Brazil Creates New Indian Reservation - HISTORY & UPDATES

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                                           Brazil creates new Indian reservation





June 20, 2008
Associated Press
RIO DE JANEIRO —

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva decreed a new 3.8 million acre (1.5 million hectare) Indian reservation Friday in the heart of the Amazon rain forest's logging frontier.

The Bau reservation in Para state had been sought by the Kayapo Indians in their ancestral territory since 1994. But resistance from settlers and loggers slowed its official creation.

"We are advancing little by little, but we are making the necessary conquests," Silva said at the signing ceremony in the capital, Brasilia.

Brazil's 1988 constitution declared that all Indian ancestral lands be demarcated and turned over to tribes within five years. While that process has not been completed yet, today about 11 percent of Brazilian territory and nearly 22 percent of the Amazon is in Indian hands.

But there has been increasing pressure on the government to limit the size of reservations as logging, ranching and farming expand into the Amazon. Some settlers have violently resisted efforts to relocate them.

Studies show that Indian reservations tend to be the best preserved areas of the rain forest because the tribes protect the borders. National parks and ecological reserves rarely have enough staff to police their territory.

Marcio Meira, president of the National Indian Foundation, said at the ceremony that there are about 1 million Indians in Brazil — about half of them on reservations.




© 2008 The Associated Press.

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BRAZILIAN STATES

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                                                               Kayapo Indians
 





Location: Xingú Park, Mato Grosso, southern Pará (Map). The Kayapó live in villages dispersed along the upper course of the Iriri, Bacajá and Fresco rivers, as well as affluents of the voluminous Xingu river, outlining a territory almost as large as Austria in Central Brazil and almost entirely covered in equatorial rainforest, with the exception of the eastern section, filled by some areas of scrubland.

9 villages

Alternative Names: Xikrin, Txhukahamai, Mebêngokrê

Auto-Denomination: Mebêngôkre

Language Classification: Macro-Jê, Jê, Kayapó

Population: 7,096 (in 2003)

 

The Kayapo Indians live in the vast plain lands of the Matto Grosso in Brazil, south of the Amazon Basin . Their area includes the Brazilian frontier which contains the mining and lumber industry where they participate in many aspects of the contemporary world. The Kayapo use a cash economy and have stayed on good terms with their Brazilian neighbors without compromising their socio-cultural integrity. This is accomplished in part by adhering to their art-making and rituals. Traditionally, the Kayapo men wear discs in their lower lip. A small incision is made and a disk inserted. As time goes on the disks become progressively larger. Body adornment symbolizes many things in their Native American society. Ear plugs symbolize receptivity to others while a lip plug symbolizes assertiveness. Aggressive and faction-prone groups like the Kayapo will signal their aggressiveness (while asserting they seek to contain it) by not wearing large ear plugs (they do not listen to others well, deafened by the pursuit of individual and group advancement), by sporting exaggerated lip plugs (thereby signaling their oral assertiveness), and by wearing **** sheaths (marking the need to constrain their phallic aggressiveness).

The Kayapo are also a highly evolved group ecologically,  exemplifying living in balance with the ecosystem. They cultivate many types of plants utilizing biological pest control. They domesticate and classify the insect life. All parts of the surrounding jungle are utilized by them for practical and medicinal purposes. The Kayapo belong to the Ge linguistic group that reside around the southern tributaries of the Amazon. They represent an ancient culture of seasonal farmers and gatherers. During the rainy season they live in highly complex wheel-shaped villages in the scrub and savanna area of the Matto Grosso partaking in a rich ceremonial life. During the dry season they break up into smaller bands and disperse into a wider area.

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                                                             Additional Information





General Information

Kayapo Indians - SIL International

Socioambiental

The Kayapo

Projeto PinkaitÃ

The Kayapo Indians

Resources on the Kayapo

The Overstory #34--Forest Islands, Kayapo Example

Kayapos




 
Culture


Music of the Kayapo

Ethnologue report for Kayapo

The Overstory #34 - Forest Islands, Kayapo Example

The Kayapo - Out of the Forest

09/27/00 - Kayapo Hold Inspectors in Pará

Kayapó Puzzle

The Kayapo Indians’ Struggle in Brazil" by Ava Y. Goodale

Brazil--Kayapo split over benefits of mining and logging

WORLDwrite: Brazil Exchange

Brazilian Music: The Music of Brazilian Indians





 
Photos/Videos

Gerhard Prokop paintings, Two, Three

Jean Pierre Dutilleux - The Kayapo

The Rainforest Foundation - photos

Anthrophoto Image Gallery : Search Results for Kayapo





 
Art



Smithsonian Institution - How a photographic assignment served as the catalyst in the Smithsonian's acquisition of a collection of beautiful Brazilian Indian feather head-dresses.

The Rankin Museum

Tale of the Kayapo Feather Headdresses

 




Click here to visit our Native American Indian

market for baskets, pottery, and other hand made crafts

 




 Index

 

 Hands Around the World 

111 E. Main, Jonesborough, Tennessee 37659

Phone: (423) 753-8177   Fax: (423) 913-2489

E-mail: handsaroundtheworld@earthlink.net

 

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KAYAPO VILLAGE









                                                                K A Y A P O






The Kayapo Indians live in the Amazon River Basin of Brazil in an area that is about the size of Austria, with villages that are along the Xingu River. Their territory is made up of mostly tropical rain forests. The name Kayapo was given to the tribe by neighboring Indian tribes. The word kayapo means "resembling apes" and was probably given because sometimes the men dance in monkey masks.

     Circles are one of the tribe's main symbols because the course of the sun and moon are circular. Body paint, which is worn at all times, is very symbolic in their culture. It is a display of status and social behavior. Red and black are the two main colors worn. Men and boys apply their own paint, using their hands. Children are painted by their mothers who use fancy designs on them. Women get together every 10 days to reapply their own body paint.

     The Kayapo still practice many of their ceremonies and rituals, but are moving toward more modern ways. One of the problems the Kayapo are experiencing started when they hired white men to mine their gold for them. The Kayapo made a deal with the whites so they would receive 60% of the profit. Even though the Kayapo received 40%,  it wasn't enough to cover their needs. The Indians moved the miners and their families closer to the mining areas, which had farm fields to provide them with food. To the Indians fish is still a large source of their protein, but they now have to go upriver to fish, because of nearby pollution. Hooks and lines are now replacing bows and arrows.

   The Funai, an Indian protection agency, was established in 1968. The Funai has military officers to help keep the whites and the Indians at peace. Since the Indians have to go upriver to fish, they have installed plastic tubes to pump clear water to their village. Also because of soil runoff, chemical pollution, and sewage, the Funai also has to pump clear water to a stream, which is more than one mile away, so they can have clear water to fish.  Since the white men have come, the Kayapo have become more modernized.

They depend now on some canned goods for food and have started wearing western clothing.



http://www3.cesa10.k12.wi.us/Ecosystems/rainforests/tribes/Kayapo/index.htm

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Deforested area in the Amazon Rainforest,
North Brazil
 
Brazil's Para state has created the world's biggest forest preserve
the size of Bangladesh, one third of which will be entirely off limits
to development.

Two thirds of the 58,000 sq mile preserve will be open to logging
and other industries albeit under strict regulations and government
control.

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                                     Brazil clears Indian reservation of non-indigenous Residents






By Gary Duffy
BBC News,
May 1, 2009
Sao Paulo
Brazil


 
A deadline has passed for non-indigenous residents of an Indian reservation in northern Brazil to leave the area.

It follows a landmark ruling by the country's Supreme Court that the Raposa Serra do Sol reservation should be solely for indigenous people.

The non-indigenous rice farmers and farm workers say they are victims of "legalised robbery".

But the authorities say they will be properly compensated.

In March, Brazil's Supreme Court ruled that the area in the northern border state of Roraima should be maintained as a single continuous territory exclusively for use by the indigenous population.

The decision was hailed as a major victory for indigenous rights, and was also regarded as setting an important precedent for future court cases.

However, the ruling was also a defeat for the non-indigenous rice producers and farm workers who lived and worked in the area, and who said their removal would undermine the economy of Roraima.

Around 300 police and soldiers are now reported to have begun an operation to remove any remaining rice producers and farm workers from the 1.7 million hectare reservation.

There were said to be around 30 non-indigenous families in the reservation as the deadline approached, but the authorities say force will only be used if they meet with violent resistance.

Some of the rice producers have been criticised for destroying farm buildings as they left the area.

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'Human zoo'





The court ruling was greeted as a victory by the indigenous population


As this sensitive operation was getting underway, the governor of Roraima, Jose de Anchieta Jr, was accused of racism by the state agency which looks after indigenous rights.

The governor said the federal government had not provided sufficient resources for the local indigenous population to live in the reservation, which he said had unfortunately been turned into a "human zoo."

The authorities insist they will provide the necessary support.

The reservation, which is in the far north of Brazil on the border with Venezuela and Guyana, is home to around 20,000 indigenous people.

Officials say the operation to ensure the Supreme Court ruling has been obeyed could take some days to complete