This article analyses the relations among children, the dead and death, and the eventuality of a child's own death, to the Mebengokre-Xikrin, an indigenous population living in North of Brazil and speaker of a Gê language. These themes are developed on analyzing the fabrication of the body, the formation of the self and the person, and the relations with the dead, giving special attention to children. Thus, the formation of the self and children's relations to the cosmos and the dead - their eventuality of being captured by spirits of the dead, their being adopted in the after-life, their mourning, their bodily adornment and painting, how they are cared in life preventing death, their bodies and social interactions - are analyzed in order to discuss in a innovative way mebengokré-xikrin notions of childhood.
anthropology of childhood; ethnology of indigenous peoples of Amazon; indigenous children; Mebengokré
