Translated
by Auri Claudionei Matos Frübel
At
present, there are around 220 Indian groups in Brazil,
living along the whole country, except in Piauí
and Rio Grande do Norte States. Altogether, the Brazilian
natives are more than 700.000 individuals. Although
they are a live expression of the rich Brazilian sociodiversity,
unfortunately the Indian peoples who live here are not
known very well. Some of them do not speak their native
language anymore, they use Portuguese in their daily
life, but about 180 different Indian languages are still
spoken in the country these days. |
Giovani José
da Silva |
Thus,
the stereotypical image of the Indian who speaks Tupi-Guarani,
who lives in ocas (their typical home), loves the sun and
the moon, sleeps in a hammock, etc., is disfigured and cannot
explain the current life of the Atikum, Baniwa, Kaingang,
Paresi, Xakriabá and several other Indian peoples who
have very different customs and at the same time are identified
by the involved population as “Indians”.
In
this aspect, the soap opera Alma Gêmea (Twin Soul)
is very important for presenting, on the Brazilian television,
a very credible characterization of the Indians’
life in the first half of the 20TH century. The inspiring
fountain of this characterization was a Kadiwéu
society, living in the Pantanal Sul-mato-grossense region
and known in the past as the group of “Indian
riders”. There is a very extensive bibliography
about these natives besides studies of several travellers
and anthropologists who lived with them in the most
recent centuries. |
Giovani, André (the author's assistant), Carlos
Eduardo (Fundação Getúlio Vargas)
and Jorge Fernando (director of the soap opera Alma
Gêmea). |
The Kadiwéu people speak a language of the Guaikuru
linguistic family and have very peculiar characteristics if
compared with other Indians. They form a stratified society,
having “nobles” and “slaves”. The
language they speak shows a genre variation, i.e., differences
between the male and female speech. Furthermore, they are
able to breed bovine and equine animals and the women are
excellent ceramists. Traditionally, their survival depended
on the hunting and collection. Nowadays, they also consume
industrialized products.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, they have a demarcated
territory, the current Reserva Indigena Kadiwéu (Kadiwéu
Indian Reserve), located in Porto Murtinho Town, Mato Grosso
do Sul State, having around 538.536 hectares, the Reserve
is the largest Indian area in the Brazilian South Centre and
during the 20th century it was attacked by farmers who tried
to exterminate the Kadiwéu. Demographic data show that
in the end of the 19th century there were less than 200 natives.
In the half of the 20th century, Darcy Ribeiro registered
only 235 individuals. Around five years ago a census carried
out in five villages of the Reserve counted about 1.300 Kadiwéu
Indians.
As many other Brazilian natives, the Kadiwéu are victims
of discrimination and prejudice by part of the non-indigenous
society. The Indians are generally seen as lazy, indolent
and drunken people or that they were supposed to live like
they did five centuries ago. It is true that the Indians have
problems with alcoholism, suicides, etc. and most of them
have lost their traditional characteristics and culture. However,
all this reality has to be understood in a context of a contact,
generally disastrous, that the groups had with the non-indigenous
people.
Knowing
more deeply the social and cultural plurality of these more
than 200 native peoples ensures the creation of a network
of information and collaboration in order to make possible
that the Indians can continue living, reproducing as physically
as culturally according to the characteristics of each group.
Showing the initial trajectory of Ewiidi (Serena, the
character of Priscila Fantin), in a village inspired
on the Kadiwéu, with the Festa da Moça
(The Girl’s Party), the dances, the facial and
corporal paints, the homes (diimigi instead ocas!),
the clothing (chiripá instead tanga! –
tanga is a kind of loincloth), the cure ritual, the
Indian school, all the team of Alma Gêmea and
Rede Globo are right.
|
Priscila
Fantin,
actress playing the role of Ewiidi in Alma Gêmea,
and Giovani |
Although it is fiction, most of what people are going to see
on the television screen after next June is very similar to
the reality lived by these Indians in a near past. Most of
the customs presented, the gestures and the behaviour were
created in Carrancas, Minas Gerais State and in Bonito, Mato
Grosso do Sul State, are really well-done, but, mainly, credible.
I am very proud for participating in this unique professional
experience with the directors, assistants, technicians, cast,
in short, all the participants of the plot beginning. I know
that this entire journey caused reactions of charm and surprise
among those involved in the recordings (where are the Indians
whose we learned in our school manuals?). I really hope that
these reactions get the public that will watch Alma Gêmea
from the next month ahead.
I
also hope that most of the viewers strange the absence
of the feathers, the cocars, the tangas, the Indian
“Touro Sentado (Sitting Bull)” and many
other caricatures which are told about the Brazilian
Indian and that they charm with the beauty of an ancestral
culture that takes part in the history of our country. |
Giovani
teaching his Kadiwéu students |
After
all, we have to understand that the Indians are not better
or worse than us, they are only different, and that we can
learn a lot with them, even about ourselves!
*
Giovani José da Silva, 33 anos, paulista
e paulistano, mora atualmente em Goiânia, Goiás,
onde realiza estudos de Pós-Graduação
(Doutorado) em História na Universidade Federal de
Goiás (UFG), sob a orientação da antropóloga
Joana Fernandes. Há quinze anos realiza estudos de
campo entre sociedades indígenas de Mato Grosso e Mato
Grosso do Sul, na região do Pantanal. Foi vencedor
do Prêmio Victor Civita 2001 - Professor Nota 10 (Melhor
Professor da Escola Pública do Brasil), II Prêmio
Mostra PUC-Rio/ Petrobrás - Categoria Ciências
Sociais 2002, III Prêmio Mostra PUC-Rio - Categoria
Teologia e Ciências Humanas 2003 e 2º Prêmio
Educar para a Igualdade Racial - Categoria Ensino Médio
2004. Atualmente é consultor da Rede Globo de Televisão
e prepara um livro, juntamente com a jornalista Roberta Bencini,
sobre suas aventuras no Pantanal entre os índios. Oyatogoteloco
(in Kadiwéu language my name means “the light
that shines to the distance”)
Translation/Tradução:
Auri Claudionei Matos Frübel, professor efetivo da Universidade
Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS), vinculado ao Departamento
de Letras, do Campus de Aquidauana e Doutorando em Lingüística
pela Universidade Estadual Paulista - UNESP - Campus de Araraquara.
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