MUNDURUKU, Daniel. Todas as coisas são pequenas. São Paulo: Arx, 2008.
Giulia Campos
Illustrated by Théo Chrisóstomo
Translated by Emily Dicker, Daisy Hodges and Elisa Remme
Todas as coisas são pequenas (All Things are Small) is a story of reconciliation and questioning one’s existence, which depicts and celebrates the strength of indigenous ancestry. Using the lived experiences of Carlos, the protagonist, as a springboard, the reader is taken on a journey of deeply philosophical and existential questions which rewire the protagonist’s — and, by extension, the reader’s — way of thinking and seeing. The novella, published in 2008, is just one of over 62 books by Daniel Munduruku (born in Belém, Pará, 1964). It was written during what is said to be the author’s most productive years to date, from 2006 to 2011, when he published a total of 19 works.
Munduruku is an indigenous activist, actor, teacher, and philosopher. He is also part of the recent boom of writers who, in the struggle for indigenous rights, have contributed to what is commonly known as indigenous literature — or rather, aesthetic-literary, political, and practical forms of expression which help to generate publicity for indigenous rights in Brazil (Dorrico, 2018). Across his numerous novels, short stories, and children’s books, Munduruku’s central theme is the cultural diversity of indigenous peoples, with a focus on the potential philosophical effects of indigenous cultures.
Munduruku holds a Masters in Social Anthropology and a PhD in Education from the Federal University of São Paulo and is one of today’s most influential thinkers and indigenous activists. He also founded the Indigenous Brazilian Institute for Intellectual Property (INBRAPI) and is currently the CEO of the Uk’a Institute, The House of Ancient Knowledge, an NGO and publishing house which specialises in indigenous issues. He is an award-winning author, not only in Brazil, but also abroad. He has received two Jabuti Literature Prizes and the Brazilian Academy of Letters Prize for Best Children’s Book, among various others. In Todas as coisas são pequenas, Munduruku foregrounds themes of detachment and loneliness in the Western world, as well as the philosophical and existential might of indigenous ancestry and philosophy. He proposes a reconciliation between the two.
In an interview for Rascunho magazine in 2021, Munduruku was asked about the theme of loneliness and the detachment of the individual from collective forces. He spoke of a generation of Brazilians who were raised to “be someone” in life, saying: “It’s a generation that no longer knows how to look backwards when trying to find the meaning of existence. It’s a generation that looks towards the fiction they call the future. Re-conciliation calls for a return, a change, a compromise. The word says it all.” (Saavedra, 2021). It is from this standpoint that we are introduced to the protagonist, Carlos, at the beginning of the novella.
The turning point of Todas as coisas são pequenas is a plane crash in the Amazon Rainforest, which functions as a catalyst for discoveries and drastic changes in Carlos’s life. He embarks on a journey, during which he reconsiders his values and beliefs, in a process of deconstructing and reconstructing his very identity. In the first of fifteen chapters, the reader is presented with the existential reflections of the protagonist, a stressed but successful Brazilian businessman, such as: “I begin by reflecting on the emptiness of existence.” As he contemplates Brazilian society and draws conclusions about his own life experiences, we gain access to Carlos’s universe, beliefs, resentments, and anxieties.
After years of work and unscrupulous dedication to acquiring wealth, Carlos decides to go on holiday to Greece to reminisce about his school days and love for philosophy, planning to enjoy some time alone. However, a few days before the trip, he receives a call from his family: his mother is at death’s door. Thwarted, he makes a spontaneous decision to change his itinerary and visit his dying mother in his hometown of Mato Grosso, where his siblings live a much less luxurious life than his. He does not arrive in time and fights with his siblings over the inheritance that their parents had left them. Even though his siblings clearly need the inheritance to pay for their late mother’s medical treatment, Carlos selfishly chooses to dispute what little money was left to them. When his siblings cannot understand his actions, he cuts all ties with them and leaves on his private plane, the very same day.
Feeling bitter, he falls asleep and dreams of his parents slipping away sadly into infinity. It seems like a premonition because, when he wakes up, Carlos realises that the plane is falling from the sky. It is from this point onwards, after the plane crash in chapter four, that the protagonist’s “new story” begins. Having survived the terrible plane crash, Carlos finds himself alone in the Amazon Rainforest, a living organism which terrifies him. Hungry, thirsty, and injured, he walks through the forest in search of water, but to no avail. “I started thinking of ways I could find drinking water. I’d learned from the Tarzan films that you could get water from vines found in the forest. But which vines? Which forest?” Having walked for hours without finding any water, Carlos ends up completely lost.
Terrified and confused by the ever-changing noises of the forest, he stumbles and falls down a ravine, several metres deep. When he wakes up, Carlos finds himself in a net, unable to move his legs, mud all over his head. He is being watched over by an old indigenous man. This man, who is at first referred to as “homem vermelho” [red man] and then later “pajé”, or shaman, plays a central role in Carlos’s transformative journey. It is through the conversations he has with this shaman, who saves his life, and the lessons the shaman tries patiently to teach him, that Carlos ends up reconsidering his beliefs. In doing so, he reflects on the paths that both he and humanity have taken.
The shaman renames Carlos, calling him Irihi (meaning “stubborn”), and after they spend some time talking and learning together, describes the journey Irihi is to take: “Irihi will have to cleanse his body and mind to see the truth that lives inside the stones, inside the leaves, inside every living thing, in the hollows of the mountains and the depths of the rivers. Only then will Irihi prove himself and return to the city.” Alongside Carlos, the reader is guided along this journey of reassessing their values and beliefs. This is a way to encourage us to critically reflect on the Western lifestyle and, at the same time, grant a new symbolic value to the indigenous worldview, represented by the shaman and his community.
Although Munduruku’s work has received a great deal of critical attention, especially within the theoretical field of contemporary indigenous literature, only a few works analyse Todas as coisas são pequenas in any depth. The PhD thesis “Daniel Munduruku: O autor-índio na aldeia-global” by Marco Aurélio Navarro (2014) is one of them. Navarro uses the novel as proof of Munduruku’s ability to craft a critique of post-modern times, defining them as “liquid times”, in a reference to the theory of Polish philosopher Zygmunt Bauman. Navarro also describes how the narrator establishes the forest as “another locus of the narrative”, which does not romanticise the indigenous way of life, but actually represents their worldview.
Literary critic Eurídice Figueiredo provides another important reading in her article ‘Eliane Potiguara e Daniel Munduruku: por uma cosmovisão ameríndia’, where she analyses Munduruku’s highly ornate descriptions of indigenous philosophy in the novella: “Daniel Munduruku carries out a revision of Western history and philosophy, in order to point out that indigenous peoples are neither savage nor primitive, and that there are many different parallel truths.” With these words Figueiredo points out what is perhaps the greatest achievement of Todas as coisas são pequenas: the way in which the novella contrasts Western and indigenous philosophies.
Throughout Carlos’s – or Irihi’s – journey (the character will be renamed again, later in the narrative), Munduruku presents a whole process of re-signification via the figure of the pajé (the tribal healer). In leaving behind a materialist and capitalist society, defined as “overwhelming” by Eliane Potiguara in Metade cara, metade máscara, the protagonist gains a “new” perspective that is, in fact, age-old. Uniting fiction and fun in the 159 pages of Todas as coisas são pequenas, Daniel Munduruku proposes new ways forward not only for the indigenous population, but for all of humanity, with a narrative that enthrals and transforms.
Further reading
BEZERRA, Ligia (2022). “The City and the Forest: Lessons on Consumption in Daniel Munduruku’s Todas as coisas são pequenas.” Contemporary Brazilian Cities, Culture, and Resistance. Ed. Sophia Beal and Gustavo Teixeira Prieto. Hispanic Issues On Line 28: 184–204. Disponível em: https://conservancy.umn.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/fecdd944-d631-48a1-bf08-fb3aa03eb695/content. Acesso em: 6 jul. 2024.
DORRICO, Julie.; DANNER, L. F.; CORREIA, H. H. S.; DANNER, F. (Orgs.) (2018). Literatura indígena brasileira contemporânea: criação, crítica e recepção. Porto Alegre, RS: Editora Fi.
SAAVEDRA, C. (2021). Olhar pra trás para saber quem somos. Rascunho, o Jornal de Literatura do Brasil, no. 251. Disponível em: https://rascunho.com.br/liberado/olhar-para-tras-para-saber-quem-somos/. Acesso em: 6 jul. 2024.
NAVARRO, Marco Aurélio. (2014). Daniel Munduruku: o índio-autor na Aldeia-Global. Tese (Doutorado em Letras) − Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, São Paulo. Disponível em: https://adelpha-api.mackenzie.br/server/api/core/bitstreams/8f7b988e-a967-4f70-8aa1-fd0caf867db6/content. Acesso em: 6 de jul. 2024.
FIGUEIREDO, Eurídice (2018). Eliane Potiguara e Daniel Munduruku, por uma cosmovisão ameríndia. Estudos de Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea, n. 53, p. 291-304, jan./abr. 2018. Disponível em: https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/estudos/article/view/10345. Acesso em: 6 jul. 2024.
POLASTRINI, Leandro Faustino (2019). Transculturação e identidades na obra de Daniel Munduruku. Porto Alegre, RS: Editora Fi.
POTIGUARA, Eliane. (2019). Metade cara, metade máscara. 3. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Grumim Edições.
Iconography
