[Funeral and burial customs of an Indigenous Brazilian group] · Centre for Early Modern Visual Culture

Title: [Funeral and burial customs of an Indigenous Brazilian group]
Subject: Indigenous peoples – Brazil; Tupi; Tupinamba; Indigenous peoples – Funeral customs and rites – South America; Burial customs; Mourning; Indigenous weapons – South America
Period: 1550-1600;
Geographic: Fort Coligny; Rio de Janeiro; Brazil; South America; Paris; France
Description: A group of Indigenous people are in the process of burying the body of a deceased man. The body has been bound with rope about the arms and wrists and has been placed into the grave in a kneeling position. Two men kneel on either side of the grave each gripping one of the deceased man’s arms and holding a basket over his head. Two different men shovel dirt into the grave, and a third stands at the head of the grave holding a rattle or ornament and wearing a feathered headdress. Three women, one with a child by her side, crouch around the grave with their hands over their faces in distress, and there are bows and a club on the ground near their feet, perhaps to be buried with the deceased. This image is identical to one found in Frankfurt, 1557.
Image Creator: Unknown (Woodcutter); Heirs of Maurice de la Porte (Printer)
Type: StillImage; Woodcut
Identifier: mta:23457
Language: fre
Source Name: Les Singvlaritez de la France Antarctique, autremment nommée Amerique: & de plusieurs Terres & Isles decouuertes de nostre temps
Parent Collection: 1558 Paris
Image: mta_23457_OBJ.png