VI 



INSTITUTE OP SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 12 



over a considerable period of time under the con- 

 ditions of a new habitat, has ahnost completely 

 replaced the indigenous culture. Not only have 

 comparatively few of the original Indian tech- 

 niques survived, but also little of such tenacious 

 elements as folk beliefs and the practices asso- 

 ciated with them. It is in the less obvious and 

 more subtle aspects of culture, in the attitudes, 

 sentiments, and points of view which a people 

 reveal to the outsider only upon intimate contact, 

 that there are more likely to be found vestiges of 

 Indian origin. 



On the basis of this survey, the village of Cruz 

 das Almas was selected as the settlement which, 

 in the plateau region, seemed best to combine the 

 necessary circumstances of a comparatively long 

 history, uninterrupted by significant intrusions 

 from the outside, a considerable degree of Indian 

 ancestry in the population, and an absence of 

 industrial activity in the area, to reveal the basic 

 cultural patterns of the region, previous to modi- 

 fication under the impact of an industrial order. 

 It also had the practical advantage of accessibility 

 from Sao Paulo so that those students who were 

 unable to be away from the city for an extended 

 period of time might also participate in the re- 

 search. 



Accordingly, a house was rented in the village 

 and Carlos Borges Teixeira resided there from 

 February 1947 through August 1948, during 

 which time he gained the confidence and respect 

 of the local inhabitants and came to participate 

 intimately in their society and culture. As he 

 became known and accepted in the community, 

 other graduate and undergi-aduate students vis- 

 ited the village, especially on week ends and dur- 

 ing holidays. In this way, a promising founda- 

 tion was laid for systematic field work. 



Students began by keeping a diary, in which 

 there was set down everything observed in the 

 community which seemed interesting or impor- 

 tant. When the author was unable to be in the 

 field, Carlos Borges Teixeira and other students 

 returned to Sao Paulo each week or two to dis- 

 cuss observations made during the preceding 

 period. As there emerged out of this descrip- 

 tive data a clearer picture of the relative values 

 of the different cultural and associational ele- 

 ments, subsequent work was planned in terms of 

 more systematic analysis. 



Especially in the early stages of the study, the 

 approach was thus kept as empirical as possible, 

 in an attempt to avoid implanting upon the sub- 

 ject matter, any more than could possibly be 

 avoided, a preconceived system of descriptive and 

 analytical categories which would result merely 

 in illustrating what was in our minds beforehand. 

 This does not mean that we began work without 

 a frame of reference or hypotheses and that our 

 interest was only in piling up discrete and im- 

 related "facts." It was rather that we felt that 

 organization of data, insofar as possible, should 

 emerge out of reality, rather than be imposed upon 

 it, especially since we were working with a cultural 

 and associational system which previously was 

 unknown, in considerable part, at least to the 

 author. In other words, the on-going life of the 

 community was given a determinant role in the 

 systematization designed to make the "facts" intel- 

 ligible and communicable. 



During December 1947 and January and Feb- 

 ruary 1948, the author and his wife, aided espe- 

 cially by Carlos Borges Teixeira and Maria 

 Mirtes Brandao Lopes, and also by Og Francisco 

 Leme, Cecilia Maria Sanioto, and Lizette Toledo 

 Eibeiro, carried on systematic interviewing on 

 farms in the community. The men in the group, 

 who usually were not over two in number at any 

 one time, interviewed the farmer in the field 

 among his crops, while the women, also usually 

 not over two in number at any one time, remained 

 in the house, conversing with the farmer's wife 

 and daughters. Since comparable data of a sta- 

 tistical character with reference to a considerable 

 number of items was desired, a schedule was used 

 by the men. The interviews at the house, how- 

 ever, were all carried on without a schedule, al- 

 though specific questions to be asked were deter- 

 mined beforehand. Later that year, especially 

 in June and August as well as on several week 

 ends and holidays, further systematic interview- 

 ing was carried on in the village and on the farms. 



Subsequent to his enrollment, in March 1948, as 

 a graduate student at the Escola Livre de Soci- 

 ologia e Politica, Levi Porfirio da Cruz was closely 

 associated with the study, spending a number of 

 week ends in the field, as well as the vacation 

 months of July and December of that year, and 

 otherwise assisting with the collection and verifi- 

 cation of data. 



