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In lowland South America, sacred food plants have taken an ethnographic back seat to psychotropic plants. Yet, such foods are often central to local understandings of mythology, healing, ceremony, and spiritual well‐being. In this article, I elucidate the sacred nature of two kinds of food plants that occupy special sociocultural spaces among the A'uwẽ (Xavante) in Central Brazil: cultivated maize and collected root vegetables. Although these are not the only sacred food plants in A'uwẽ society, they are iconic because they are considered uniquely appropriate gifts during certain ceremonial and ritual events. I also explore how I conducted research about ceremonial ethnobotanical topics in a society that considers most sacred and spiritual knowledge privileged. Both sacred plant foods highlighted here continue to be commonly given as presents expressing gratitude to others during popular ceremonial occasions, thereby maintaining them in the collective consciousness as integral components of contemporary social life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2006, Brazil approved a groundbreaking policy aimed at reducing significant racial health inequalities among its citizens. Like health disparities programs in the United States, Brazil's policy is based on the assumptions that racial identity and racism are important health determinants and that citizens who identify as 'black' suffer disproportionately from a number of health problems. How do these assumptions compare to Brazilian citizens' conceptions of racial identity and health inequalities? To address this question, I present ethnographic data from two years of fieldwork in Brazilian public clinics and low-income neighborhoods. I show that a majority of research participants made no connection between race and better or worse health. Of those who perceived health inequalities by race, most believed that white Brazilians had more health problems than black or brown Brazilians. Finally, I consider the implications of these ethnographic findings for Brazil's health disparities campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RESUMEN Este artículo ofrece un nuevo punto de vista sobre los nuevos tipos de intermediarios aparecidos en las comunidades indígenas amazónicas, mostrando cómo las nuevas relaciones interétnicas han cambiado la realidad de estas comunidades. El texto presenta un estudio sobre los Manchineris de la Amazonía brasileña. Estos agentes llevan a cabo la producción de igualdad y relatividad dentro de los espacios sociales donde se requiere esta negociación. En la comunidad Manchineri nuevos papeles sociales causan una creciente separación entre distintas generaciones, entre géneros así como entre zonas urbanas y rurales. Sin embargo, la producción de nuevas perspectivas humanas con los no-indígenas es necesaria para poder interactuar en la actual sociocosmología amazónica interétnica. La lógica social de los pueblos amazónicos indígenas condiciona el cómo estos papeles sociales con habilidades interétnicas específicas son temporalmente adoptados y crea nuevas maneras de vencer las distancias sociales, económicas y políticas en expansión. This article attempts to provide fresh insight into the new kinds of intermediaries found in Amazonian native communities, showing how interethnic relations have changed today's native communities. The text presents a case study of the Manchineri people living in Brazilian Amazonia, focusing in particular on their spokespeople in rural and urban areas. These intermediaries work to produce equality and relatedness within the new social spaces where negotiations are required. Producing new human perspectives with non-natives is necessary in order to interact in the contemporary Amazonian interethnic sociocosmologies. However, in the Manchineri community, new social roles have caused widening generational, urban–rural and gender gaps. The social logic of Amazonian native peoples limits the ways in which specific social roles with special interethnic skills are temporarily adopted, and produces new ways to overcome deepening social, political, and economic distances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]