In recent years, scholars have debated how contacts with Amerindian thought in the 17th and 18th centuries may have influenced French ideas of individual liberty and political equality. Afonso Arinos de Melo Franco, in The Brazilian Indian and the French Revolution (1937), noted this influence, while David Graeber and David Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything (2021) explores how European colonial discourse dealt with sophisticated Indigenous forms of governance. A speech by Tupinambá chief Itapucu to King Louis XIII at the Louvre exemplifies this encounter.

Brought from Maranhão to Paris in 1613 as a living proof of colonial success, Itapucu delivered a speech, recorded in Tupi followed by a French translation by priest Claude d’Abbeville and interpreter David Migan. Later in 1874, Cezar Augusto Marques translated into Portuguese straight from French, neglecting the Tupi words. His translation became a key source in ethnographic studies and was used as the basis for later Brazilian editions, establishing the official historiographical reference.

In 2016, linguist Ruth Monserrat and historian Ana Paula da Silva revisited the Tupi version, aiming to recover Itapucu’s original words. They focused on how Indigenous ambassadors were sent to negotiate with European powers, using tactics like the "discourse addressed to strangers" – a strategy of appropriating European discursive and rhetorical codes to claim Indigenous interests. Requests for baptism, for example, served as negotiation tools – in this case, for asking military support against their own enemies back in Brazil.

Monserrat encountered notable differences between the Tupi and French texts. In d’Abbeville’s French version, a passage implied the Tupinambá had lived "miserably without law or faith" before French arrival – a line absent from the Tupi. Other translations, like “amazed” rendered as “ashamed” and “friends of the French” instead of “compadres of the caraíbas,” shifted the tone and meaning, downplaying political nuances. For instance, "compadre" is a term for Tupinambá people that implies a serious form of alliance between people from different families.

While d’Abbeville’s biased mediation has shaped both versions, Monserrat’s analysis suggests parts of the Tupi text still reflect Indigenous rhetorical forms. In the installation, the linguist recites a piece of Itapucu’s speech in a four-channel video. Tupi, French, and Portuguese translations are rendered simultaneously, alongside the full versions in printed texts and archival materials, inviting viewers to examine these complex layers of translation and intent.
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