This article is a historical and iconographic analysis of different views on several 1844 daguerreotypes of two Botocudo indians, taken by E. Thiesson in Paris in 1844 and kept at Musée de l'Homme in France at present. They correspond to the different perspectives of nineteenth-century scientists, of the author himself as a historian and of present-day Krenak, near kin to Botocudo. These daguerreotypes are some of the first photographic records of Brazilian indians and make evident the relations between science, image, war and the construction of nationality.
indian History; Botocudo; History of photography; Brazil; nineteenth-century history