Indigenous peoples in Brazil

The Indigenous peoples in Brazil (povos indígenas in Portuguese) comprise a large number of distinct ethnic groups who inhabited the country's present territory prior to its discovery by Europeans around 1500. Unlike Christopher Columbus, who thought he had reached the East Indies, the Portuguese had already reached India via the Indian Ocean route when they reached Brazil. Nevertheless the word índios ("Indians"), was by then established to designate the peoples of the New World and stuck still being used today in Brazil.

At the time of European discovery, the indigenous peoples were traditionally mostly semi-nomadic tribes who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, and migrant agriculture. Many of the estimated 2000 nations and tribes which existed in 1500 died out as a consequence of the European settlement, and many were assimilated into the Brazilian population. The indigenous population has declined from a pre-Columbian high of an estimated at below 4 million to some 300,000 (1997), grouped into some 200 tribes. A somewhat dated linguistic survey ^[1] found 188 living indigenous languages with 155,000 total speakers. On 18 January 2007, FUNAI reported that it had confirmed the presence of 67 different uncontacted tribes in Brazil, up from 40 in 2005. With this addition Brazil has now overtaken the island of New Guinea as the country having the largest number of uncontacted peoples.

Brazilian indigenous people made substantial and pervasive contributions to the country's material and cultural development—such as the domestication of cassava, which is still a major staple food in rural areas of the country.

In the last IBGE census (2000), 700,000 Brazilians classified themselves as indigenous.

Origins

The origins of these indigenous peoples are still a matter of dispute among archaeologists. The traditional view, which traces them to Siberian migration to America at the end of the last ice age, has been increasingly challenged by South American archaeologists.

The Siberian Ice Age hypothesis

Anthropological and genetic evidence indicates that most Native American peoples descended from migrant peoples from North Asia (Siberia) who entered America across the Bering Strait in at least three separate waves. In Brazil, particularly, most native tribes who were living in the land by 1500 are thought to be descended from the first wave of migrants, who are believed to have crossed the so-called Bering Land Bridge at the end of the last Ice Age, around 9000 BC.

A migrant wave around 9000 BC would have reached Brazil around 6000 BC, probably entering the Amazon River basin from the Northwest. (The second and third migratory waves from Siberia, which are thought to have generated the Athabaskan and Eskimo peoples, apparently did not reach farther than the southern United States and Canada, respectively.)

The American Aborigines hypothesis

The traditional view above has recently been challenged by findings of human remains in South America, which are claimed to be too old to fit this scenario—perhaps even 20,000 years old. Some recent finds (notably the Luzia skeleton in Lagoa Santa) are claimed to be morphologically distinct from the Asian genotype and are more similar to African and Australian Aborigines. These American Aborigines would have been later displaced or absorbed by the Siberian immigrants. The distinctive natives of Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of the American continent, may have been the last remains of those Aboriginal populations.

These early immigrants would have either crossed the ocean on boat, or traveled North along the Asian coast and entered America through the Bering Strait area, well before the Siberian waves. This theory is still resisted by many scientists chiefly because of the apparent difficulty of the trip.

Archaeological remains

Virtually all the surviving archaeological evidence about the pre-history of Brazil dates from the period after the Asian migratory waves. Brazilian natives, unlike those in Mesoamerica and the western Andes, did not keep written records or erect stone monuments, and the humid climate and acidic soil have destroyed almost all traces of their material culture, including wood and bones. Therefore, what is known about the region's history before 1500 has been inferred and reconstructed from small-scale archaeological evidence, such as pottery and stone arrowheads.

The most conspicuous remains of pre-discovery societies are very large mounds of discarded shellfish (sambaquís) found in some coastal sites which were continuously inhabited for over 5,000 years; and the substantial "black earth" (terra preta) deposits in several places along the Amazon, which are believed to be ancient garbage dumps (middens). Recent excavations of such deposits in the middle and upper course of the Amazon have uncovered remains of some very large settlements, containing tens of thousands of homes, indicating a complex social and economical structure.

The natives after the European colonization

First contacts

Depiction of cannibalism in the Brazilian tupinamba tribe, as described by Hans Staden

When the Portuguese discoverers arrived for the first time in Brazil, in April 1500 they found, to their astonishment, a widely inhabited coastland, teeming with hundreds of thousands of indigenous people living in a "paradise" of natural riches. Pero Vaz de Caminha, the official scribe of Pedro Alvares Cabral, the commander of the discovery fleet which landed in the present state of Bahia, wrote a letter to the King of Portugal describing in glowing terms the beauty of the land. The natives at the site of landing were Not peaceful or kind the strangers well. However, many Portuguese sailors were murdered by Tupi warriors.

Slavery and the Bandeiras

The mutual feeling of wonderment and good relationship was to end in the succeeding years. The Portuguese colonists, all males, started to have children with female natives, creating a new generation of mixed-race people who spoke Indian languages (in the city of São Paulo in the first years after her foundation, a tupi language (nheengatu= easy language) was the language of every day and of every one). The children of these Portuguese men and Indian women formed the majority of the population. Groups of fierce conquistadores' sons, sometimes under the leadership of one of themselves, organized expeditions called "bandeiras" (flags) into the backlands to claim the land to the Portuguese crown and to look for gold and precious stones.

The indigenous people were soon infected by diseases brought by the Europeans against which they had no natural immunity, and began dying in enormous numbers. Indigenous man could not be made to assimilate any agricultural or other knowledge so the Portuguese had to start importing black slaves from Africa.

The Jesuits

The Jesuit priests, who had come with the first Governor General to provide for religious assistance to the colonists, but mainly to convert the "pagan" peoples to Catholicism, took the side of the natives and extracted a Papal bull stating that they were human and should be protected.

Jesuit priests such as fathers José de Anchieta and Manoel da Nóbrega studied and recorded their language and founded mixed settlements, such as São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga, where colonists and natives lived side by side, speaking the same Língua Geral (common language) and freely interbred. They began also to establish more remote villages peopled only by civilized natives, called Missiones, or reductions (see the article on the Guarani people for more details).

Indian wars

A number of wars between several tribes, such as the Tamoio Confederation, and the Portuguese ensued, sometimes with the natives siding with enemies of Portugal, such as the French, in the famous episode of France Antarctique in Rio de Janeiro, sometimes allying themselves to Portugal in their fight against other tribes. At approximately the same period, a German soldier, Hans Staden, was captured by the Tupinamba and released after a while. He described it in a famous book.

Government protection

In the 20th century, the Brazilian Government adopted a more humanitarian attitude and offered official protection to the indigenous people, including the establishment of the first Indian reserves. The National Indian Service (today the FUNAI, or Fundação Nacional do Índio) was established by Cândido Rondon, a Bororo Indian himself and a military officer of the Brazilian Army. The remaining unacculturated tribes have been contacted by FUNAI, and accommodated within Brazilian society in varying degrees. However, the exploration of rubber and other Amazonic natural resources led to a new cycle of invasion, expulsion, massacres and death, which continues to this day.

Major ethnic groups

For complete list see List of Indigenous peoples in Brazil

References

^ Rodrigues 1985

External links

[1] Rodrigues 1985

[1]