The Stories I Heard from My Grandmother and What I Learned from Them

Abstract

This article explores the intergenerational denial of Indigenous identity through the life story of Francisca Nunes Maciel, whose family history reflects state-led erasure policies in Amazonia. Analyzing oral narratives from rubber-tapping communities along the Madeira River, we examine how serpent mythology operates as both cultural memory and colonial allegory—mediating experiences of displacement, cultural syncretism, and environmental transformation. The study reveals how Afro-Indigenous cosmologies persist within Catholic practices like litanies and communal work (Puxirum), even as official histories obscure Mura and Munduruku territoriality. Ultimately, these narratives demonstrate Indigenous resistance through storytelling, where myth becomes methodology for reclaiming ancestral connections amid forced integration.