No abstract

This study deals with the mythical dimension of the Kaingang oral narratives, a Jê Meridionalsociety whose traditional territories are located in the south of Brazil. It is based on interviews carried outamong Kaingang communities located in the hydrographic region of the Guaíba Lake basin, Rio Grandedo Sul state, analyzed in view of the native etnology and of the myth theory. It was considered speciallythe studies of Egon Schaden (1913) and Mircea Eliade (1963), completed by the studies of RobertCrèpeau (1997), Rogério Reus Gonçalves da Rosa (1998) and Sérgio Baptista da Silva (2002). Thepreliminary data allow to recognize that the Kamé-Kairukré cosmologic dualism, revealed in the versionof the myth of the Kaingang origin collected by Telêmaco Borba (1908), remains as a wire coductor ofthe contemporary Kaingang thought, orienting its narratives, its history and nature conceptions, its life insociety and its duty notion.

Pedra erguendo a noite, pedra resvalando o dia, pedra de pisar forte e contínuo. Maio de 2010 -Nº 7