Terena ethnogeography: land and territory

Abstract

This article treats about a result of a research made from the Terena geography in a native Indigenous Land, known as Taunay/Ipegue community, located in Aquidauana, state of Mato Grosso do Sul/BR. This paper seeks to describe the Terena’s ethnogeography at the before mentioned Indigenous Land, pointing out some important aspects, incluiding the matter where borders are deligned by nature forces and types of topography, such as: Trees, Streams that are considered as being borders limits among te seven villages wich compose the indigenous reserve. Therefore the main objective in this article is give the reader explanations about the concept of Poké'e and Poké'exa lands territory in the conception of the Terena people at the Taunay/Ipegue Territory-Community. To sucessfully anchieve these goals, our crew reached deeper information not only on old indigenous written masterpieces, but also, on non-native indigenous ones, incluiding spiritual, mythical, symbolic and culture value. We counted on the collaboration of several ancient people from the previous mentioned villages wich act not as just guides, but also, translaters, and informants of important places for this paper. Finally, the concept of land Poké'e Poké'exa – territory, was reached due to the informants being speakers of the Terena language, this was fundamental for the research of the suffixes, prefixes and radical of the words used in the Terena language to finally elucidate the meaning of land Poké'ee Poké'exa – territory.