul; (b) Contemporary Paulistaware, Jairê, Iguape, photo by Francisco Noelli, courtesy of the Marianne Sallum private collection; (c) Colonial Paulistaware, Itapeva, São Paulo, photo by Francisco Noelli, courtesy of the Museu Histórico de Itapeva; (d) Tupinambá colonial, Araruama, Rio de Janeiro; (e) Santa Olaia (Portugal) (Nazaré 2013), photo by Ângela Buarque, courtesy of the Museu Nacional.