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April, year 1990. The train drops us off at a bridge
a few hours utside of the town of Santa Inez. But at
last there is an opening in the foliage on the riverside, indicating
we have reached the local FUNAI outpost and we tie the canoe to the
river edge. One of them is bent over the wireless
radio, sweating in the tropical heat and shouting in the crackling microphone
as though he wants to be heard right across the forest. ”Calling
Santa Inez, Calling Santa Inez. Invaders in northwest part of the district.
We need reinforcements to drive them out.” The appeal remains without any positive response.
The FUNAI department has no extra resources to send in to protect the
lands. ”We have
permanent conflicts, and permanent invasions,” explains, my guide, Sydney
Possuelo who is head of the FUNAI Department of Isolated Indians. A few
hundred meters away lies a small Awá village were the forest indians
make stops a few days from their noamdic hunting collecting trips. For the
Awá this artificially made village has become a tribal meeting point. Their livespace, the lands and the resources they depend on stretch far beyond the
horizon. NOMADIC HUNTERS
Carú Indian Reservation is only a small part
of the Awá people’s traditional lands. But diminishing fauna, invasions
by ”fazendeiros” (ranchers),
infectious diseases, and repeated massacres where Indians have been
hunted like wild animals, now force the Awá to seek a meagre assistance
from the local FUNAI employees.
The Awá
Indians live in nomadic groups of five to six people. They are said
to be Brazil’s last truly nomadic people although it is probable their
original lifestyle, a few hundred years ago, was centred saround villages
with permanent dwellings. Today they erect temporary shelters of palm
leaves which they abandon moving on in their search for fish, fruits,
nuts and wild game. But the children lack protein and the hunters return
too often empty-handed.
"In
this village almost all families have tragic memories of contact with
the white man", says Sydney. "They have all lost someone close
to them from the contact with the white men." The only
Indian interpreter at the outpost, himself an Awá, speaks very little
Portuguese. But during my days in the village I manage to piece together
fragments of their story. A young
adolescent, between 15 and 18 years old, dressed in a white T-shirt,
is one of them. I ask for his
name, apparently he is called Kimene. ”They
shot my parents when I was small: Then they killed my brother,” I turn to Sydney and wonder how many white people
have been condemned for kiling Indians. His short
answer resumes in a few words the colonization of the Amazon over the
last centuries: ”As far as I know, no white man has been condemned or
punished for killing an Indian”. Kimene
was forced to survive alone with the ancient techniques his mother and
father had taught him, but forever hiding
from would-be assassins. As time
passed he lost the habit of talking. Once, he had the chance to avenge
his family. Hiding
in the trees he shot an arrow through the chest of one of the invaders. ”Then
I cut up his stomach” the boy comments dryily. Kimene’s parents and grand-parents
fled the white man’s expansion and moved further south to the state of Mato Grosso several decades
ago. Since
then the forest has been cut down and turned into farming lands. Towns have sprouted over the Awá Indians’ lands. There
was no way to return. At last,
a white settler saw Kimene in the jungle and reported the sighting to
FUNAI in Brasilia. Only
two months ago, Sydney set out on an expedition with his team, cutting
their way through the jungle to search for the shadow nomad spotted
in the forest. They Awá Indian interpreters called out over
the forest, until they found the frightened boy who was armed, hiding
and ready to strike back at any intruder. ”The
Indians try to defend their universe, says Sydney. ”Their world has
been destroyed. Now they discover
how many we are. They see our powerful guns and our force. They flee.
But they cannot flee further. There is nowhere to go.” KILLER DISEASE
The Carú Reservation is a sanctuary
where Sydney’s men try to reunite the
dispersed communities of Awá people. Here
they are offered a real but fragile protection. Threatened by continuous
attacks, massacres and extermination, they should have greater chances to recreate their comminities here. But even
inside the reservation their survival is uncertain. Less
than 300 Awá have survived the occupation of their lands. That is half
the estimated population of 1960. Around
60 Awá still live uncontacted in small nomadic groups. We sit in the main hut, built for meetings.
The night is dark, the fires throw a flickering light over the Indians
gathered around us. An elderly man watches our conversation with a keen
interest. Sydney
points his finger at him. ”This
one! He ran up to me with an axe to chop my head”. Sydney
makes a spontaneous dance on the floor,
imitating the old man’s gesture with the axe on their first contact. The Awá man, Timin, laughs loudly at Sydney’s performance. And in the middle of the
jungle I view a replay of a meeting where both sides were sure they
were on the brink of being slaughtered. Sydney
had been on an expedition tracking the Awá people together with a young
Awá interpreter. When
Sydney caught up with the fleeing family, Timin had taken an axe to
defend his close. He ran up to the white man and held the axe in the
air, ready to chop Sydney’s head. But suddenly he stopped, uncertain.
The strange bearded, half-bald man facing him was not trying to flee
or defend himself. ”My heart
was pumping,” says Sydney. ” I squeezed hard on the interpreter’s hand
and wheezed, speak, for God’s sake SPEAK! Talk to him!”.
At the last decisive moment the young
interpreter began to talk in Awá language and explained they
were friends who had come to help and not to harm.
Timin slowly lowered his axe. Outside our rustic FUNAI two-room administration
office, a boy lies shivering in the hammock, a tube from the ceiling
pumping blood plasma into his veins. He has
been separated from the rest of the tribe to avoid a contagion of the
disease. He knows
he may die. Whooping cough is a killer disease.
Awá Indians have no immunity against
the white man’s sickness such as influenza, whooping cough or measles. Over
the wireless radio I learn that far away, in the remote Northern district
of Roraima, at least one of seven Yanomami Indians has died of malaria
during the last five years. Malaria
was brought into their world
by 40 000 ”garimpeiros”, gold seekers who invaded their lands to search
for fortunes that were later
sold on the international gold
market. The ground in the deep soil beneath the sacred trees and rivers of the Awá
people is a spotlight for free flying fortune seekers from the entire
nation. Here,
in the state of Maranhao, goods trains from Carajas, the world’s biggest
iron mine and cut every hour through Awá
Indian land in an endless string of roaring trains heading for
the port of Sao Luiz. The immense
iron ore deposits were discovered in 1967. Since then the ancient Awá
land has been reduced by mining and
fazendeiros, ranchers who have been encouraged with fiscal
incentives to occupy the Amazon region. They have cut down the forest lands and left
infertile pastures. The open fields were later in many cases
abandoned once the ”owners”
had reaped their tax benefits. The Awá Indians lived totally unprotected
until the limits of Carú Reservation were drawn up in 1982, then covering almost 300 000 hectares.
But when pressure groups of white land owners leant on the government
and FUNAI the area was reduced.to only a fraction of its original extension. The Awá
land was outlined as a corridor linking the indigenous areas Carú to
the south with Alto Turiacu to the north, where other Awá groups live
isolated in the forest. ”We have
32 employees to cover and protect an area the size of several hundred
thousand hectares,” says Sydney. ”It is an impossible task. In Brasilia
you have about 600 FUNAI civil servants when 70 would be enough. But on the field, where the Indians live there are no people." Years
ago Sydney was in charge of the FUNAI administration in the Maranhao
state. ”It did
not last long, I was quickly stamped as persona non grata by the governor
in Maranhao.” GUNPOWDER
We open our sacks with presents for
the Indians. Red cotton cloth and needles for the women. Cartridges,
gunpowder and pellets for the men. Everyday utilities. The presents provoke smiles and contentment
from the Awá who surround us next to the fire. I am
told this is the first time the women receive any presents, previously
the show has been reserved for the men. For me
everything is magic and powerful, a first impression and I have no idea
of how the gifts from this other white man’s world are still used as
a magnet to attract isolated Indian people. As the sun rises, Sydney shakes me
out of my dream world in the hammock. Five Awá men are waiting and ready. It is time to go hunting. Juraru smiles, holding his shotgun and fresh cartridges
but the rest of the hunting team have more confidence in their bows
and arrows. After a few hours walk through the
thick vegetation the men tell me with a silent sign of their hands to
stop. Chimu
attaches a ring of tied lianas around his two naked feet and like an
acrobat on a greased pole, he climbs
with bow and arrows over his back to the top of trees, maybe twenty
meters higher. I can
hardly see him against the brightening sky but suddenly, in the silence
over our stretched necks, I hear a faint twing from his bow. He shoots
two arrows into the obscure foliage. Silence.
A moment later a monkey falls with
a hard thump to the ground, wheezing from an open wound in its chest. Today
is a good day. Before the sun sets we have bagged five monkeys, a ”jabuti”
(tortoise) and a porcupine. For me it is the first time I follow
a successful hunt with bows and arrows. For Sydney
it is an everyday event. ”The
weapons today are no longer the bow and arrow”, he says, reflecting on the larger perspective of Indians
in the expanding world of Brazil.
.”In
time they cannot live any longer as nomads. The new weapons are knowledge.
They must have knowledge about our society to protect themselves against
us. They have suffered so many humiliations in the past. They need time to adjust. But we do not give them any time. In our
world, time is money.” URGENT ACTION
Ten years after our night conversation
in the Awá village, Survival
International launches a new Urgent Action campaign to press for the demarcation of the Awa Land, stating that "unless the Brazilian
government, the World Bank and the mining company CVRD take urgent action,
uncontacted Awá Indians in Brazil could soon be wiped out." In 1982
the Brazilian government and CVRD were granted more than 900 million
US dollars from the World Bank and European Union to exploit the iron
ore deposits. A condition
for the loan was that part of the funding should be used to demarcate
and protect the lands of indigenous people such as the Awà, affected
by the mining industry. Since then, the Carajas iron mine has become
the world's biggest and most profitable source of iron ore. But the
profits from these ancient Awà hunting grounds go to Sao Paolo and international
stock brokers. Attempts
by Survival International and Brazilian supporters to demarcate their
land have been met by armed ranchers who forced the demarcation teams
away with threats of murder. In December 1998 six Awá from a group
of 10 uncontacted Indians died, most likely from infections introduced
by invading white settlers or hunters. In brief,
the failure of Brazil’s government, the World Bank, the European Union
and the mining corporation CVRD to respect their engagements and ensure
the Indians’ rights has led to the deaths of an unknown number of Awá
and a massive destruction of their lands. My first
peek into the native world of Brazil leaves me with the sad impression
that little has changed since year 1500 when the Portuguese navigator
Amilcar Cabral set foot on the Brazilian coast and used Indian slave labour to extract the resources of the land. In April 2002, twelve years after my
visit, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights highlights the
dangers of extinction threatening the Awá Indian people in the state
of Maranhao. Later
the same year BBC broadcasts a documentary on the Awá and concludes
”What’s at stake now is not just the Awá’s way of life as one of the
last nomadic tribes of hunters in the Amazon – the threat is to their
very existence.” By the
beginning of the following year 2003 the media impact and political
pressure finally bear fruit. The official demarcation of Awá Indian
lands is carried out by the Brazilian federal authorities. 20 year
long struggle by Indian rights activists has finally brought fruit. ERLING SÖDERSTRÖM
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