This paper studies the ethnographies of Salesian priests, particularly the ones of Father Antonio Colbacchini, produced between the years of 1920 and 1930 in Brazil, about the Bororo Indians in Mato Grosso. It is an examination of this literature to understand the specificity of its textual construction as well as to reveal its intrinsic interlocutors. Our analysis will favor both symbolic and political mechanisms which are used at a given moment to produce a certain image of the Indian and construct - for the Brazilian society - a convincing and absorbing view on their way of life and on what could be understood as their "culture."
Mission; Identity; Culture