Resumption of Pataxó ceramics in the Kãdhawê tawá ceremony

Abstract

This is the report of the experience of retaking Pataxó, whose project was focused on the teachings of Paulo Freire, especially the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which led us to the traditional knowledge of pottery as an alternative for education and income generation, in the perspective of a Social Technology, created from the ancestral traditional knowledge involved. It is an intervention, supported by an action-research, which started from the traditional ways of knowing and doing and arrived at a decolonial curriculum, where the actors are also authors, in the technical course of Ceramic Artisan. It is related to the traditional knowledge of clay, and goes through the Pataxó founding myth and its ancestral knowledge. Our work is based on the understanding that knowledge triggers social processes and practices, and its actions can be considered potentially formative and educating, because they dialogue in the perspective that the one who learns teaches while learning. Our objective was to observe, register, implement, and evaluate the potential of ceramics, as an art-educational occupation, income generator, and mainly, as a cultural revival, with strong social and environmental appeal, since the Pataxó artisan matrix is based on wood. We have been observing the relations and contradictions in the socio-cultural context and the implications of this cultural revival in the daily life of the community of the Pataxó village of Jaqueira in Porto Seguro, Bahia. We used dialogical methodologies for this, since the project also relied on theoretical contributions from Social Anthropology, Postcoloniality, Fundamentals of Ethnic-Racial Relations, Creative and Solidarity Economy, Economy of Culture, and a Liberating and Transforming Education, as previously mentioned, based on Paulo Freire's theories and practices.