Visiting the ancestors: report of a workshop with Tupinambá leaders at the Florence Museum of Anthropology

Abstract

We report on a pivotal collaborative experience of study and reconnection when Glicéria Tupinambá (In-

digenous artist, activist, anthropologist, and community leader) and Jéssica Tupinambá (Indigenous lawyer

and activist) encountered the Tupinambá artefacts conserved at the Florentine Museum of Anthropology

and Ethnology. We contextualize the event with information on the Tupinambá feather capes and clubs preserved in Florence. We comment on the potential impact and importance of this event, both for the Museum and for the Tupinambá community. We stress the importance of collaboration among people with different expertise and tasks fully realizing that scientific and spiritual approaches are not incompatible. Combining different approaches both interdisciplinary and inter-culturally opens up a brighter future dialogue about cultural heritage preserved in museums. Additionally, we disseminate, for the first time, information on a feather Tupinambá cape that arrived in Florence during Medici times, but was lost in Germany during WWII.