Before the arrival of Europeans in 1500, Brazil was home to at least 1,000 tribes with a total estimated population of 5 - 13 million people.
Five hundred years of exposure to disease, violence and dispossession
wiped out the vast majority of this indigenous population. Today, there
are around 350,000 Indians in Brazil in over 200 tribes, who live
scattered across the country. Between them they speak a huge number
of languages; 110 of the tribal
languages of Brazil have less than 400 speakers. Brazil's tribes range
in size from the Guarani and Yanomami, who number tens of thousands, to
tribes such as the Akuntsu and Kanoê, who number only a few dozen.
How do they live? Brazil's tribal peoples live in a wide
range of environments - tropical forests, grassland, scrub forest and
semi-desert - and have a wide range of ways of life. Their experience
of contact with European invaders and their descendants also varies
widely: some, such as the Guarani in the dry south, have been in
contact with white people for 500 years; others encountered them far
more recently; and some tribes are effectively uncontacted - the
majority of the world's uncontacted tribes, probably more than 50, live
in Brazil. Most tribes live by a mixture of hunting, gathering, and
growing plants for food, medicine and to make everyday objects.
Probably only the uncontacted Awá and Maku are completely nomadic,
living entirely by hunting and gathering in the Amazon.
What problems do they face? In the 500 years since
Europeans arrived in Brazil, the tribal peoples there have experienced
genocide on a huge scale, and the loss of much of their land. Today,
their land is still taken over for ranches or industrial projects, or
invaded by miners and settlers - and they are still being killed,
whether by diseases encountered when their lands are invaded, by
starvation as they are driven from their hunting grounds, or by the
hitmen who are employed by ranchers and 'landowners' to keep Indians
away. There remains an endemic racism towards Indians in Brazil that
makes all this possible - in law they are still considered minors. The
most important thing for tribal peoples in Brazil is control over their
lands - Brazil is one of only two South American countries that does
not recognise tribal land ownership. If Brazil's tribes were recognised
as the owners of their land, it would give them some real protection
against the individuals and businesses that take over their land,
destroying their livelihood and often destroying them.
How can I help?
Click
here to donate to Survival.
Click
here for a sample letter to send to the Brazilian government.
Click
here to write a letter to your MP or MEP (UK).
Click
here to write to the President, your senators, congressmen or other elected officials (US).
Write a letter to your local Brazilian embassy - click
here to find out the address.
How does Survival help? Survival was first founded in 1969
in response to reports of the genocide of Brazilian Indians, and has
continued to work in Brazil ever since. At any one time, we have a
number of cases in Brazil - our most active work there at the moment is
with the largely uncontacted Awá, the Guarani, the Yanomami and the
Makuxi. On a more general level, we are highlighting Indian objections
to the militarisation of their land and calling on Brazil to recognise
tribal land ownership, as enshrined in two United Nations conventions
which it ratified in 1965 and 2002.
