“Pra virar gente”: a imitação afetuosa nas relações das crianças Capuxu com seus bichos

Abstract

This paper analyzes the experiences of Capuxu children with the animals they interact with daily, looking for un understanding about how children’s relationships with these companion species cross the Capuxu sociality, including the onomastic system, children’s commensality, the techniques for the production of the body and the tasks performed by children with or for their animals. In all these experiences, there is a kind of learning mediated by affection and mutual care, in a process of affectionate imitation, in which children make kinship with animals and paradoxically finish off “growing up as humans”, in the view of adults.