S E l F DETERMINATION A N D TERRITORY i il:

t the end of the 1960s the Indigenous peoples in Brazil, and also known to the chroniclers of the 18th and contact of the Fanara Indians contributes to important advances in 19th centuries. Fanara oral traditions (or Krenakorore, as they anthropology relate that they came from the east, from were then known) became a a savannah region, where they fought national drama in Brazil. white people with guns. Linguistic and They were rumored to be giants, fierce are Panara? ethnohistorical research (Heelas 1980; and elusive. As the contacting expedition Schwartzman 1988, 1995; Giraldin led by Claudio and Orlando Villas Boas "I had never seen them but my grand- 1994; Dourado and Rodri,oues 1993) has sought their villages only just in advance father told me, 'The whites are very now shown that the Fanara are the of the engineers opening the Cuiaba­ wild. They killed many of us with descendants of the Southern Cayapo, Santarem highway, they fled. Once con­ guns. If they come to the village, who in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries tacted, they were devastated by new dis­ club them, they are dangerous!"' occupied a vast territory between the eases, and reduced to beggary by the side (Ake Panani, interview, November Triangulo Mineiro, western Sao Paulo, of the new road bisecting their traditional 1991, Xingu Park) Mato Grosso do Sul, Goias, and southern territory In February 1975, less than two Mato Grosso. Several bandeiras were sent years after the official contact, 79 demor­ When the Fanara were contacted on against them, most notably that of alized survivors were transferred to the the Peixoto de Azevedo river in january Antonio Pires de Campos, who mobilized Xingu National Park. 1973, the media portrayed them as isolat­ Bororo Indians against them, and is Now, two decades later, with much of ed stone age Indians. The anthropology reported to have brought 2,000 Cayapo their territory overrun by gold mining, of the time viewed groups such as the back to Cuiaba as slaves. By the turn of ranching and logging, the Fanara have Fanara in more or less the same way-as the century, they were considered to be returned to the remaining forest of their "subsistence" societies, whose culture and extinct. traditional land in the upper watershed of society was best understood as an ancient In reality, the Fanara of the Peixoto the Iriri River in northern Mato Grosso adaptation to particular ecological cir­ and Iriri rivers are the descendants of the and southern Para. Over the last four cumstances. Some scholars thought that westernmost group of Southern Cayapo, years, the group has studied their territo­ the societies, cultures and economies of who refused peaceful contact and settle­ ry, identified an area of 490,000 hectares contemporary Amazonian societies were ment, and withdrew in the later 19th or still forested and unoccupied, reestab­ the same as those of precolombian groups early 20th century to the region in which lished permanent occupation of the and thus could serve to ground general the "first contact" occurred in the 1960s. region, and filed suit in federal court for explanations of Indigenous societies as Ethnohistory of both the Northern indemnification for losses and damages in adaptations to Amazonian ecosystems Kayapo (a distinct group, belonging to the contact and the transfer, as well as for (Meggers 1971 ). Recent historical and same linguistic subfamily, the Northern demarcation of their remaining land. In ethnohistorical research has demonstrat­ Ge) and the Fanara attests that the Fanara December 1994, FUNAI identified the ed to the contrary, that the present dispo­ inhabited the Peixoto and Iriri basins by area, beginning the process of official sition and circumstances of Indigenous the 1920s, when their war with the recognition. societies result from their historical expe­ Kayapo-a living memory for both The recent history of the Fanara is rience of contact with the surrounding groups-began. paradigmatic of larger processes in course society, as well as from their internal Attempts to explain Fanara customs among Indigenous peoples in Brazil­ social and historical dynamics (cf (some of which are reported from mid- processes of demographic loss and recov­ Carneiro da Cunha 1992). The Fanara are 19th century settlements in Goias, such ery, ethnic and cultural reaffirmation, ter­ a case in point. as log racing and certain curing practices) ritorial reintegration. The history of the Most of the Fanara alive when the as "adaptations" to the forest ecosystem of Fanara illuminates tendencies general to Villas Boas expedition arrived in the the Peixoto/lriri basins would then be Peixoto had never seen a white person. futile. Attempts to read from Fanara sub­ Steve Schwartzman did field work with the But they preserved the memory of at least sistence practices information on pre­ Fanara between 1980 and 1983 and two hundred years of war against the colombian populations are equally mis­ recieved his PhD from the University of Portuguese and then Brazilians. placed. The Fanara in the late 1960s were Chicago based on this research. Since 1990 The nine villages of Fanara, with some extremely well "adapted" to the tropical he has worked with the Fanara and the 350 to 600 inhabitants, that existed in forest ecosystem of the Peixoto and Iriri Instituto Socioambiental in support of the 1967 in the Peixoto de Azevedo and rivers, practicing a diversified, and highly Fanara initiatve to reoccupy and defend Upper Iriri basins were in fact the last symbolically elaborated agriculture with their traditional tet:ritory. outpost of a much larger people, well geometrically designed gardens and fixed Continue on page 23 22 Abya Yala News S E L F DETERMiNATION A N D TERRITORY locations in the garden for given crops, as well as fishing, hunting, and collecting a wide variety of for­ est fruits. By all the accounts of the older Panara who grew up in the region, their modest technology­ stone axes, bows and arrows, clubs, basketry, rudimentary ceramics and no canoes-provided an abundant livelihood. But in the 1960s the Panara had lived there for no more than 100 years. On the other hand, the histori­ cal record makes clear that Panara of the 1960s were neither passive victims of the conquest, nor slaves to an inflexible subsistence adapta­ tion. They had on the contrary actively rejected settlement and assimilation, and adjusted quickly and effectively to a vastly different environment in the course of secur­ ing their independence. Panara society and culture equally demon­ strate this dynamic quality: clearly, ele­ In 1967, two events presaged the end and making contact. ments of the new tropical forest ecosys­ of the Fanara's autonomy. First, the From 1967 to 1973, the elders pre­ tem (and the economy the Panara devised Mekragnoti Kayapo attacked the north­ vailed. The first expedition was recalled to make a living there) were integrated ernmost Panara village, Sonkenasan, in in 1969 when funds were cut off, and a into Panara ritual and cosmology and to the Iriri basin, for the first time with a second expedition was only launched in the process of their transformation. Brazil large supply of guns and ammunition. 1972, as an advance team of surveyors nuts, for example, which do not occur in While the Panara had raided, and been was laying out the route of the Cuiaba - the savannah, are a key symbolic refer­ raided by the Kayapo for a generation, Santarem highway. The Panara, already ence in Panara myths, as well as in the rit­ guns and ammunition turned the 1967 having abandoned their easternmost vil­ ual cycle. raid into a massacre. Some 26 Panara lages, then withdrew south before this Further, the memory of the two hun­ were killed and the village burned. The expedition, which set out from the dred year war that drove the Panara from survivors fled to another village, and by Cachimbo airbase. With the abandon­ Sao Paulo to northern Mato Grosso was the time a war party was mounted to ment of successive villages and gardens, to have a decisive influence on the Panara avenge the attack, the Kayapo had fled. increasing numbers of people were con­ understanding of the contact with the Then, the incident came to the attention centrated in fewer and fewer villages. Villas Boas expeditions and the tragedy of Villas Boas brothers, then directing the When the Villas Boas reached the Peixoto that ensued on it. Xingu National Park, who mounted a de Azevedo, the Panara, after collecting contacting expedition. When the first air­ trade goods at the expedition's advance planes arrived over the Panara villages, post, crossed the river and occupied the First Contact Again and began dropping trade goods­ village of Yopuyepaw. The first epidemic The Panara probably settled in the knives, machetes, beads-there began a struck there. So many people died, and so Peixoto/Iriri because of the region's debate amongst the Panara that would debilitated were the survivors that they wealth of natural resources, and its isola­ continue for the next five years. Were the could not bury the dead, and vultures ate tion. The life histories of older Panara airplanes (and later the expedition) "wild" them. After the survivors recovered, they men invariably include extensive Casar)? Did they mean to kill the Panara, returned to the Peixoto, and accepted accounts of long expeditions, to visit kin, as historic experience suggested, or were contact. flee internal conflicts, or found new vil­ the gifts of goods evidence of peaceful In 1974, the road opened. The lages, before the arrival of the Villas Boas intentions? Panara, fascinated by the traffic on the expeditions. In these narratives, the men The elder men (taputunara) argued, road, confounded efforts by the National recount that, arriving in a new place, they say present-day chiefs such as Ake and Indian Foundation (FUNAI) personnel to would search the forest for signs of ene­ Teseya, that the whites were wild and prevent them from mingling with the mies (hi'pe - 'enemies, others, whites'). dangerous, and counseled attack or flight, army engineers, and passing truckers. Having assured themselves that there while the young men (pientwara) held Ensuing deaths triggered witchcraft accu­ were no enemies and no enemies' trails that the goods left by the expedition sations, since witchcraft was the tradi­ nearby, they would stay and plant gar­ showed peaceful intent. and argued for tional explanation for serious illness. At dens. getting the goods left by the expedition, least 176 people died of epidemic dis- Continue on page 24 Vol. 10 No.3 23 j E l F DETERMINATION A N D TERRITORY S ------

eases between 1973 and 1975, when the 1983 with the Fanara, they described the Fanara spoke of land (kupa), they surviving 79 Fanara were transferred by their traditional village as having men's referred to earth or soil. They discussed FUNAI to the Xingu National Park The houses in the center of the village plaza, the Peixoto and Iriri region in terms of Peixoto de Azevedo was thrown open to in the middle of the circle of extended places, villages, gardens or rivers. but not gold mining and colonization immediate­ family households grouped into four as something which could be owned. By ly thereafter, and the small area reserved clans, with fixed locations on the village 1991 the Fanara spoke regularly of "the for the Fanara during the contact was circle. The Fanara said that when there land of the Fanara," (Fanara nho kupa). transferred to IN CRA for agrarian reform. were more boys, they would build men's They had developed a sense of their land, houses (traditionally the place of resi­ as something to which they had rights. dence of pre-adolescent, unmarried The Diaspora boys). In 1991, when I returned to the The Fanara arrived in the Xingu sick, Xingu, they had built a men s house. The Panara Return demoralized, and disoriented. The group In 20 years in the Xingu, the Fanara was settled in the Kajabi village of adapted effectively to a new ecosystem, "Where will all the children live Prepuri, where several more died in the adopted new technology (learning to that are growing up and will have first months. The Fanara began to talk of build canoes, crucial in the flood plain of children of their own? Here in this lit­ returning to their land. Instead they were the Xingu, and to fish with hook and line, tle piece of other peoples land where moved to the Kayapo village of Kretire hunt with guns, and grow new cultivars we are? When I think of the children I and delivered to their traditional enemies. from surrounding groups). They now am sad. How will they live when they Before the year was out ten more Fanara number about 160, with at least 60% of grow up?" (Ake Panani, interview, had died, as new diseases continued. the population under 20 years old, and Xingu National Park, October 1991). English anthropologist Richard Heelas, more than half under 14. They have who lived with the Fanara in this period recovered as much autonomy as any of By 1990, the Fanara found themselves described them as walking corpses. They the 16 other Indigenous groups that live increasingly the victims of their own suc­ were again removed (although a number in the Xingu. But the Fanara never recon­ cess. With a growing population and a of women and children were constrained ciled themselves to living in the Xingu. vital ceremonial life, they had moved to to stay with the Kayapo), and settled with They have lived in seven places, in a per­ the western boundary of the Park, on the the Suya. In a less oppressive climate, manent search for land resembling the Arraias River, where they found forest new leaders emerged, and began to mobi­ region of the Peixoto and Iriri. From the that more closely resembled their tradi­ lize the Fanara to perform traditional perspective of the Fanara, the difference tional land. The best hunting territory, dances and songs. Once the Fanara between their land and the Xingu is that however, was outside the Park on private founded their first village in Xingu, in between wealth and poverty, and their land, where the Fanara began hunting 1977, their population began to increase. passage through the Xingu a process of and fishing. They began a gradual process of reconsti­ impoverishment. In the same year a group of Fanara tuting their society and culture. When I Their concept of the land changed as killed a ranch hand in a dispute. Leaders conducted field work between 1980 and well over the last decade. In 1983 when such as chiefs Ake and Teseya became increasingly concerned with the future ofthe group. With a young and rapidly increasing popula­ tion, they were caught between the approaching deforestation outside the Park, and the other groups within the Park, also grow­ ing, and already long established on much of the best land. Once again, the Fanara's attention turned to their traditional land. They sought help from FUNAI and several non-governmental organizations active in the Xingu-(which now form the Instituto Socioambiental)-as well as my help, as the anthropol­ ogist who had lived longest among them. In November 1991 a group of six Fanara men returned for the first time to their traditional territory: They witnessed the ecological effect of nearly twenty years of Continue on page 25 24 Abya Yala News E l F DETERMINATION AND TERRITORY S ------gold mining in the Peixoto de Azevedo, as remove an area titled to private interests, one language, have developed and elabo­ well as ranching and colonization and the the revised area (490,000 hectares) is rated a diversity of languages and social boom towns left in their wake. Their ter-. awaiting the signature of the Minister of and cultural forms-men's societies, age ritory in the Peixoto had been occupied Justice for its demarcation to proceed. grades, "formal friendship", joking and and very largely degraded. Flying over In October 1995, a group of Panara avoidance relations, kinship, marriage the region, however, they discovered that families moved to the new village, and naming systems, ritual complexes­ the lriri basin was still unoccupied and brought in successive flights by a FUNAI all of which, while distinct, bear "family forested. From that moment they began plane. Their airstrip is in operation, their resemblances" to one another., much like to formulate a plan to return to the area. gardens are growing, and some 65 Panara the relations of cognate words in related Between 1992 and 1994 groups of men now reside there. They are engaged in languages to one another. returned repeatedly, to locate former vil­ building houses and planting more gar­ It is still common to assume that lage sites, take cognizance of the process­ dens so that the rest of the group can join Indigenous peoples Brazil are a vanishing es in course in the area and plan their them. The Panara are aware that the race, doomed to succumb to the pressure reoccupation of the region. In 1993, they edges of their land have already been of superior tech- reached an airstrip near the headwaters of invaded by loggers and that the grileiro nology and disap­ the lriri, and determined that the sup­ maintains a presence in the southwestern pear into the sur­ posed owner was subdividing an area of corner of the area . But they remain con­ rounding society public land under the control of the vinced that their future is in the reoccu­ Behind this idea is National Institute for Agrarian Reform pation of the area, and the defense of its a notion of culture (INCRA) for sale-a process of land natural resources against depredation. as static and fraud. The Panara recognized that they unchanging-cul­ would have to act quickly if the lriri ture as a sort of FUll CIR- headwaters were not to succumb to the The Future an Illusion m the laundry list of uncontrolled occupation that had already of the Vanishing traits. If an Indian devastated the Peixoto. and Culture as laundry list wears clothes, In the dry season of 1994, the Panara speaks Portuguese, identified a new village site on the lriri, In little more than twenty years, the or plants rice, then not far from an historic landmark they Panara have come full circle, from the he is no longer a had recognized from the air, the Great paradigmatic "victims of the miracle" of "real" Indian. Lake (inkotunsi), the spot where the the military government, on the brink of Anthropology Panara of Sonkenasan village had intend­ cultural if not physical extinction, to pro­ has in the past lent ed to make a new village in 1967, before tagonists of the successful recreation of credence to such the Kayapo attack. They set to work their own society and culture. The beliefs by, for building a village, gardens and an airstrip process of territorial reintegration was the example, attempt­ to facilitate access for health care. In consequence of this: only in reinventing ing to explain cul­ PHYSICAl tural and social August 1994, through their attorneys at traditional leadership, and satisfying EXTINCTION, TO the Nucleo de Direitos lndigenas, the themselves that it could be both adequate organization as Panara filed two lawsuits in federal court to the challenges of life among other peo­ adaptations in an OF in Brasilia, seeking indemnification of ple, and legitimate with reference to tra­ ecological time losses and damages suffered in the con­ ditional knowledge-of myths, rituals, frame to given tact and transfer, and the demarcation of songs, dances, the proper ordering of ecosystems, or RECREATION their remaining traditional land. work and sociability-could the Panara indeed by focusing In October 1994, a FUNAI and form the necessary consensus to take on on the reproduc­ INCRA team lead by anthropologist Ana this task. The reconstruction of Panara tion of Indigenous Gita de Oliveira identified the area, veri­ society was in short also its recreation, its social organiza­ fying the presence of the Panara in the vil­ transformation. But not for the first tions to the exclu­ lage and determining traditional resource time-the historical record of the sion of history As use and the boundaries of the area. Two Southern Cayapo demonstrates that the both the short and days after the FUNAI team had left the ancestors of the present Panara under­ longer views of the history of the Panara village, a group of armed men appeared took an epic migration, involving a radi­ demonstrate, culture, rather than a list of in the village, alleging to have been sent cal shift in ecological adaptation from traits or institutions, is better understood by the Mayor of the regional town of savannah to closed tropical forest, and as the capacity for collective self-creation Guaranta looking for the FUNAI team. also changing culturally Nor was this or reinvention (Turner 1995). In this con­ After a tense discussion, the group left. process of change, impelled by the pres­ text, what is exceptional about the dra­ In December 1994, the president of sure of the frontier though it was, unique. matic story of the Panara is its unexcep­ FUNAI published the decree (portaria) A longer comparative view of the lan­ tionality recognizing the Panara's rights to an area guages and cultures of the Northern Ge Most of the Indigenous peoples in of 488.000 hectares in northern Mato linguistic family shows that for several Brazil have passed, like the Panara, Grosso and southern Para states in the thousand years (ef Urban 1992 ), these through a succession of "first contacts," Diario Oficial. Subsequently modified to groups, descended from the speakers of lost population to new diseases, have ______C_9)1tinue on page 38 --:--c----:-c--:---::------·-·-·------· Vol. 10 No.3 25 D S A N D NNOUNCEMENTS

South American Explorers Clu1 The best source of infonnati.on and advice for travel in Latin America Memhem receive expert help in trip planning, and discounts on maps, guidebooks, and other items. t , ~li\\.Ui!!Counits are also available on lodging, I tourguides, and language schools. Clubhouses located in Lima and Quito. (ASLA INDIAN PAWANkA NAlkA SUl~A, LAlA~A) FOR A FREE CATALOG, contact us at: CfNi fR MISI

lation in Brazil is, like the Fanara, small Departamento de Antropologia, Universidade but growing. The resistance of Estadual de Campinas, Sao Paulo. A Human Rights Quarterly Indigenous peoples, and their capacity Guidon, Niede. 1992. As ocupar,;oes pre­ for self-recreation even in extremely hist6ricas do Brasil, in Hist6ria dos Indios (formerly Justicia y Paz) adverse circumstances, is the sine qua no Brasil, Manuela Carneiro da Cunha Colombia Bulletin seeks to forge non behind increasing official recognition (org.), Editora Schwarcz, Sao Paulo. strong connections for information and of Indigenous land rights. When the Heelas, Richard. 1979. The Social activism between the U.S., Europe and National Indian Foundation was created Organization of the Fanara, a Ge Tribe of Colombia by reporting accurate and in 1967, as the contact of the Fanara was Central Brazil. Doctoral Dissertation, St. current information on Colombia's starting, an infinitesimal quantity of Catherine's College, Oxford University. struggle for human rights. Indian land was officially recognized as Meggers, B.]. 1971. Amazonia: Man and Each issue includes regional reports, such by the federal government. Today, culture in a counterfit paradise. Chicago, analysis of statistics on political vio­ Indigenous peoples have constitutionally A/dine-Atherton. lence, commentary on the origins ofhu­ guaranteed rights to some 11% of Brazil's Schwartzman, Stephan. 1988. The Fanara man rights violations, updates on ac­ territory, although only part of this area of the Xingu National Park: the transfor­ tivism, and other resources. has been fully officially documented. mation of a society. Doctoral Dissertation, A plethora of histories like that of the Department of Anthropology, University of Four issues: US$25/yr, US$12.50 stu­ Fanara have shattered the illusion of the Chicago. 1995. dent low income, foreign subs add $10. vanishing Indian. In so doing, they have The Fanara: Indigenous Territory and Submissions welcome. better informed both national Indigenous Environmental Protection in the Amazon, policy, and scientific understanding of in Local Heritage in the Changing Tropics: c/o CSN the depth and dynamics of Indigenous innovative strategies for natural resource PO. Box 1505 culture and history '9 management and control, Greg Dicum Madison, Wl53701 (ed.), Bulletin Series, Yale School of (608)255-8753 References Cited Forestry and Environmental Studies, [email protected] Carneiro da Cunha, Manuela (org). 1992. Number 98. New Haven, Connecticut. Hist6ria dos Indios no Brasil. Editora Turner, Terence. 1995. Indigenous Rights, Schwarcz, Sao Paulo. Environmental Protection and the Struggle Continued from page on page 25 Dourado, Luciana and Aryan Rodrigues. over Forest Resources in the Amazon: The moved or been removed from traditional 1993. Fanara: Indentificar,;ao Linguistica case of the Brazilian Kayapo. mss. territories. Many, like the Guarani in dos Kren-Akarorore com os Cayapo do Urban, Greg. 1992. A hist6ria da cultura Mato Grosso do Sul, have returned to Sul, comunicar,;ao ao 450. Reuniao Anual brasileira segundo as linguas nativas, in lands from which they were removed. da Sociedade Brasileira pelo Progesso da Hist6ria dos Indios no Brazil, Manuela The Indigenous population in Brazil Ciencia, Universidade Federal de Carneiro da Cunha (org.), Editor a reached its nadir in the 1970s and has Pernambuco, Recife, 11 - 16 julho. Schwarcz, Sao Paulo. grown since. In 1990, there were some Giraldin, Odair. 1994. Cayapo e Fanara: 235,000 Indians in Brazil, while today Luta e sobrevivencia de um povo, (a previous version of this article appearded there are 270,000. The Indigenous popu- Dissertar,;ao de Mestrado apresentado ao in the Brazilian magazine Ciencia Hoje)

~------38 Abya Yala News