Congresses: what do you crave?

© 2017 Dental Press Journal of Orthodontics Dental Press J Orthod. 2017 Sept-Oct;22(5):9-10 9 The word congress (from the Latin congressus) means a meeting of people with the purpose of discussing a topic of interest to all. Every October in odd-numbered years, the Brazilian Association of Orthodontics and Facial Orthopedics (ABOR) holds its Congress. Its purpose is to bring together researchers, professors, specialists and graduate students for whom Orthodontics is the Holy Grail. This year, the 11th ABOR International Congress will be held in Belém do Pará, Brazil — for the first time, in the Brazilian Amazon. In those lands, we find the Museu do Encontro (“Museum of the Encounter”), located in the Forte do Presépio (“Fort of the Holy Manger”). In this museum, we find a print by Hans Staden that depicts a gathering of Tupinamba indigenous people for one more celebration. With their origin in the Tupi ethnic groups, those indigenous people lived along almost all Brazilian coastal line before the arrival of the Portuguese. The Tupinamba have been known for their fighting spirit and their gatherings, which, at first, seemed to be cannibalistic rituals. This anthropophagic practice, common to many Tupinamba indigenous peoples, was followed for reasons that went beyond the biological function of feeding oneself. The consumption of human flesh was the result of symbolic actions that unfolded in situations of war between different tribes. Some of these peoples believed that the power of the captured fighter could be incorporated by means of this ritual. Congresses are events that have been held since the advent of science. The basic objective of scientific congresses is to publicize technical