Brazilian Indians are Fighting for Their Way of Life

Potrya

In the middle of urban Rio de Janeiro, right next to the imposing Estádio do Maracanã (Maracanã Stadium) - opened in 1950 and looking forward to hosting the next World Cup - is a decrepit grey building called Aldeia Maracanã. Until 1978 when it moved is was Rio’s Museum of Indian culture. The building lied empty for almost three decades. In 2006, Native Indians started moving in and now it is home to 21 different ethnicities. Thanks to the World Cup, the government has been trying to demolish it.

The fate of the Native Indians has been an unhappy one ever since Pedro Alvares Cabral arrived in South America 513 years ago and named the land Terra da Santa Cruz when the Guarani Indians already called it Pindorama, land of palm trees. Half a millennium later, the original inhabitants of Brazil are no longer being enslaved and killed off by disease, but they’re still being marginalised by Brazilian society. The community in Aldeia Maracanã has been fighting to change that. They want the government abandoned building that is now their home to become an indigenous university that will work to preserve and teach their people’s culture.

When I turned up to the village they have built in and around the old museum I was met with suspicious stares. As I wondered why that might be, my eyes settled on a banner on a fence that says, “Fora Globo!” (“Get out Globo!”), directed at Brazil’s mainstream media network. I explained to, Gabriel, a young man of the Xukurú ethnicity, where I was from. He sighed in relief. “At least you are not from Globo,” he said. “They said there were drug traffickers in here.”

“There has always been a lack of respect for the indigenous community,” Potyra, who is a member of the Krikati people, said to me. “There has to be more respect for indigenous people. There are many ethnicities that are not known in Brazil and people from outside of Brazil care more about us.”

In particular, the people of Aldeia Maracanã don’t trust the government. This mistrust seems pretty well founded given that the most recent government ploy was to claim that they had to demolish the building to construct facilities for the 2014 World Cup on the land as a requirement of FIFA. Thing is, Last week FIFA released a statement that said it never required the historical building to be demolished. They said: "FIFA would like to clarify that even though it agrees with the arguments for the demolition, the institution never demanded the demolition of the Museu do Índio in Rio de Janeiro to the Governor or the state or any other authority." Which is a bit awk.

Gabriel

But to the people who call the ex-museum home say that although they won the battle to get the building listed, they’re not complacent.

“I think it’s a war of 513 years not just here but also in Mato Grosso, in Paraná. There are other fights as well in the south of Bahia, there’s Belo Monte,” says Gabriel.

In Belo Monte, in the Brazilian state of Pará, Gabriel’s own people have been fighting a losing battle to keep their land and officially be granted its ownership. While Native Indians have been living in their lands for generations, farmers and miners are keen to take it for themselves. This has resulted in a long history of Indian massacres.

“This isn’t just an attack [on our culture], they are decimating, they are murdering it, not attacking. It’s genocide of our people,” says Haloux, a man who hasn’t discovered what his ethnicity is yet. As Gabriel paints tribal symbols on his arms, Haloux looks sullen, angry.

A recently discovered document has brought to light the massacre of Mato Grosso Indians during the military dictatorship of Brazil in the 1960s. According to historical records the military government slaughtered whole ethnicities to take their land. The document had been lost for 40 years and revealed that the people who committed these crimes were never punished. In 1993, 12 Indians were murdered in Roraima by ‘garimpeiros’, miners profiting of the land illegally. In 2012, 80 Indians were killed in the border between Venezuela and Brazil.

“What authority do they have?” asks Haloux. “They set fire to Indians’ huts. Brazil, after the United States, is the biggest murderer of its own culture.”

Haloux

Last March, the Aldeia Maracanã Indians were forcedly removed from the building by the military police. Since the community had resisted to any government agreements to leave they had nowhere to go and were scattered without a home. This included babies, children, and the elderly.

When asked about that day Gabriel avoids eye contact and goes silent. Potyra, much more vocal than he, tells me that most of them ended up in the hospital because of the tear gas, including a newborn baby.

“We say it’s from Cabral to Cabral,” she explains, talking about Pedro Alvares Cabral, who discovered Brazil and Sérgio Cabral the current governor of Rio. “Because [Pedro Álvares] Cabral destroyed many Indians and now [Sérgio] Cabral wants to destroy all of us. He got the Indians out of here, there was police pepper spray, they hit us.”

“They sprayed us all including the children, six year olds and a three month old baby. She had to stay in the hospital for a week.”

Potyra has lived in Aldeia Maracanã for seven years, since the museum closed in 2006. She raised her children there, where they are free to practice their customs.

When her daughter had her first menstruation they followed the tradition of locking her in a room for eight days so she could learn how to be a woman; she learned how to eat properly, how to respect her elders, children and the culture and to never leave her indigenous people. When Gabriel came of age he made holes in his ears to signify adulthood. These are only a couple of traditions that they are trying to preserve. If these customs aren’t passed down to future generations they will vanish.

“An example of this is the Goytacá, they say they disappeared a long time ago but in Campos [dos Goytacazes] there are people who look like Native Indians, who have that genetic strand, but they lost their culture,” she says.

The government continues to be an impediment to all Indians in Brazil. The most recent blow to their existence has been two bills of law that, if passed, will make indigenous people much more vulnerable.

The bill PEC 127 was proposed by Congressman Paes Landim . It would transfer the power to border indigenous land from the president to the congress. Many congressmen are connected to rural businesses so they would be able to demarcate land to their own interests.

The complementary law PLC 227 would see exceptions added to the ‘Native Indians Law’ that makes indigenous land exclusive to Indian ethnicities. The Indian peoples could be removed if it is ‘in the public interest’ to be used for ‘agribusiness, mining companies and the constructions of enterprises in the interest of the federal, state and municipal governments.’

Haloux says Native Indians already have nowhere to go and that the laws already in place do not work.

“The majority of Indians have no way of existing. There is no land. All those demarcations are lies. When Indians try to take their land, they get shot,” he says.

The grey walls are covered in anti-government graffiti and paintings of Indians. Asked if she would allow me take a photo, Potyra runs to get an earring made of several feathers. Though she looks shy and says she looks a mess, pride can be seen in her eyes.

“My culture is everything to me,” says Gabriel. “I don’t want to lose the little I have left.”

Follow Nicole on Twitter: @NicoleFroio

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