Our Worlds Are at War

Brazil’s congress is made up of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.—Trans.

A video of this action, an excerpt from the film Índio Cidadão?, is available here: →.—Trans.

Davi Kopenawa, with Bruce Albert, The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman (Harvard University Press, 2013).—Ed.

Sérgio Buarque de Hollanda, Roots of Brazil, trans. G. Harvey Summ (University of Notre Dame Press, 2012).—Trans.

Quoted in Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, The Inconstancy of the Indian Soul: The Encounter of Catholics and Cannibals in 16th-Century Brazil (University of Chicago Press, 2011).—Ed.

Quoted in Pedro Neves Marques, “Introduction: The Forest and the School,” in The Forest and the School: Where to Sit at the Dinner Table? ed. Pedro Neves Marques (Archive Books and Academy of Arts of the World, 2014–15), 27.—Ed.

“It refers to the conception, common to many peoples of the continent, ‘according to which the universe is inhabited by different sorts of persons, human and nonhuman, which apprehend reality from distinct points of view.’” Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, The Relative Native (University of Chicago Press, 2015), 229–30. Quotation also found in de Castro, “Perspectivism and Multinaturalism in Indigenous America,” in The Inconstancy of the Indian Soul.

The reply of Ts'ial-la-kum—who became known as Chief Seattle—to a proposal made in 1854 by the president of the United States, Franklin Pierce, to acquire the lands of the Suquamish and Duwamish Indians, in the present state of Washington, in the far northwestern US. The first version of the famous document—a transcription of the declaration of Ts'ial-la-kum, made by his friend, Dr. Henry Smith—was published in the newspaper Seattle Sunday Star, in 1887.

See →.—Ed.

The Mariana and Brumadinho dams collapsed in 2015 and 2019, respectively. Both dams were made of iron ore rejects, a useless byproduct of mining, and owned by VALE, a Brazilian mining company, one of the biggest companies in the industry. Together, the two accidents killed more than three hundred people and left a trail of environmental destruction that will be around for generations. Here, Ailton refers to the gold prospectors and miners metaphorically, to say that exploiting the land for valuable minerals has always been in conflict with the Amerindian way of life and their rights over the land they have always inhabited, particularly the Krenak people’s way of life in the Doce River basin. The collapse of the Mariana dam is particularly central to the culture of the Krenak people and their recent history, because it deeply affected the whole Doce River valley—the river that, historically, provided their means of living. The Krenak people call the Doce River their grandfather—and now, a dying grandfather.—Ed.

“Botocudos” was a generic denomination the Portuguese colonizers gave to different indigenous groups belonging to the Macro-Jê language stock (a non-Tupi group), of diverse linguistic affiliations and geographic regions, the majority of whom wore botoques, labial and ear piercings. Here, Ailton refers to the indigenous peoples who lived in the region of the Doce River valley, in the present-day states of Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo, considered ancestors of the Krenak people.

“You must consider begun an offensive war against these cannibalistic Indians that you will continue in the dry seasons every year and that will have no end, except when you have the joy of taking possession of their homes and persuading them with the superiority of my royal weapons in such a way that, moved by their rightful terror, they ask for peace, and submitting to the sweet yoke of the Laws and promising to live in society, may become useful vassals, as are the numerous varieties of Indians that, in these, my vast states of Brazil, are villagers and enjoy the happiness that is a necessary consequence of the social state … May all Botocudo Indians who present themselves with their weapons in any attack be considered prisoners of war; and may they be handed over to the service of the respective Commander for ten years, and as long as their ferocity lasts, and they can use them in their private service during that time and keep them with due security, even in iron chains, until they prove they have abandoned their cannibalism and atrocity … and you will inform me, via the Secretary of State for War and Foreign Affairs, of everything that will have happened and that concerns this objective, so that the reduction of the civilization of the Botocudo Indians succeeds, if possible, and of the other races of Indians that I highly recommend to you.” Excerpt from the Carta Régia (Royal Letter) of May 13, 1808 that “mandates making war against the Botocudo Indians.” See →.

More than a century and a half later, the Brazilian state again takes advantage of native peoples to compose its military-repressive apparatus. The Indigenous Rural Guard (GRIN) was created by governmental regulation 231/69, on September 25, 1969, during the Brazilian military-civil dictatorship. It is made up of youth of various indigenous ethnicities, recruited directly in their villages, “with the mission of executing the ostensive policing of Indian reservations.”

The National Constituent Assembly of 1988. Formed by deputies and senators of the Republic, and installed in the National Congress in February of the previous year, it was charged with elaborating a new democratic constitution for Brazil, after the end of the military-civil dictatorship of 1964–85.

Jair Bolsonaro, president of Brazil, referring to the environmental reports of FUNAI—the National Indian Foundation, a government body—which are necessary to the licensing of certain construction projects. This declaration was made on August 12, 2019, during the inauguration of a second lane of highway BR-116, in Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul.

Indigenous land located in the northeast of the state of Roraima, in the region of the borders with Venezuela and Guyana, destined for permanent possession by the indigenous groups Ingaricó, Macuxi, Patamona, Taurepangue, and Uapixana.

In the early hours of April 20, 1997, five youth from the upper class of Brasilia set fire to the indigenous leader Galdino Jesus dos Santos, of the Pataxó-hã-hã-hãe ethnicity. Galdino had come to Brasilia the previous day to discuss questions related to the demarcation of indigenous lands in the south of the state of Bahia, where the Pataxó live. Prevented from entering the boarding house in which he was staying, because of the time, Galdino slept in a bus shelter on South W3 Avenue.

Takrukkrak, meaning “Tall Rock” in the Borún language, is a mountain on the right bank of the Doce River, in the present-day town of Conselheiro Pena, in Minas Gerais, a region occupied ancestrally by the Krenak.

Joseca Yanomami is a contemporary artist, and Cláudia Andujar is a photographer.—Trans.