Christopher Biggs
Wilson
Intro to Composition
6 February 2018
Population downgrade of Brazilian Indians
In today’s day and age there are over 200 tribes living in Brazil which is around .4% of
Brazil's population. Brazil’s indigenous people have been marked by brutality, slavery, violence,
disease and genocide. When the first European colonists arrived in 1500, which is now Brazil, it
was inhabited by an estimated 11 million indigenous people. Which is living in about 2,000
tribes. Within the first century of contact 90% were wiped out. Due to diseases brought in the
country by the colonists. In the following centuries thousands died even more, enslaved in the
rubber and sugar cane plantations. Is how most of the population died brutally. Similar to Brazil,
The United States also has issues with population There are over 500 federally recognized tribes
within the U.S., about half of which are associated with Indian reservations. Native Americans
were greatly affected by the European colonization of the Americas, which began in 1492, and
their population declined precipitously due to introduced diseases, warfare, and slavery.
According to “Brazilian Indians (survival)”, today’s tribes can consist of one man to almost
20,000 men. Most tribes live entirely off the forests, savannas, and rivers by doing a mixture of
activities. They grow plants for food and medicine and use them to build houses and make
everyday objects. In “2017 index of economic freedom (The heritage family)” Brazil is the
world’s fifth-largest country, is dominated by the Amazon River basin and the world’s largest
rainforest, Which is where the indigenous people and their tribes are living now. The population
of more than 200 million is heavily concentrated on the coast.
There was a record book created by federal prosecutor, Jader Figueiredo, that was around
seven thousand pages recording thousands of crimes committed against the Indians. Personally,
having a book written during those times is very useful due to having someone give their pure
emotions. Rather than having a writer in today’s age, assuming what it must have been like.
Each of the books included murder, land theft , and enslavement of the Brazilians. According to
“Brazilian Indians (survival)”, “In one notorious case known as ‘The massacre of the 11th
parallel’, a rubber baron ordered his men to hurl sticks of dynamite into a Cinta Larga village.
Those who survived were murdered when rubber workers entered the village on foot and attacked
them with machetes.” This report made headlines internationally, then later led to the returning of
the government’s Indian Protection Service, the national indian foundation is what it was replaced
with. This is still the government of the indigenous affairs department today.
Centuries ago Europeans arrived in Brazil, which is when the tribes and their people have
experienced genocide on a serious scale. Having this new culture come into their homeland is a
new challenge they needed to face. Unfortunately they weren’t able to put up much of a fight.
With these Europeans arriving, it meant there was a massive killing spree on these natives and
their homes. The killing sprees was one of the most damaging to these indigenous people. At this
point, i think that this were the indigenous people started to lose faith and fall apart. When the
Amazon was opened up for development by the military in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, New
hydroelectric dams, cattle ranching, mines and roads. With this happening the people lost their
homes and lifestyle. I came to the conclusion that this is how people lost their homes and lifestyle
as tribe. The bond that came from their landscape was just taken away from them after centuries.
Getting rid of the tribes environment, caused the disappearance of the tribes. What’s interesting is
that they died in one of the most painful ways. The indigenous died not having a shelter, dealing
with mother nature and having to hunt for food.
The group named “Yanomami” near 35,000 indigenous people who live in some of over
200 villages Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Yanomami health lifestyle is suffering and critical
medical care is not reaching them as much as it should. The Brazilian congress is currently
debating a bill. If the bill is approved it will pass large-scale mining, in the territories of the
indigenous people. This will be extremely damaging to the Yanomami and other remote tribes in
Brazil. Reason being because, they will lose their homes and will have no other place to live
which then later ends with them passing away. According to “Brazilian Indians (survival)”, “Davi
Kopenawa, a Yanomami spokesman and President of Hutukara Yanomami Association, warns of
the dangers.” This includes, ‘The Yanomami people do not want the national congress to approve
the law or the president to sign it. We do not want to accept this law.’‘Our land has to be
respected. Our land is our heritage, a heritage which protects us’‘Mining will only destroy nature.
It will only destroy the streams and the rivers and kill the fish and kill the environment – and kill
us. And bring in diseases which never existed in our land. ’ “Brazilian Indians (survival)”. What
this shows is that they are aware of their issues but what’s sad is that need to address the problems
to everyone because if they dont they will not prepare and will end up suffering.
In the 1980s, many tribes suffered immensely when Forty thousand Brazilian gold miners
invaded the indigenous’ land. They were killed by the miners either shot them, destroyed their
villages, or exposed them to diseases, which they had no medicines or vaccines for. Twenty
percent of the the tribes died in a span of seven years. After an international campaign led by
Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, Survival and the Pro Yanomami Commission, Yanomami land in
Brazil was finally demarcated as the ‘Yanomami Park’ in 1992. Due to this happening it expelled
the minors. However, after the demarcation the gold-miners returned, then which created that
tension once again. In the end, the tension was a sign of negative once again.
One incident after the minors returned in 1993 was when the miners entered the village of
Haximú and murdered 16 Yanomami including a baby. This shows how serious they were in
killing these people, they stoop so low that they killed an infant. After an outcry according to
“Brazilian Indians (survival)”, “Brazilian court found five miners guilty of genocide. Two are
serving jail sentences whilst the others escaped. This is one of the few cases anywhere in the
world where a court has convicted people of genocide. The gold mining invasion of Yanomami
land continues.” This shows that the mission of the minors will not give up until they eliminated
almost every tribe member.
In comparison, the situation in Venezuela is just as serious. In Brazil it has been happening
for several years, to say that it is as serious as in Brazil means it is very significant. The
authorities have done little to resolve these problems. Indians in Brazil still do not have proper
ownership rights over their land. The government refuses to recognize tribal land ownership,
despite having signed the international law guaranteeing it. Moreover, many figures within the
Brazilian establishment would like to see the Yanomami area reduced in size and opened up to
mining, ranching and colonisation. To make things even worse, the Brazilian army has built
barracks in the Yanomami heartlands, which has increased tensions. Soldiers have prostituted
Yanomami women, some of whom have been infected with sexually transmitted diseases. Which
then introduced these diseases to the tribes. In the end, the minors really took a toll on these tribes
negatively which lead into the tribe being done with.
Tasks in the Brazilian culture are divided between the sexes. Men hunt for game, for
example peccary, tapir, deer and monkey, and often use a plant extract to poison their prey.
Although hunting accounts for only 10% of the tribes food, amongst men it is considered the most
prestigious of skills and meat is greatly valued by everyone. Meat is an important food source that
mostly everyone in the tribe eats, reason being because hunting is one of the most useful way of
getting food in take. A tradition within the tribe is that no hunter ever eats the meat that they have
killed. Instead, he shares it out among friends and family. In return it will happen to him back.
In regards of Women, they tend to garden where they grow around 60 crops. Sixty crops
counts as eighty percent of their food, right aside with meat. Woman also collect nuts, shellfish,
and insect larvae. Wild honey is a very popular and is highly prized. Woman in the tribe harvest
15 different kinds of that specific honey. Both men and women fish. Fish poison is a very useful
tool to be used on fishing trips. Their boats are made up from vines that float in the water, these
are made by groups of men, women and children. According to “Brazilian Indians (survival)”,
The way the liquid poison works is it stuns the fish, which makes the fish rise to the water’s
surface and are scooped up in baskets. Then they use numerous species of vine just for fish
poisoning. The Yanomami have a lot of knowledge and use about five hundred plants that is all
used for food, medicine, house building and other artefacts .The tribe provides for themselves
partly by hunting, gathering and fishing, but crops are also grown in large gardens cleared from
the forest. Since the forest’s soil is not very fertile the garden is remade every 2-3 years.
A fact about the tribes is that mostly woman believe strongly in equality among people.
Within the tribe chiefs are not seen as a tradition. Decisions are made by consensus, after long
debates where everybody has a say. Rather then it being past down from son to son, like a normal
tradition in a tribe. In 2004, Woman from 11 regions in Brazil met to form their own
organization . It was called Hutukara, meaning a part of the sky that that the earth was born. The
purpose was to defend their rights and run their own projects. As a result of their increasing
contact with outsiders, the Woman and a Brazilian NGO, set up a Yanomami education project.
What this aims for is to raise awareness amongst the Woman of their rights. Yanomami teachers
are being trained to teach reading, writing and maths in their communities. Other Yanomami have
been trained as health agents by Urihi, a healthcare NGO. Regarding the indigenous peoples
health care, in 2004 the Brazilian government’s National Health Foundation took charge of
Yanomami health care. “Brazilian Indians (survival)”. Since then, the woman have increasingly
denounced the chaotic health care system. Medicines and vital equipment are not reaching
communities stricken by malaria and other diseases, and Yanomami are dying. In the end, Woman
in Venezuela formed their own organization called ‘Horonami’ in the year 2011 to defend their
rights.
In conclusion, the tribes are consisted of self protection, self work and an overall self
lifestyle. They are very smart when it come to home remedies for medicine and food. Even
though, their population has gone down tremendously due to hardships of the killing sprees. The
tribe lives on thriving after everything they have gone through.
Work Cited
“Brazil.” Brazil Economy: Facts, Population, GDP, Inflation, Business, Trade, Corruption,
www.heritage.org/index/country/ Brazil .
International, Survival. “Brazilian Indians.” Brazilian Indians - Survival International,
www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/ Brazil ian .
“Native Americans in the United States.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 25 Jan. 2018,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States.
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