Disinherited
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Disinherited Indians in Brazil a Survival International publication www.survival-international.org primitive 2 In 1500, there were over 1,000 different tribes in Brazil. Today, there are estimated to be 215. 215 distinct peoples 53 uncontacted groups 0 lands owned by Indians Disinherited Indians in Brazil CONTENTS Introduction 1 Map 6 The longest genocide 9 Uncontacted 21 On the run 27 First contact 33 Homeward bound 39 Road to ruin 45 Genocide 49 End of the line 55 Nothing to live for 61 Shamanism 69 ‘Today my people see their land invaded, their forests destroyed, their Against all odds 75 animals exterminated and their hearts lacerated by this brutal weapon that is Land ownership 79 civilisation. For the white and so-called civilised people this may seem like Take action 87 romanticism. But not for our people – for us it is our life.’ Survival 89 Kaingang woman, 1975 Acknowledgements 90 INTRODUCTION ‘When you say that approximately six over 93% – European settlers and their million people died in the concentration Brazilian descendants have killed camps, the names and date of death of millions, or brought about conditions in most are known. We indigenous peoples which their death was inevitable. remember nearly six million brothers and sisters who were exterminated, and in most Brazilian Indians today encompass a cases there is absolutely no information great diversity of peoples, living in about these massacres. It was a silent and tropical rainforests, grasslands, dry continuous extermination, which carries on scrub forest and deserts. Some are now even today.’ Nailton Pataxó on visiting a Nazi virtually indistinguishable from the concentration camp, 2000 mass of Brazilian poor. Many – in some cases despite centuries of intense contact Five million people, it is thought, were – still maintain a very separate identity. living in Brazil when Europeans first Others have no contact with outsiders – landed there 500 years ago. Five Brazil is probably home to more centuries of murder, torture, disease and ‘uncontacted’tribes than anywhere else exploitation have ravaged this native population. Today there are only on earth. 350,000 Brazilian Indians, and hundreds of tribes have been eradicated without trace. The fact that this was genocide is indisputable. Fifty percent of European Brazilian Indians are Jews died at the hands of the Nazis; the considered to be minors in law; number of Indians in Brazil has fallen by no tribe is allowed to own land. Araweté girl Introduction 1 Brazil is the only South American country to have an active and sizeable Survival began campaigning government Indian affairs department, for the rights of tribal peoples now the National Indian Foundation in Brazil in 1969. (FUNAI). The department was founded early in the last century by a compassionate army officer, and is Such diversity is common in South specifically charged with protecting and America. But four things make the assisting Indians. But it failed to prevent Brazilian Indian situation unique: the demise of Indian tribes at an average rate of at least one tribe every 2 years • there are a great many little-contacted, during the course of the 20th century – at and so very vulnerable, tribes; certain times, the Indian agency itself has • Indian land ownership rights, although actively contributed to the genocide. established in international law, are not Successive Brazilian governments have acknowledged by the state; failed to put an end to this appalling upper hand and any pro-Indian laws and The Amazon rainforest is still being felled • the government has an Indian affairs human tragedy. Powerful lobbies have decrees have been weakened or thrown and burned on a colossal scale. always been at work trying to undermine out altogether. No sooner are the bureau, and plenty of money for illegally – and often violently – do so projects to benefit Indian peoples; those individuals within government, boundaries of an Indian reserve formally with impunity. and within FUNAI itself, who are laid out (‘demarcated’) on the map than a • in spite of this, bar a few cases, the sympathetic to the Indians’plight. Many powerful lobby tries to have it reduced or If demarcation is completed and properly authorities have failed to protect politicians gain money and votes from eradicated. enforced, it does offer a modicum of Brazil’s tribal peoples – some now loggers and miners, while others have protection – but even then no real facing their sixth century of genocide. their private accounts bloated by the Over the last half century billions of security. Indian tribes remain vulnerable diversion of international ‘development’ dollars have flowed into the country as long as Brazil refuses to uphold the funds. The armed forces are continually from international agencies like the international law which states that tribal inventing a spurious foreign threat, World Bank – practically all of it peoples own their land, a law which, which they use to justify the originating with North American and amazingly, Brazil itself formally ratified militarisation of the border areas – where European taxpayers. The relentless work in 1965 and then promptly forgot. It is a Indians live – and thus to increase their of Indian supporters has ensured that a staggering travesty of natural justice – as own status and power. All these find the portion of this – small, but still well as both Brazilian and international tribal peoples of Brazil ‘in the way’of amounting to millions of dollars – has law – that in the 21st century, not one of their plans and ambitions. More often been allocated for the government to the peoples who have inhabited Brazil than not, their views have gained the protect Indian land. Moreover, the for at least the last 10,000 years are Brazilian government itself undertook to deemed to own any part of it. Over 40,000 goldminers invaded Yanomami complete the demarcation of all Indian land in the seven years from 1986, bringing lands by 1993. But one-third of the If this situation is compared with that in malaria and other diseases to which the territories have still not been demarcated, neighbouring Peru, not generally noted Indians had no resistance. Nearly 20% of the Yanomami were killed. This woman was and even where they have, the land is not for its benign attitude towards Indians, among the sick airlifted out. properly protected: those who invade it then it is even clearer that Brazil has a 2 Introduction Introduction 3 very great deal to be ashamed of. Peru is first few years after the 1974 law came ‘I am proud to be part of a different people with a much poorer country (nearly twice as into force. poor per head as Brazil), it has not my own land and culture. I want white people to It may be true that the worst excesses of received massive international aid to recognise that Indians have value and I want my Brazilian history have now ceased: the fund its Indian programme, it is home to deliberate poisoning of whole Indian more Amazonian Indians than Brazil; own people to appreciate their own culture. The villages, bombing and strafing of and yet whereas in Brazil the very best Portuguese came to Brazil to conquer us, and longhouses ‘in the way’of road builders, Indians can hope for is reserves – which massacres of hundreds of Indians at a they can merely use without actually they sent people to kill us so that they could take time – all these are things of the past and owning any of the land – Peruvian our land. Before, we were autonomous. In spite of everything we still hopefully will never recur. It is also true Indians have, since 1974, enjoyed proper that social scientists are no longer have a great force. Today I am still an Indian – and I will die saying that land titles conferring full communal advising the Brazilian state to eradicate ownership, in perpetuity. An average of I am Sateré Mawé.’ Zenilda da Silva Vilacio, Sateré Mawé, 1998 Indians, as they once did. And over the two Peruvian Indian communities last 30 years a small but vigorous lobby received a land title every week in the of Indian supporters has grown up which Yet it remains the case that Indians are ingrained in Brazilian attitudes that Xavante at the Indian gathering in April permeates to senior levels of the still being killed and virtually no one is even many Indian supporters fear that 2000 at Coroa Vermelha to mark the 500th Brazilian state and church. Most ever successfully prosecuted for it. if the question is raised it will provoke anniversary of the first European landing in important of all, a movement of Indians Brazil. Riot police later opened fire on the Today Indian children as young as nine strong anti-Indian feeling in the peaceful march, bringing it to a standstill themselves has taken root and given rise are committing suicide in despair at their corridors of power. with tear gas and rubber bullets. Indians to dozens of Indian organisations lack of land and a future. And a large This book does not attempt a who tried to pass were beaten. pressing for their own rights. number of Indians are still succumbing comprehensive account of Brazil’s to fatal diseases which they catch as a Indian peoples. It focuses on a few direct result of the invasion of their specific tribes, and largely on the least lands: a recent malaria epidemic, contacted peoples, the most vulnerable sparked by miners, killed nearly 20% of all Brazil’s Indians, illustrating their of the Yanomami in only seven years. predicament by describing particular Tribes contacted recently, and who cases. It argues that they face genocide – are being contacted now, still risk no longer with intent perhaps, but annihilation.