VIOLENT MORTALITY IN THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE “PATAXÓ FROM BAHIA”: A POST- COLONIAL DEMOGRAPHIC APPROACH
Rafael Posada - Department of Demography – CEDEPLAR/UFMG Vanessa Ferreira - Department of Demography – CEDEPLAR/UFMG Kevin Santos – Department of Education – Fae/UFMG Leidiane Souza - Department of Education – Fae/UFMG
This work was developed with the support of CNPq and CEDEPLAR/UFMG
XXVIII IUSSP International Population Conference in Session “Health and mortality in indigenous populations” - 1st November 2017
Abstract: According to WHO (2014) violence and injuries are global public health problems. In Brazil there is a serious problem of homicide and traffic accident mortality, which affects mainly the poorest areas. However, in the Brazilian literature on demography and health, violent mortality in indigenous communities and the effects of colonization on health outcomes have been little explored. Objective: This paper seeks to fill this gap by examining mortality from external causes in the Pataxó community of Bahia, Brazil, from a postcolonial demographic perspective. Methodology: Firstly, a systematic review of the Brazilian literature on the mortality of indigenous peoples was carried out. We then construct a theoretical approach to violence that focuses on colonialism as a social determinant. From the data of SIM (2006-2014) a quantitative mortality analysis was estimated by standardization, and the main causes of violent death were identified. Finally, a qualitative analysis was proposed from the CIMI reports (2007 to 2015) to explain the violent mortality among the Pataxó people. Findings: The results show a high pattern of juvenile and adult mortality among the Pataxó people. External causes were responsible for 16.8% of the total deaths in this indigenous population, affecting mainly men (89.5% of deaths) and people aged 15 to 44 years (76.3% ), and the main causes were homicide and road traffic injuries. The qualitative analysis suggests that colonial alienation can explain partially some kinds of homicide.
Keywords: Indigenous, Post-Colonial Demography, mortality for external causes.
1 INTRODUCTION
Regarding demographic studies on indigenous populations, Taylor (2009) argues that it is not appropriate to use the classic categories and contexts of demography in an uncritical way to analyze these populations, since such categories and contexts do not necessarily reflect indigenous social structures or their lifestyle. In this sense Taylor still points to an important question: "who is measuring what, for whom, and to what end?" (2009: 125). Trying to answer this question proposed by Taylor, we start saying that in this paper two of the authors are indigenous from the Pataxó group. Thus, we aim not only to write about indigenous communities, but also with them to achieve a postcolonial perspective on mortality from external causes in indigenous communities within the academic population. Another objective is making visible the specific impact of these deaths on the Pataxó community. Mentioning that, now it is necessary to define who is the Pataxó Community. They are indigenous people of the linguistic trunk Macro-Jê, that lives mainly in the extreme south of Bahia (Porto Seguro microregion), Brazil. According to data from the IBGE Demographic Census (2010), the Pataxó totaled 13,588 people; SIASI (2014) reported that this population is distributed in more than 40 villages in the states of Bahia and Minas Gerais, and their sources of income are supported principally by the agriculture, tourism and handicrafts (Grünewald 1999). However, in the pre-colonial period and at least in the mid-nineteenth century, they were a society of hunter-gatherers with nomadic habits (Paraíso 1994). Colonization meant for the Pataxó not only an invasion of their territory, an attempt to acculturation, and exploitation of their natural and human resources, but also the increase in mortality, both due to external causes produced by conflicts with settlers, as well as by diseases infecto-contagioses –sometimes even deliberately– by the latter (Sampaio 2000). Despite the resistance of the Pataxó, several elements of this history of invasion, exploitation and ethnocide, which developed in the colonial period (1500-1815), survived in the imperial and republican period due to the coloniality condition of social structures and the exercise of power. Thus, in the middle of the nineteenth century, the Pataxó could
2 no longer move freely in their territory because their lands were limited and partly occupied by the farmers, with whom the relationship was always conflicting. In 1861, by the government's decision, under the justification of alleviating conflicts between farmers and indigenous, the Pataxó were confined to live in a village now called Barra Velha (Ibid.). It is worth mentioning that in 1951 there was a massacre in this village, known as "Fire of 51", which involved the Pataxó in an armed conflict that provoked violent police action to the detriment of the residents of Barra Velha. The Fire of 51 not only reduced the population of Pataxó but also caused the forced displacement of families that have dispersed to other locations in the region of Porto Seguro and even to the State of Minas Gerais (Carvalho 2009). In this way, new villages were formed, and conflict with farmers is frequent for the Pataxó to regain their ancestral territory (Grünewald 1999). Since most of the Pataxó villages are locates in the Porto Seguro Microrregion of the State of Bahia, Brazil, two new elements are added to the violence of a colonial matrix that survives until today: the modern means of transportation and the increased crime in this locality (CIMI 2009 and 2014). Thereby, the structures of violence and crime, as well as the policies of “zero tolerance” that affect both Brazil and the Porto Seguro microregion also end up harming the Pataxó Considering this context, the objective of this study is to analyze, from a postcolonial perspective, mortality from external causes in the Pataxó indigenous people of Porto Seguro microregion, from 2006 to 2014, using quantitative and qualitative data. This paper is composed by four sections. The first, “Background and Significance”, is the result of a systematic review of articles about indigenous mortality in Brazil, which was carried out at Scielo database. In the second section, “The Postcolonial Methodological Approach for Indigenous Violent Death”, we first present a discussion on Eurocentrism embedded in theories and concepts related to the demographic transition and the epidemiological transition, as well as its limitations in the context of indigenous populations. Later, within this section, we propose a theoretical scope to analyze violent mortality in indigenous communities based on colonialism like social determinant of violence. In the third section we describe the data and research methods used, in the fourth section we analyze the results, and finally we present the conclusions.
3 BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE
According to Montenegro and Stephens (2006) Brazil is one of the countries within the region of Latin America and the Caribbean that has made the greatest efforts to produce published data and research on the health of indigenous peoples. With the purpose of describing some generalities about the most recent studies on indigenous mortality, it was proposed a systematic review of articles at Scielo database, on June 25th of 2016. This review was done using the keyword search tool with the following key words: indigenous mortality (40 results); indigenous demography and mortality (3 results); population studies and indigenous mortality (1 result), and indigenous population mortality (33 results). All the papers used in this section review were selected considering the appearance of the mentioned terms in title, summary or in keywords of papers published between 2000 and 2016. We excluded the repeated results and those that were not refered to Brazilian indigenous communities. A total of 26 results were found, which may not represent the broad literature on the subject in Brazil, but allow us to describe some generalities about the production of articles in recent years. Some features of the 26 revised articles are described below: (i) Health (34% of the articles), with subtopics of reproductive health, health information, infectious diseases and nutrition; (ii) Sociodemographic profiles (23%); (iii) Suicide (15.4%); (iv) Demographic dynamics (11.5%); (v) Mortality patterns (7.7%); (vi) Infant mortality (3.8%); (vii) Fertility. Regarding the ethnic groups analyzed it is possible to mention that: (i) 34,6% of papers analyze multiethnic contexts; (ii) 15.4% focus on the Xavante population; (iii) 11.5% study general society, but make the cut by race / color; (iv) 7.7% analyses the Kamaiurá; (v) 30.8% other ethnicities. Each one of these last 8 remaining articles address the following groups: Suyá, Xakriabá, Kayabí, Sateré-Mawé, Guarani, Guarita, Hupd'äh- Maku, and the Kaingang. The Brazilian States that are object of the surveys are: (i) Mato Grosso (42% of the works); (ii) Amazonas (27%); (iii) Paraná (11.5%); (iv) Minas Gerais (1 paper); (v) Rio Grande do Sul (1 paper); (vi) Pará (1 paper); (vii) one paper deals with the South and
4 Southeast states as a whole, and another deals with Brazil as a whole. Table 1 summarizes the mentioned results.
Table 1 – Classification of revised texts on indigenous mortality in Brazil Theme Year Authors Title Ethnic State Classification
Demographic profile of the Xavánte indigenous population from Sociodemographic Mato 2001 Souza and Santos Xavante Sangradouro-Volta Grande, Mato profiles Grosso Grosso (1993-1997), Brasil Dimensions and potentialities of the Garneloa, Brandão Health and Multiethnic 2005 geographic information system on Brasil and Levinoa Mortality context indigenous health Nutritional status and factors associated with the height of children Rio Grande 2006 Menegolla et al. Health (Nutrition) Guarita from Guarita Indigenous Land, do Sul Southern Brazil Population Recovery and Fertilization Pagliaro and of the Kamaiurá, Tupi People of the Mato 2007 Fertility Kamaiurá Junqueira Upper Xingu, Central Brazil, 1970- Grosso 2003 Demographic dynamics of the Suyá, Jê Demographic Mato 2007 Pagliaro et al. people of the Xingu Indigenous Park, Suyá Dynamics Grosso Central Brazil, 1970-2004 Demographic Dynamics of the Kamaiurá, Tupi people of the Xingu Demographic Mato 2008 Pagliaro et al. Kamaiurá Indigenous Park, Mato Grosso, Brazil, Dynamics Grosso 1970-1999 Infant deaths investigated by the Sociedade Mathias, Assunção committee for the prevention of infant geral, mas 2008 Infant Mortality Paraná and Silva mortality in a region of the state of faz recorte Paraná por raça cor Demographic profile of the Hupd’äh, Machado, Pagliaro Sociodemographic Hupd’äh, 2009 Maku people of the Upper Rio Negro Amazonas and Baruzzi profiles Maku people region, Amazonas (2000-2003) The population Xakriabá, Minas Pena, Heller and Sociodemographic Minas 2009 Gerais: demographic, political, social Xakriabá Júnior profiles Gerais and economic aspects Demographic component of the Health and Mato 2009 Souza and Santos Xavante indigenous health care information Mortality Grosso
5 system, Dsei-Xavánte, mato grosso, Brazil
Age structure, birth rate and mortality Souza, Santos and Sociodemographic Mato 2010 of the Xavante indigenous people of Xavante Coimbra. profiles Grosso Mato Grosso, Amazonia, Brazil The demographic revolution of indigenous peoples in Brazil: the Demographic Mato 2010 Pagliaro experience of the Kayabí of the Xingu Kayabí Dynamics Grosso Indigenous Park, Mato Grosso, Brazil, 1970-2007 Tuberculosis in indigenous people Mato Health (Infectious Multiethnic 2010 Marques et al. under 15 years old, in the State of Grosso do Diseases) context Mato Grosso do Sul Sul Demographic aspects and mortality of Mato Ferreira, Matsuo Multiethnic 2011 indigenous populations in the State of Mortality patterns Grosso do and Souza context Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil Sul Demography of an indigenous people Teixeira, Brasil Sociodemographic Sateré- 2011 of the Brazilian Amazon: the sateré- Amazonas and Silva profiles Mawé mawé Demography and health of the Xavante Sociodemographic Mato 2011 Souza et al. indigenous people of Mato Grosso, Xavante profiles Grosso Brazil South and Guarani indigenous mortality in the 2011 Cardoso et al. Mortality patterns Guarani Southeast South and Southeast of Brazil of Brazil General Pandemic Influenza A (H1N1) 2009: Health (Infectious 2011 Lenzi et al, Society Paraná risk factors for hospitalization Diseases) (race/color) Suicide mortality in São Gabriel da Multiethnic 2012 Souza and Orellana Cachoeira, a predominantly indigenous Suicide Amazonas context Brazilian municipality Jurupari committed suicide ?: Notes Multiethnic 2013 Souza and Ferreira for investigation of suicide in the Suicide Amazonas context indigenous context Mortality by Suicide: a focus on Orellana, Basta municipalities with a high proportion Multiethnic 2013 Suicide Amazonas and Souza of self-reported indigenous population context in the State of Amazonas, Brazil Health Process of gestating and childbirth 2013 Moliterno et al. (Repreductive Kaingang Paraná among Kaingang women Health)
6 Tuberculosis in indigenous Brazilian Health (Infectious Multiethnic 2013 Rios et al. Amazonia: an epidemiological study in Amazonas Diseases) context the Upper Rio Negro region Magnitude of pulmonary tuberculosis Mato General in the border population of Mato Health (Infectious Grosso do 2014 Marques et al. Society Grosso do Sul (Brazil), Paraguay and Diseases) Sul / (race/color) Bolivia Fronteira Health Epidemic of measles and slave labor in Health (Infectious 2015 Júnior and Martins (Infectious Pará Grão-Pará (1748-1778) Diseases) Diseases) Indigenous Narratives on Suicide in Multiethnic 2016 Souza the Upper Rio Negro, Brazil: Weaving Suicide Amazonas context Senses
This review showed that there was no paper regarding the Pataxó Group, one of the ten largest indigenous populations in Brazil (IBGE, 2010). Besides, no studies were found that address violent mortality in a broader sense, even though the subject of suicide was addressed in 4 studies (15.4% of the sample). The lack of demographic studies on the Pataxó, and on the subject of violent mortality, also occurs in two iconic works of contemporary Brazilian indigenous demography: "Epidemiology and health of indigenous peoples in Brazil" (Coimbra, Santos, Escobar 2003); and "Demography of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil" (Pagliaro, Azevedo, Santos 2005). However, this does not mean that researchers in the area of Population Studies are not interested in addressing violent mortality among indigenous populations, since these two works call attention to the relevance of the subject. As Coimbra, Santos and Escobar (2003) pointed out
“There is also a significant increase in deaths from external causes, whether caused by auto accidents or the use of agricultural machinery, or by violence - in many cases, murders and even massacres perpetrated by loggers, garimpeiros and other invaders of indigenous lands (pp. 30)”.
Considering the importance of researching on that unexplored topic, the purpose of
7 this study is to address violent mortality in the Pataxó people from a postcolonial perspective. Despite “a number of scholars, many of whom are Indigenous, have called for the effects of colonisation and colonialism to be incorporated into epidemiological and demographic analysis” (Axelsson, Kukutai, Kippen, 2016) , this perspective was also not found in the revised papers.
A POST-COLONIAL THEORITICAL APPROACH OF VIOLENCE
The discourse of violence as a public health issue has only become of international importance in recent decades. In 1996 the World Health Assembly declares, for the first time, that “violence is a leading worldwide public health problem” (Dahlberg and Mercy 2009: 6). For the World Health Organization (WHO), violence is defined as: “The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation” (Krug et al 2002: 5). This definition covers the following violence: armed conflict, interpersonal violence or suicidal behavior. It also includes a wide variety of acts that go beyond the physical aspects, such as threats, intimidation and neglect. In addition to injuries and death, the WHO definition also covers many (less notorious) consequences of violent actions such as deprivation, psychic harm and developmental problems that compromise the well-being of communities, families and individuals (Ibid.). According to the World Report on Violence and Health (Krug et al 2002), violence can be classified in three broad categories according to the author of the violent act: “self- directed violence, interpersonal violence and collective violence” (pp. 6). In addition, violent acts can also be classified according to their nature: “physical, sexual, psychological, involving deprivation or neglect” (Ibid.: 6). The theoretical approach of WHO to explain the causes of violence is the ecological model. This model considers the complex interrelationship of multiple factors that
8 encompass four levels, individual, relationship, community and social (Ibid.: 12). The usefulness of this theoretical model is that it provides a framework for understanding and analyzing how behavior or risk factors for violent acts interact by classifying them into the four levels mentioned (Ibid.). However, in 2008, the Regional Meeting on Social Determinants of Health of Indigenous Peoples, in Quito, established the premise of recognizing the specificities of indigenous peoples, both in the analysis of health and mortality as in the proposal, development and evaluation of public policies in this regard (Pan American Health Organization and WHO 2009). Thus, from this framework of the social determinants of health of indigenous peoples, it was considered the colonialism and the right to self- determination as structural factors of violence (see also Czyzewski 2011).
Colonialism as structural factor of violence
For the purposes of this paper, we use the term postcolonial in the sense to critically analyze the effects of colonialism on societies and cultures (Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin 2013). Relying the ideas mainly on the approaches of two Caribbean thinkers: Frantz Fanon and Aimé Césaire. For Césaire (2000), colonization is essentially violent, and something diametrically opposed to civilization, “I say that between colonization and civilization there is an infinite distance” (p. 2). As for the author, colonialism implies the exercise of violence and abuse, that ends up dehumanizing the colonizing agent. “Colonization works to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize him in the true sense of the word, to degrade him, to awaken him to buried instincts, to covetousness, violence, race hatred, and moral relativism” (p. 2). Thus, this author states that the idea of the West, and more specifically of Europe, as a civilization is indefensible, because it does not exist civilization with colonization. Simultaneously to Césaire, colonialism also implies alienation of the colonized: “My turn to state an equation: colonization = thing-ification” (2000: 6). Because colonialism, -in order to guarantee an effective exploitation of the labor and resources of the colonized people-, goes through a process of acculturation, destruction of native
9 economies, religious persecution, historical negation, land appropriation and closing of future possibilities. In the same sense, colonization is also the implantation of devices of power that inferiorize and appease the colonized. “I am talking about millions of men in whom fear has been cunningly instilled, who have been taught to have an inferiority complex, to tremble, kneel, despair, and behave like flunkeys” (2000: 7). Thus for Césaire (2000), colonialism is not simply the political-administrative domination or the governmental influence of a nation over other population and territory. More than this, colonialism also implies the dehumanization of the colonizer, as well as the alienation and the inferiorization of the colonized, which implies the structural implementation of various forms of physical, cultural and psychological violence that guarantee the domination. In this way, several authors have argued that, even with political independence or with the expulsion of settlers in the former colonies, colonial structures remain in the present and co-constitute the modern world system (Restrepo and Martinez, 2010). It is important in this approach to emphasize that the constructs of Césaire and Fanon (1963) converge to infer that racism has its genesis in colonialism, from which it springs and consolidates to operate in a structural way. This contrasts with the Marxist view where racism appears as a mere ideology that would be part of the social superstructure. According to Fanon
“When you examine at close quarters the colonial context, it is evident that what parcels out the world is to begin with the fact of belonging to or not belonging to a given race, a given species. In the colonies the economic substructure is also a superstructure. The cause is the consequence; you are rich because you are white, yon are white because you are rich. This is why Marxist analysis should always be slightly stretched every time we have to do with the colonial problem” (1963:39).
For Fanon (1963) concomitant structures of colonial violence and racial hierarchization are largely related to alienation. According Tatum (2002), among the colonized, alienation encompasses different levels of estrangement, personal, family- communitarian, social, and cultural. In this way Tatum (2002) classifies alienation of
10 colonized described by Fanon (1963) in five types: self alienation; cultural alienation, alienation against others in general, alienation against racial pairs, and alienation against creative social praxis.
Violence as product of colonial alienation
Cultural alienation involves alienation of history and proper language, which is consolidated in the educational system of colonial origin. Subtly this system imposes negative symbols to define the colonized, and simultaneously teaches positive symbols to define the colonizer. Consequently the colonized sees its culture from the perspective of the colonizer, this is negative considering that it embraces the culture, language and history of the oppressor group. For Fanon (1963 and 1967) this kind of alienation is a mechanism of adaptation to the colonial context too, since to incorporate the dominant culture is a valve of escape toward the social ascension (see also Tatum 2002). Self-alienation implies estrangement from one's own subjectivity, identity, and corporeality. Self-alienation is associated with feelings of inferiority, self-harm, guilt and self-rejection, what Fanon (1967) conceptualizes as an inferiority complex. In turn, this inferiorization is related to self-destructive behaviors and suicidal tendencies. The self- alienation is associated to cultural alienation, because the colonized learns a negative perspective of their own culture, and therefore of itself. In short, the self-alienation of the colonizer in the form of a superiority feeling, creates self-alienation in the colonized in the form of inferiority: “the feeling of inferiority of the colonized is the correlative to the European’s feeling of superiority” (Fanon 1967: 69). Alienation against others is a factor related to economical, political and social subordination and superiority in context of colonial relations. Thus this type of alienation is characterized by attitudes of distrust, paranoia and violence, which can be experienced by both the colonizers and the colonized. However, as we will explain following, the victims of the violence of colonized are generally their own colleagues (Tatum 2002). Alienation against racial pairs involves estrangement from the family and from the social or racial group itself. Here the individual hates in the others those characteristics that
11 he/she hates most of self. To explain this situation Fanon (1967) uses two kinds of psychosocial arguments. In "Black Skins White Masks" Fanon (1967) uses the concept of “Adlerian overcompensation” to describe how the colonized can attempt to overcome, in excess, their inferiority complex. Thus the colonized end up acting with arrogance or domination desire before their racial peers. In "The wretched of the earth", Fanon (1963) associates this idea with the concept of "muscular tension". Thus, the colonized would try to relieve or to adapt, by multiple ways, to the muscular tension generated by the colonial violence. One such path would be aggressive behavior, fratricidal conflicts, or attitudes toward other colonized that imitate the colonizers violence, “The colonized man will first manifest this aggressiveness which has been deposited in his bones against his own people. This is the period when the niggers beat each other up, and the police and magistrates do not know which way to turn when faced with the astonishing waves of crime… When the native is confronted with the colonial order of things, he finds he is in a state of permanent tension. The settler's world is a hostile world, which spurns the native, but at the same time it is a world of which he is envious. We have seen that the native never ceases to dream of putting himself in the place of the settler. Not of becoming the settler but of substituting himself for the settler.” (Fanon 1963: 51).
Alienation against creative social praxis refers to the renunciation of organized social activity for self-determination. Since individual and collective self-determination is fundamental to the realization of human potential, alienation here implies acceptance of the colonial order, in which religion plays an important role. Here the colonized presents feelings of guilt, self-doubt and self-accusation (ibid.). In synthesis, colonized peoples can react to alienation mainly in three violent ways. First, the colonized can adapt to the colonial regime imitating the dominant group and assimilating its culture. In this way the colonized tends to experience feelings of inferiority that lead to self-rejection and in the limit to suicidal tendencies (Ibid.). Second, cultural, political, economic and social subordination causes a state of anger, tension and frustration in the colonized, which tends to channel such a state against their racial peers. Thus, colonized person can make his frustration and rage against his own
12 people, mainly against who for some reason or other have lower status (by gender, age occupation, etc.). This situation often involves self-destructive behaviors such as high incidence of alcoholism, drug abuse, intrafamilial violence, psychiatric disorders, and a high degree of criminality, particularly in the form of homicides among the colonized (Ibid.). Third, the colonized can enter a process of desalination, fighting openly against the colonial order. Contrary to the first two types of reaction, individuals who struggle against colonialism can work to build relationships of self-confidence and group trust. Thus, self- violence and horizontal violence are transformed into violence against the colonial regime. In this way aggressive behavior can be channeled into a liberating revolutionary praxis (Ibid.). Finally, we can say that from postcolonial perspective violence would be not only something like pathology, or a public health problem in indigenous societies. Violence can be also a positive process to self-determination. This exercise of liberating violence is not necessarily physical, but mainly epistemic and constructive. Thus, our postcolonial approach, in addition to explaining the forms of violence that destroy indigenous society, is not intended to stigmatize all forms of violence as pathological. It is important tom mention that since violence is also potentially one of the possibilities for indigenous peoples to create processes of resistance and self-determination.
DATA AND RESEARCH METHODS
Analyzing quantitatively the mortality of the Pataxó from Porto Seguro microregion we consider the evaluation of the prevalence of the different causes of external death using the Mortality Information System (SIM) for the period 2006-2014. Considering that these data have underreporting and refer to a relatively small population, a standardized analysis of the data was performed to evaluate the impact of mortality from external causes on the mortality curve. This standardization assume that the mortality of the black population of the municipalities of Porto Seguro microregion has a similar structure to the mortality of the
13 indigenous population of this territory, mainly belonging to the Pataxó ethnic group. This assumption was considered due to the fact that both populations experience a similar colonial situation. Since this project intends to conduct a research in a non-Western context, where death may have other meanings that are not likely to quantify, a qualitative approach is essential to have a better understanding of this phenomenon. Thus, it was also planned to carry out a content analysis, from our postcolonial theoretical approach, of the Reports of Violence Against the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil from 2006 to 2015 (CIMI 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015). These reports conducted by the Indian Missionary Council produced a survey of quantitative and qualitative data on violent mortality and violence against indigenous peoples in Brazil. In order to perform the content analysis, first the keyword search tool was used, with the terms: "pataxó" associated with "death" and "homicide". Thereby, we find data that qualitatively describes the events of death due to violence, as well as other acts, beyond testimonies of indigenous people explaining the causes and the meaning of these deaths for their communities
FINDINGS
We first constructed the curve of the age-specific mortality rates of the Pataxó population of Porto Seguro microregion for the period of 2006 to 2014, based on data from the SIM and the IBGE Census, 2010. Assuming that there is an underreporting, the structure of the mortality curve was corrected using indirect standardization. In this case, the age-specific mortality rate for the indigenous population was obtained by the age- specific mortality rates of the black population (Figure 1).
Figure 1 – Age-Specific Mortality Rates by observed age of indigenous and black people and by indirect standard estimation - Porto Seguro Microregion, 2006-2014
14
Source: Elaborated from SIM, 2016, and IBGE Census, 2010.
The shape of the mortality curve of the indigenous population shows a high pattern of juvenile and adult mortality. According to data from the SIM, the external causes accounted for 16.8% of the total number of deaths of individuals residing in Porto Seguro microregion, between 2006 and 2014 (that is, 38 of 226 deaths occurred in the period). The deaths from external causes accounted for 27.1% of deaths categorized as preventable by SIM, and these deaths are mainly concentrated in the 15 to 44 age group (Table 2).
Table 2 – Distribution of deaths by external causes of indigenous population by age group - Porto Seguro microregion, 2006-2014
Age Groups Deaths % 0 a 4 2 5.3 5 a 14 3 7.9 15 a 44 29 76.3 45 or more 4 10.5 Total 38 100 Source: Elaborated from SIM, 2016.
Another result is that external mortality in this indigenous population is more prevalent among men (89.5% of deaths in the period) than among women (10.5% of deaths in the period). On the other hand, it is important to note that, according to the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10), most deaths
15 due to external causes in the indigenous population of the Porto Seguro microregion are due to aggressions (57. 9%), as well as for transportation accidents (21.1%). Among the deaths due to aggression, the number of deaths due to firing gun was remarkable, and of the 22 deaths due to aggression, 68.2% (15 deaths) corresponded to deaths from firing gun. Table 3 shows the distribution of deaths according to type of external cause according to ICD-10.
Table 3 – Distribution of deaths by external causes of indigenous population - Porto Seguro microregion, per ICD-10, 2006 a 2014
External Cause Type Codes of ICD -10 Deaths % Transportation Accidents V01-V99 8 21.1 Tumble W00-W19 1 2.6 Accidental drownings and submersions W65-W74 0 0.0 Exposure to smoke, fire and flames X00-X09 2 5.3 Accidental poisoning from exposure to harmful substances X40-X49 0 0.0 Voluntary self-harm X60-X84 0 0.0 Aggressions X85-Y09 22 57.9 Events [facts] whose intent is undetermined Y10-Y34 5 13.2 Legal Interventions and War Operations Y35-Y36 0 0.0 Other External Causes W20-W64, W75- W99, X10-X39, 0 0.0 X50-X59, Y40-Y89 TOTAL -- 38 100.0 Source: Elaborated from SIM, 2016.
The qualitative analysis of the reports of the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) on Violence Against the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, from 2006 to 2015, confirms the prevalence of violent deaths by aggression among the Pataxó young adult male population. Besides, this information allows observing that these are not isolated cases, instead are the result of a structural violence that threatens the life of the Pataxó indigenous people in many ways. The reports allow us to analyze several cases of violence against this population, which do not always end in deaths. Violent deaths can be seeing as an "iceberg point" in which a whole structure of violence underlies. According to the reports analyzed, between the Pataxó people there were 23 violent deaths among 2006 and 2015, and several other cases of violence that did not end in death. In addition, the CIMI reports (2007-2015) allow us to identify some characteristics of the
16 actors and the contexts of this violence. Sometimes the cases of violence are described from the perspective of leaders of the Pataxó villages. In this way, through the reports we can categorize acts of violence, especially those that lead to death, using the concepts described in our theoretical approach. According to CIMI (2007-2015), of the 23 deaths registered, the vast majority of violence refers to the use of physical violence that occurs in an interpersonal way. It showed a case of sexual violence accompanied by physical violence, a case of medical neglect, and some situations that could be considered as collective violence directed against the Pataxó. It is also noteworthy that most of the deaths did not occur in rural areas where almost all Pataxó villages are located. On the contrary, these deaths occurred in the urban areas, mainly in the cities of Porto Seguro and Santa Cruz de Cabralia (65.2% of cases). In this last municipality is located the largest urban indigenous village in Brazil, Coroa Vermelha, in which approximately 26% of the Pataxó population lives (around 3,541 people) (IBGE, 2010).
Violence from the non-indígenous population
The CIMI reports (2007 to 2015) show that violence related to the struggle for land stands out, in this matter it is worth considering that for the indigenous people the land is a sacred place, through which they take their livelihood and guarantee the survival of their relatives. However for some landowners the land is reduced to a source of profitability guaranteed by titles of private property, which have their roots in the colonial invasion. Faced with this situation the indigenous movements realize that they must take back the lands that were invaded as a mechanism of self-determination. In this context, it lasts until today a long struggle by the indigenous peoples in Brazil for the demarcation and extension of their traditional lands, a fight that has claimed the lives of many natives, including Pataxó ones. This dispute occurs in the midst of the struggles for land demarcation and there are several episodes of persecution of leaders and village members. According to CIMI's reports on this type of violence, there are armed actors who support the interests of the farmers, who have repeatedly fired against Pataxó
17 indigenous during the period of analysis. For example, in 2013, approximately 200 Pataxó occupied a farm next to Santa Cruz de Cabralia city, according to the indigenous informants, 5 men arrived in a pickup truck, they asked for the cacique, and they began to shoot at them and left a wounded among the Pataxó (CIMI 2013). In 2015, on the way from the Cahy village to Cumuruxatiba, in the municipality of Prado, a vehicle, in which some Pataxó were traveling, set on fire by armed men. The victims reported that they were surprised by roadblocks and approached by the suspects, who asked them to leave the vehicle, which was burned and set with bullet holes. According to the report, this incident could be related to the land dispute (CIMI 2015). Although in the period of analysis no deaths were reported in these conflicts over land, it is also important to consider the role of the State in this violence. Since judicial and justice systems (including the police) often end up favoring farmers, hindering and repressing the regularization of Pataxó indigenous lands, as well as other ethnic groups. Regarding the role of the State in violence against the Pataxó, the reports shows that during the period of analysis, police appear responsible for at least three homicides and the beating of a woman inside her own home. The first of the reported killings occurred in 2009, when a member of the Pataxó village of Coroa Vermelha, who was imprisoned at the police station, was shot by an agent because of an alleged attempted escape. In this case it is reported that the victim suffered some mental pathology (CIMI 2009). The second reported case occurred in 2014 in Santa Cruz de Cabralia, where the death of an indigenous person is reported due to an exchange of shots with the police (CIMI 2014). Finally, in Belo Horizonte city in 2015, a police officer shot a member of Pataxó people alleging that he was suspected of robbery and that he was armed. Nevertheless the family of the victim denies that version saying that he was an honest person who was not armed (CIMI 2015). In similar way, in 2011 a woman from the village of Coroa Vermelha reported a beating by the police. The woman said that a group of police officers went to her house in search of appliances that they alleged were stolen by the victim's son and ended up assaulting her (CIMI 2011). The police also appear in the reports associated to prevarication in a case of manslaughter. The incident happened in 2009 on the border of Santa Cruz de Cabralia,
18 where a woman - who by coincidence was the wife of a senior oficial of the municipal government-, ran over and killed a Pataxó indigenous. The defendant fled not to be caught red-handed, while the report suggests that the police who handled the case may be charged with malfeasance (CIMI 2009). These cases suggest that violence has a close connection with power relations forged in colonialism. For it is cases of vertical violence where settlers continue fighting for the appropriation of the indigenous ancestral lands. At the same time it is possible to notice, from CIMIs reports that police continue to criminalize and ended up murder the indigenous. This vertical violence is also reflected in two other cases of aggression that did not end in death. One was in Itamarajú municipality in 2014, when an ambulance from the indigenous health secretary, who was carrying a pregnant woman and her partner, was surprisingly attacked receiving more than 16 shots. Fortunately the couple managed to escape from the shooting, but it is very suspicious that an ambulance from the indigenous health secretary was attacked that way (CIMI 2014). Equally suspected was the attack comitted by a canoeist, who in 2011 hits with a paddle the face of a Pataxó man near the village of Barra Velha (CIMI 2011). When analyzing other similar cases that appear in the reports, it can be inferred that some of the most important motivations in cases like these are the hate and racial discrimination against the natives that still exists in Brazil. Still, the analysis of CIMI’s reports show that violence against indigenous people, and against the Pataxó, in particular, is exercised in a racist and patriarcal structure. This structure facilitates various types of physical and psychological aggression against Pataxó men and women that in the limit lead to the murder of Pataxó people. A couple of cases that exemplify the intersectionality of gender and racial violence are the woman beaten by the police mentioned above, and a case of a Pataxó woman who in 2009 was found dead with indications that she was raped (CIMI 2009). In addition, racial inequality makes possible the lack of assistance and resources in the area of health and basic sanitation within indigenous villages, which is reflected in the poorer conditions of morbidity and mortality of indigenous people compared to the general population. Even the reports suggest that at least two cases of negligent violence could be happening to the detriment of the Pataxó. In which a Pataxó teenager who suffered an
19 accident that injured his sciatic nerve died of excessive bureaucratic delays (CIMI 2011). In the second case, a woman complained about the excessive delay for her child's surgical intervention, and also questioned the fact that the indigenous health secretariat did not comply with basic sanitation measures in her village, Coroa Vermelha, which suffers from the consumption of polluted water (CIMI 2012). However, it is important to note that cases of violence perpetrated by the non- indigenous population may not always be classified as vertical violence. Since in several cases it can be inferred that the perpetrators are also subalterns in the racial, class, or gender hierarchies of Brazilian society. This situation of horizontal violence could be happening in the relatively large number of homicides perpetrated by gangs of drug traffickers, gunmen or thieves who end up taking the lifes of the Pataxó. According to the reports analyzed, between 2006 and 2014, eight indigenous men died and one adolescent was injured, most in Porto Seguro and Santa Cruz de Cabralia. In all cases the pattern was similar, assassinations carried out by drug dealers, always in the vicinity of the victim, or even within the house himself, and always making use of firearms (except in a case where a white weapon was used). Similarly, between 2006 and 2014, there were four more homicides related to urban crime. One of these cases was perpetrated in a robbery, and the other three by gunmen in unclear circumstances (CIMI 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2014). We can associate this type of horizontal violence related to crime with alienation against peers. However not specifically against racial pairs, but against other subalterns. Thus, the theoretical model put forward above would have a limitation that can be corrected. Being that initially it was thought the colonial world divided between a single type of settlers and a single type of colonized. But in Brazil, and specifically in the south of Bahia, the colonized have several racial-ethnic subaltern categories, like African-Brazilians, mixed race people, poor whites and indigenous from diverse ethnic identities. Yet the idea that crime and violence against colleagues in subalternity are adaptive behaviors associated with alienation continues to be valid. On the other hand drug-related violence has been highlighted in the reports, and some Pataxó communities have suffered from this great threat to their well-being and
20 coexistence within indigenous peoples. Many families are being disorganized due to the involvement of relatives in organized crime structures, what contributes to the growing number of deaths among young Pataxó, especially those who are closest to a highly touristic urban environment such as Porto Seguro and Santa Cruz de Cabralia. Tourists bring a broad demand for drugs, whereby black and indigenous youth, through lack of opportunity and oppression, are more likely to become involved in drug trafficking. Activity that in Brazil is stigmatized as a heinous crime, and therefore strongly punished. This situation inevitably evokes criminalization as a device of colonial power associated with another legacy of neocolonialism era in Latin America: the tourist industry (see Fanon 1963: 153-154).
Violence inside the Pataxó community
The reports describe some characteristics of 5 homicides in which violence does not come from outside, but circulates within Pataxó community. Three of these cases have as scenario the bar and the consumption of alcoholic beverage. In 2010 in the district of Corumbau a couple was drinking and discussing in a bar, then a third actor entered the scene to separate the couple, but ended up fighting and murdering the Pataxó man (CIMI 2010). In 2011 similar situations were reproduced. A couple of friends, dressed in matching shirts, were contending and drinking in a bar, and a third actor shot one of the young men, who was taken to the hospital, but died. That same year, near the village Trevo, two colleagues drinking in a bar ended up fighting and one of them killed the other with a machete (CIMI 2011). Another homicide happened in Aldeia Velha in 2011, but the facts were not described in detail in the report. Apparently a woman was accused of murdering another woman. But the Pataxó de Aldeia Velha protested against the death of the indigenous woman and the release of the accused (CIMI 2011). Finally there was a homicide case that preceded the previous ones, which does not involve use of alcohol, but another alienating element: the religion of the colonizer. In 2006 two young Pataxó from Boca da Mata committed parricide using a piece of wood as their
21 weapon. A member of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), who took the police to the scene of the crime, reported that he had found the boys after killing his own father, one of them was tied up and the other was repeating verses from the Bible and clearing the crime scene. This case forms a serious picture of religious alienation, and colonial alienation against peers, related to psychiatric disorders. According to the FUNAI member, “they are not well: they go from lucidity to delirium”. He also reported that, “the brothers were calm and had been attending an unidentified church for some time” (CIMI 2007: 61). These last cases, present themselves in a context of political, economic and socio- cultural subordination that the Pataxó have been experiencing for several centuries. As predicted by the theoretical model, this situation produces a state of tension, anger and frustration in the colonized who tends to channel such state against their own people. As already mentioned, this situation often involves self-destructive behaviors such as drug abuse, alcoholism, intrafamilial violence, psychiatric disorders, and criminality in the form of homicides among the colonized.
CONCLUSION
The Pataxó people of the extreme of Bahia, presents a pattern of high mortality of young people and adults. This pattern evolved in a high prevalence of violent deaths, in the range of 15 to 44 years, mainly among males. Among these violent deaths, the firsts in the ranking are the ones due to aggression (57.9% of deaths due to external causes), secondly there are deaths due to transport accidents (21.1%). The qualitative analysis of mortality revealed that these deaths are not a set of isolated cases, but they are the apex of a social structure that allows different forms of violence among indigenous peoples, and the Pataxó ethnic group in particular. Thus, a situation of coloniality, racism and patriarchy is evident, which is expressed in the Pataxó indigenous people mortality pattern. The reported cases of homicide show a complex network of factors that underlie the deaths. On the one hand there is vertical violence, in which conflicts over land and police assassinations can suggest relations of violence and oppression forged during colonialism. Faced with this colonial violence, the
22 Pataxó have resisted taking their ancestral territories in struggle with the farmers, seeking in these retakes an exercise of political, economic and cultural self-determination. On the other hand, the theoretical model allows predicting that when the colonial relations are maintained, stating the right to self-determination, the colonized experiences a state of muscular tension. Thus, faced with the coercion of freedom, the colonized will channel this tension against his/her own people, revealing a serious state of alienation. Nevertheless, the exercise of creating a theoretical model, based on the colonial experience of Frantz Fanon and Aimé Césaire (concerns to the context of the Caribbean and Africa of the middle of the last century), to analyze a context that may have some similarity, but that is really distant in space and time brought some weaknesses to this model. These weaknesses can be related mainly to the imbrication of class, gender and race hierarchies, which have a particular power configuration in the Brazilian context. Besides, the country also brings a series of subaltern situations that surpasses the dichotomous colonial world where Fanon more than half a century behind built his thoughts. However, the theoretical model has an explanatory potential that can be improved with the contributions and critiques of other researchers that can better detail the colonial dynamics as a determinant of violence among indigenous population.
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