Brazilian Father Brings Modern Family to Live Among his Primitive
Indian Roots
3/9/00
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Linked to the Land: Brazilian father brings modern family
to live among his primitive Indian roots
Source: Washington Post
Status: Copyright 2000, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: March 9, 2000
Byline: Stephen Buckley
Ilha do Bananal, Brazil -- As the dance of the Spirit Who Lives in
the Water begins, 10-year-old Nahuria Karaja buries her face in her
mother's lap.
She doesn't want to watch another 10-year-old girl, nearly naked with
decorative black lines across her coppery skin, dance with two men in
straw masks in this Indian village of Santa Isabel. But the dance --
a ritual at the heart of the identity of Nahuria's father, Idjarruri,
and his Ancestors -- proceeds nonetheless. The men in the straw
masks, shaking maracas and chanting, meet the girl, all black hair
and downcast eyes, in the center of the path. They dance, separated
by only a few inches.
``This is very much ours,'' says Idjarruri. ``This goes beyond 300
years of contact'' with the outside world.
As the men dance with the girl, Adais Karaja whispers to her daughter
that, no, ``you won't have to do it.''
This disconnect between a tradition-loving father and his citified,
globalized daughter has complicated Idjarruri Karaja's dramatic
attempt to restore simplicity and tradition to his modern life.
Five years ago, Idjarruri, 36, and wife Adais, 37, left Brasilia, the
capital, for this 180-mile-long island, bounded by two rivers, in the
heart of Brazil. The island had 3,000 people, 12 villages, few
phones, little electricity and no computers.
Their sons and daughter had grown up in Brazil's big cities, familiar
with the latest in technology. Could they possibly thrive where their
father and his six siblings had grown up -- here, in a hut in a
village with a handful of cars, no mall and no movie theaters?
In 1993, Idjarruri had returned to the land of his tribe, the Karaja,
to build a new village he called Txuiri. His children, who knew
neither the tribe's central myths nor its language, felt little
connection to the island.
But Idjarruri wanted them to know their land, the possession the
Karaja cherish above all else. The land where thousands of their
ancestors had shed blood, fighting colonists and other tribes. The
patrimony, he called it.
Idjarruri wasn't suddenly anti-globalization. He spoke of computers
and faxes and television as ``exchanges,'' a return favor for what
the Indians had taught the Portuguese about taking regular baths and
hammocks and fishing.
But he knew that such exchanges could be dangerous. The glare and
chatter of television, the easy grasp of commercial goods, the
ubiquitous sweep of technology could whittle away one's sense of
home.
His mantra today is ``Neither isolation nor integration.'' Yet, in
the new millennium, the question for the Karaja and other indigenous
groups worldwide is this: Having survived four centuries of neglect
and oppression at the hands of colonizers and their own leaders, how
will they negotiate a more subtle but no less critical challenge --
the amorphous, unrelenting force known as globalization?
---- --
Brazil's Indians already have waged a 500-year war against
globalization. So it's no wonder that they've become an international
symbol of native peoples' struggle to stave off change. Images of
startled, isolated, naked Indians with shiny, black-haired bowl cuts
and primitive weapons have become a late-20th century cliche.
The Karaja are among the poorest tribes; their island is among the
least developed of the nation's 187 indigenous territories. The
Karaja, who lived across north-central Brazil, have seen their
numbers tumble from 45,000 earlier this century to roughly 3,000
today.
``The Karaja were absolutely devastated by contact,'' said John
Hemming, an expert on Brazil's Indians. From campaigns of enslavement
to the stripping of their land, the Indians saw their culture
shredded by colonizing Portuguese and Brazilian adventurers.
Over the years -- through Brazil's rubber boom, the discovery of gold
and diamonds, and the construction of a road network through the
Amazon -- the Indians' yearning to retain their land and values has
collided repeatedly with the development blueprints of multinational
corporations and Brazilian regimes.
While numerous groups remain isolated or semi-isolated, far more
Indians have meshed into Brazilian society. Today, many speak
Portuguese, sometimes at the expense of their tribal tongue. More
wear oxfords and khakis than grass skirts and loincloths.
Brazilian Indians want change -- but on their terms. They're
grappling with how to use globalization to affirm their values,
rather than be enslaved all over again.
-----
Idjarruri Karaja embodies that struggle. By the time he returned to
the Ilha do Bananal, his serious demeanor and his blazing, dark brown
eyes had become well known among Indians. In the past, he has toiled
for Indian rights to education, land and work and helped organize a
meeting in Rio de Janeiro of indigenous peoples from around the
world.
Today in Idjarruri's house, a computer with a 200-megahertz Pentium
processor sits on a table with a printer, phone and old gray
telephone-fax machine.
Nearby, in front of a dingy, cracking vinyl couch, sits a color
television; on a shelf above, there are movies: ``Anastasia,'' ``Mad
Max 2,'' ``Final Judgment.''
Idjarrina, 17, whose bedroom door sports the typical teenager's
``Don't Enter'' sign under a skull and crossbones, has a stereo
system. His brother Idjawala, 15, has one too.
One Sunday morning, Nahuria, all bright eyes and giggles, is on the
couch, watching ``Ghostbusters.'' She loves cartoons. She loves TV.
She is embarrassed to admit she watches it a good three hours a day.
Her father always tells them that they as individuals and the Karaja
as a people must become economically viable, that computers, TV and
fax machines are just a beginning.
``The people in the world who get respect are those who are
economically strong,'' he says. ``I've tried to prepare my children
for this. It's hard to tell someone that their culture is important
if they don't know if they're going to eat tomorrow.''
By culture, Idjarruri means land. Language and myth may be critical
parts of any culture, but it is land that has bound indigenous people
together. Language disconnected from land loses much of its unifying
power and eventually dies. Myths that explain who the Karaja are
would lose their meaning without a sense of place.
The land brought them food, through hunting, gathering and fishing.
The land was their source of healing, through its plants and herbs.
That land, on the eastern edge of the Amazon rain forest, is a place
bursting with mango trees and palms and thousands of cattle. Rivers
teem with fish -- from the tiny, fierce piranha to the gargantuan
pirarucu, one of which can feed a whole village.
Txuiri is a little less than an hour's drive from the nearest town.
Most of the villages are at least two or three hours from towns.
Someday soon, Idjarruri's sons will leave. Idjarrina plans to earn a
law degree. Idjawala plans to become a veterinarian. The question is
whether they will return.
It's hard to overstate how badly Idjarruri wants his children to stay
on the island. He says he might even prevent them from marrying the
person they love if they're not of the Karaja.
But many years ago, his own father tried to do just that. When
Idjarruri asked his parents for permission to wed Adais, who has
European and Indian blood, he explained that so few Karaja women had
a secondary education, he would never meet one who could match his
intellectual curiosity. They agreed.
Today, Idjarruri says that since anyone who marries his children
would thus have a claim to tribal land -- and since the land must
remain in the hands of the Karaja -- he expects his sons to honor his
wishes. ``It's not racism,'' he says. ``It's protecting our
patrimony.''