Poder e cultura nos iniciais encontros luso-saarianos: Apontamentos etnográficos do sudoeste da Mauritânia (Trarza)

Power and culture are the two most striking elements shared between different Orientalist projects. With this in mind, the article will treat early Portuguese references to the Saharan coast and its populations, attempting an "archeology" of Portuguese Orientalism regarding an object - "the (Saharan) Moor" - that over the centuries has been the focus of this debate. I will also present elements that debate the current processes of reconstruction of historicity in the Western Saharan region regarding early Euro-Saharan contacts. To this day, there are many oral traditions that treat these encounters, where, at times, the victory of Saharan populations is declared against the European invader. Thus, the exercise undertaken here will reflect not only on the first European description of the Saharan coast, but also on the voices that locally continue to reproduce these encounters.