Eliane's identity: the potiguara face, the indigenous mask and the echo of silenced voices

Abstract

The analytical reading of Half face, half mask, by Eliane Potiguara takes as leitmotiv the identity constitution of the indigenous woman who uses writing as an instrument of struggle in favor of the rights of her people. As suggested in the title, the work reveals biographical data of a subjectivity that takes ancestral knowledge as a mainstay around which the different angles of the contemporary Brazilian indigenous face are revealed. The texts presented throughout the work break the boundaries of textual genres and translate into poetry that has its greatest mark in orality, an aspect that becomes a point of study throughout the article. The condition of women is also analyzed in the light of some theoretical assumptions, especially considering the meaning in the context in which a female indigenous voice seeks space in the current Brazilian literature scene.