Indigenous peoples of Brazil

Countless indigenous peoples had lived in Brazil, especially in its coastal regions, for millennia; until a particularly warlike tribe, called “Tupi” in their language, rose up and gradually started to rule the coast as well as the areas along the big rivers, including the Amazon. When the Portuguese colonists first spotted land around 1500, there were about as many Tupi Indios as there were inhabitants of Portugal, approximately one million. Many places, rivers, mountains, beaches, plants, animals and fruit still bear Indio names today, predominately from the family of languages of the Tupi-Guarani. In fact, Tupi-Guarani used to be the second official language in Brazil for a long time.

The Tupi culture was highly evolved and already in transition from a mere hunting and gathering existence to simple agriculture with the occasional clearing of woodland and above all the cultivation of the toxic manioc plant. And while armed conflicts over land were a part of everyday life, social life within the villages (ranging from 300 to 2,000 inhabitants) was characterised rather by an altruistic attitude and was in harmony with their pantheistic interpretation of nature as a generous giver and benefactor.

At the time of the caoutchouc boom at the turn of the century, the tribe of the “Kuliná” suffered particularly from the persecution by the rubber barons and retreated more and more into the upper Rio Negro region and to Acre. Today the tribe has around 2,500 members, and has successfully resisted expulsion attempts. In 1991 the tribe took charge of the land surveying, together with the “Kaxinawá” tribe. The distinctive feature of the tribe are the “block races”, in which two groups, men against women, compete in hour-long relay races involving 150-kg tree trunks.

In the federal state of Mato Grosso there is the Parque Indígena do Xingu reservation, which was set up in 1961. Here live 16 Indio tribes, each of them speaking a different language. They came here in the past few centuries from other parts of the country, escaping from invading settlers or having been resettled by force. The Xingu peoples have adapted to modern times without giving up their cultural identity. They use fishhooks, have radios and bicycles, deal in wood and hunting spoils. Until the mid-20th century, their numbers declined to less than 1,000 because of various epidemics of flu, measles and malaria; now the Xinguanos estimate the number of reservation inhabitants at over 3,500, half of them younger than 15.

In the state of Mato Grosso do Sul there are settled the "Guarani", which are split into several minor groups. In the past few years they have suffered increasingly from the pressure from the big landowners, who claim their reservation areas for themselves and who get support from local authorities and judges. There are many suicides among the Guarani, as well as the threat of collective suicide as a desperate response to expulsion and resettlement attempts. The second largest indigenous population in Mato Grosso do Sul is the tribe of the “Kaiowa”. The Kaiowa-Nandeva, with almost 30,000 tribe members, barely had a part in the democratic development, but became a despised fringe group of society. Only recently have the Kaiowa developed a new confidence: they are taking their fate in their own hands and are setting out on their search for the “land without evil”.

As late as in 1976, geologists discovered the tribe of the “Zoé” in the northern Amazon region. Today their numbers have shrunk to 150, caused in part by a flu epidemic that spread among them when missionaries arrived. At the time of their discovery they went completely naked; men and women sometimes still wear wooden lip stakes, that are up to 15 cm long and 4 cm wide.

North of Manaus there live the “Waimiri-Atroari”, whose numbers were reduced within only seven months from 3,000 to 1,000 in 1968, due to road construction and the epidemics and military encroachments that came with it. When the Balbina reservoir was flooded in 1987, the remaining 300 Waimiri-Atroari were resettled.

The largest still autochthonous ethnic group in the South American lowland, the “Yanomami”, settled the jungle of southern Venezuela and the north-eastern Brazil. They are very small in stature, the men hardly ever grow taller than 160 cm. Their only “wealth” is in women, a successful hunter can have several. Many men have none at all, sometimes brothers share one. The boys are taught to be aggressive from early on, the abduction of women is the main reason for tribal feuds.

The “Prakana” were resettled 11 times within 20 years, ultimately into a reservation that is far too small for them. North American missionaries of various evangelist sects go about their bigoted business in the Amazon region and study the rarest languages, in order to be able to teach the “poor savages” bible studies in their own idiom. The “Wai-Wai” are a discovery of the missionaries. Now they can read the letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians in their own language, but will that bring them salvation?