Songs of Awaju Poty inspired by the Guarani Nhandewa Culture

Type: Short Paper

Authors: João Jordano Brandalise Pereira (Tupanju), Dr. João José Félix Pereira (Awaju Poty)

Institution: Universidade Estadual do Paraná / Campus I (EMBAP)

Abstract

The research on the work of Awaju Poty, a Guarani Nhandewa composer, stands as an exercise in the decolonization of music education by valuing ancestral knowledge and challenging the centrality of the European canon in teaching. The study examines nine mborai (songs) composed by the maestro, highlighting their poetic, cultural, and creative aspects, along with the unprecedented digitalization of their scores. This analysis seeks not only the preservation but also the inclusion of Guarani music in academic and school settings, breaking with the historical marginalization of Indigenous peoples. As Montardo (2002) observes, “for the Guarani, poetic language is the language of the gods, of birds, of trees, of the waterfall, of the Earth, of the Sun” (p. 152), revealing the inseparability of music, spirituality, and Indigenous worldview.

In this sense, the research is part of a broader movement of resistance against colonial practices of silencing. Darcy Ribeiro (1995) had already denounced that “the original population of Brazil was drastically reduced by a genocide of staggering proportions [...] followed by an equally devastating ethnocide” (p. 144). Thus, the valorization of Guarani music contributes to re-signifying historical narratives and to repositioning music education as an intercultural practice of cognitive justice.

Furthermore, the study emphasizes how the mborai engage with both Guarani myths of origin and cosmology, as well as the composer’s personal experiences, revealing a pedagogy rooted in orality, memory, and dreams. As Langdon explains, “the song is seen as a moment of its guardian creators, who, when performed, revive in the people’s consciousness the memory of past guardians” (apud Montardo, p. 238). Through this process, musical practice becomes a means of transmitting knowledge and affirming identity.

By disseminating Awaju Poty’s compositions, the research broadens the repertoire of Brazilian music education and contributes to displacing Eurocentric paradigms, while valuing Indigenous epistemologies. Thus, the study reaffirms that the decolonization of music is not restricted to the inclusion of repertoires but entails a critical revision of the ways in which we teach, research, and understand sound art as a plural and intercultural expression.