Comunidade indígena potiguara "Mendonça" do amarelão (João Câmara, Rio Grande do Norte): importância da caça em seu cotidiano alimentar

Abstract

Carneiro (2003) says that food is, after respiration and water intake, the most basic of human needs, and besides biological necessity, it is a complex symbolic system of social, sexual, cultural, religious, ethnic, aesthetic meanings , politicians and so on. The research shows the culture of the indigenous people 'Mendonça' do Amarelão (João Câmara - Rio Grande do Norte) in the hunting of wild animals in their lands and details that some animals of their fauna are part of their local diet. Observational methodology and historical methodology were used, seeking to transcribe the words of the hunters themselves and their thinking as a common activity of their community. This research has the conception of qualitative research that according to Prodanov and Freitas (2013) considers a dynamic relationship between the real world and the subject, that is, one can not translate their subjectivity into numbers. For that matter, we have to navigate this plan of stories, documents, studies, interviews and verbal reports, so that this material is better recorded. The research relies on a prior script where questions in flexible ways have been developed to emphasize the experiences of the hunters themselves. As a result, we have seen that there is a strong significance between 'land' and 'territory'; there is the legal issue of hunting, which is now banned in the country; are portrayed various types of weapons, traps and equipment used for greater effectiveness in the slaughter of animals and there is the cooking issue at the time of preparation of dishes, between recipes, ingredients and accompaniments for game meat. With this, it is believed that hunting is fundamentally linked to gastronomy, because it is a rite, a culture that identifies a people who knows what they eat and where their food comes from. Thus food traditions are formed, but even without having a real notion of the environmental impacts of this practice, we must rather consider what is need and what is environmental violation.