Native Brazil

How do the lives of indigenous peoples relate to the romanticized role of "Indians" in Brazilian history, politics, and cultural production? Native and National in Brazil charts this enigmatic relationship from the sixteenth century to the present, focusing on the consolidation of the dominant national imaginary in the postindependence period and highlighting Native peoples' ongoing work to decolonize it. Engaging issues ranging from sovereignty, citizenship, and national security to the revolutionary potential of art, sustainable development, and the gendering of ethnic differences, Tracy Devine Guzman argues that the tensions between popular renderings of "Indianness" and lived indigenous experience are critical to the unfolding of Brazilian nationalism, on the one hand, and the growth of the Brazilian indigenous movement, on the other. Devine Guzmán suggests that the "indigenous question" now posed by Brazilian indigenous peoples themselves-how to be Native and national at the same time-can help us to rethink national belonging in accordance with the protection of human rights, the promotion of social justice, and the consolidation of democratic governance for indigenous and nonindigenous citizens alike.

This volume is a significant contribution to understanding the ways Brazil's native peoples shaped their own histories.

This book unveils an ignored aspect of the Brazilian history: how the colonization of the country shaped the sexuality of its indigenous population. Based on textual research, the authors show how the government and religious institutions gradually imposed the family model considered as "normal" to Brazilian indigenous gays through forced labor, punishment, marriages with non-indigenous and other methods. However, such disciplinary practices didn’t prevent the resistance of the natives whose sexuality operates out of the hegemonic model, and the book also analyzes the impact of these forms of dissent on the development of indigenous movements, interethnic relations and indigenous policies in Brazil. Building upon Post-Colonial and Queer theories, the authors present a historical overview of the ideas and practices employed by the religious and governmental authorities to repress homosexuality among indigenous peoples since the beginning of the colonization process, on the 16th century. They also show how this process of colonization of indigenous sexualities goes beyond the formal colonization period, which ended with the Brazilian Independence in 1822, and is part of a wider process of compulsory heterosexualization and heteronormativity of native peoples, based on scientific, theological, social and cultural assumptions that inspired religious, civilizing, academic and political practices throughout Brazilian history.

This volume is a significant contribution to understanding the ways Brazil's native peoples shaped their own histories.

The Yanomami and Kayapó, two indigenous groups of the Amazon rainforest, have become internationally known through their dramatic and highly publicized encounters with “civilization.” Both groups struggle to transcend internal divisions, preserve their traditional culture, and defend their land from depredation, while seeking to benefit from the outside world, yet their prospects for the future seem very different. Placing each group in its historical context, Linda Rabben examines the relationship of the Kayapó and Yanomami to Brazilian society and the wider world. She combines academic research with a wide variety of sources, including celebrated leaders Paulinho Payakan and Davi Kopenawa, to assess how each group has responded to outside incursions. This book is a substantially revised edition of Unnatural Selection: The Yanomami, the Kayapó, and the Onslaught of Civilization, originally published in 1998, and includes a new chapter examining the controversy for anthropologists studying the Yanomami following the publication of Patrick Tierney’s book Darkness in El Dorado. Another new chapter focuses on the resurgence of Northeastern indigenous groups previously thought extinct. The magnitude and significance of indigenous movements has increased greatly, and a new generation of Brazilian indigenous leaders, proficient in Portuguese, is participating in the national political arena. Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2005

The earliest European accounts of Brazil’s indigenous inhabitants focused on the natives’ startling appearance and conduct—especially their nakedness and cannibalistic rituals—and on the process of converting them to clothed, docile Christian vassals. This volume contributes to the unfinished task of moving beyond such polarities and dispelling the stereotypes they fostered, which have impeded scholars’ ability to make sense of Brazil’s rich indigenous past. This volume is a significant contribution to understanding the ways Brazil’s native peoples shaped their own histories. Incorporating the tools of anthropology, geography, cultural studies, and literary analysis, alongside those of history, the contributors revisit old sources and uncover new ones. They examine the Indians’ first encounters with Portuguese explorers and missionaries and pursue the consequences through four centuries. Some of the peoples they investigate were ultimately defeated and displaced by the implacable advance of settlement. Many individuals died from epidemics, frontier massacres, and forced labor. Hundreds of groups eventually disappeared as distinct entities. Yet many others found ways to prolong their independent existence or to enter colonial and later national society, making constrained but pivotal choices along the way.

Indigenous people comprise only 0.2% of Brazil's population, yet occupy a prominent role in the nation's consciousness. In her important and passionate new book, anthropologist Alcida Ramos explains this irony, exploring Indian and non-Indian attitudes about interethnic relations. Ramos contends that imagery about indigenous people reflects an ambivalence Brazil has about itself as a nation, for Indians reveal Brazilians' contradiction between their pride in ethnic pluralism and desire for national homogeneity. Based on her more than thirty years of fieldwork and activism on behalf of the Yanomami Indians, Ramos explains the complex ideology called indigenism. She evaluates its meaning through the relations of Brazilian Indians with religious and lay institutions, non-governmental organizations, official agencies such as the National Indian Foundation as well as the very discipline of anthropology. Ramos not only examines the imagery created by Brazilians of European descent--members of the Catholic church, government officials, the army and the state agency for Indian affairs--she also scrutinizes Indians' own self portrayals used in defending their ethnic rights against the Brazilian state. Ramos' thoughtful and complete analysis of the relation between indigenous people of Brazil and the state will be of great interest to lawmakers and political theorists, environmental and civil rights activists, developmental specialists and policymakers, and those concerned with human rights in Latin America.

DIVHow the Xavante Indians have reshaped the Brazilian government’s policies of nationalism and assimiliation./div