An Archaeology of Colonialism and the Persistence of Women Potters’ Practices in Brazil: From Tupiniquim to Paulistaware

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 Sao 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 Sao Paulo. Tupiniquim women transformed Portuguese ceramics into Paulistaware, which signifies not a cultural loss, but cultural persistence.