Abstract:
This paper deals with the issue of the identity of the Tikuna youth, of the Umariaçu I
Community on the Eware I Indigenous Territory in the municipality of Tabatinga, AM,
based on contemporary challenges. The Tikuna are a people who inhabit the Amazon
region, who have preserved part of their cultural tradition in spite of the contact with the
non-indigenous. The role of education in the maintenance and reinterpretation of the
Tikuna heritage is analyzed as well as their ritual reinvention. The Tikuna youth have
before them the attempt of insertion in the modern world with the preservation of the
traditions received from their ancestors. This position generates conflicts with the older
ones and deepens the identity crises inherent to adolescence. The Young Girl Festivity
rite carries out an attempt of connecting the past and the future, since it reinterprets the
ritual obligations in a new context. In this resides the wealth of the Tikuna culture for
the interpretation of inter-culturality in a pluriethnic society.
