The image in the Maxakali verbal art: aspects of a shamanic poetics

Abstract

An investigation on image in the verbal art of the Maxakali or Tikmû’ûn indigenous people, who live in four territories in the state of Minas Gerais, speak the Maxakali language, from the macro-Gê linguistic stem. Based on one of the central aspects of Maxakali spirituality - the post-mortem transformation of koxuk (“word”, “soul”) into yamîy (“song”, “spirit”) - and artistic and media manifestations typical of its rituals, connected to the mythological background, we recognize the image as one of the potentialities responsible for the creation and preservation of its poetic forms.