The last member of an indigenous tribe besieged in Brazil has died of herbal causes. Activists offer their legacy as a symbol of the genocide and resistance of their people, and call for the preservation of their land as a reminder of both.
Little is known about the man, whose death was announced over the weekend by Funai, Brazil’s federal indigenous affairs firm. He is the only inhabitant of the Tanaru indigenous territory in the western Amazonian state of Rondonia.
Their ethnicity, language and calling remain a mystery. But its uniqueness, and decades of isolation, have earned it greater popularity in Brazil and beyond. with pointed stakes inside), and he can be seen cutting down a tree with an axe-shaped tool in a video captured by a government team in 2018.
The rest of his tribe was likely massacred in attacks perpetrated by gunmen hired through settlers and herders dating back to the 1970s, according to Survival International, a London-based human rights organization that advocates for indigenous and remote peoples. Since then, he has resisted every intentos. al tact and “made it clear that he was just looking to be left alone,” Fiona Watson, Survival’s director of studies and advocacy, said in a statement.
“No outsider knew this man’s name, not even much about his tribe, and with his death, the genocide of his other relatives is complete,” Watson added. cattle ranchers hungry for land and wealth. “
Funai believes the man died for herbal reasons and ordered a report from the federal examiner to verify this.
His body was discovered in a hammock inside his hut last Tuesday by a circular of federal control and territorial surveillance, the firm added. There were no signs of violence or fighting, no signs that other people were on the scene or in nearby forests. .
The Guardian reports that a Funai official tracking the man’s well-being from afar discovered his decomposing body with colourful feathers placed around it, perhaps indicating that the man was ready to die. The official estimated his age at about 60 years.
Dozens of deserted camps suggest the guy had moved over the years. Funai said the cabin he discovered in 53 of those he had followed over the past 26 years. It was architecturally similar to those that preceded it, made of straw and thatched roof. , and with a single door and an interior edition of the holes I used to dig.
The holes were probably there alone on the occasion of an attack, according to Survival International. The nonprofit also said the guy planted corn, cassava, papaya and bananas, as well as catching animals with his stake traps.
Funai has become aware of the men’s lifestyle in the 1990s after finding evidence of destroyed farm plots and houses dragged by tractors. The company fenced a domain so that the man could live quietly and then officially created the Tanaru Reserve. in 2007.
The territory of Tanaru “presents itself as a small forest island in a sea of vast ranches of farm animals, in one of the regions of maximum violence in Brazil,” according to Survival. It attributes to the area’s herders, who opposed the government’s efforts for land.
Following the man’s death, environmental activists are calling for the reserve to be preserved as a monument to indigenous genocide.
One such organization is the Observatory on the Human Rights of Isolated and Newly Contacted Persons (OPI). In a statement, he also called for the man’s body to be respectable and promptly returned to indigenous territory, and for the land to remain closed until archaeological excavations are carried out. and anthropological studies can be carried out.
The roughly 20,000-acre reserve is one of seven Brazilian territories through land cover orders, which President Jair Bolsonaro has long campaigned to abolish. Bolsonaro, who is due to be re-elected in October, argues that indigenous Brazilians own too much land.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said earlier this month that Brazil has pursued policies that “seriously threaten” the rights of indigenous peoples.
Invasions and illegal extraction of herbal resources on Brazil’s indigenous lands have tripled since Bolsonaro took office in 2019, according to a report released over the weekend by the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI). The Christian advocacy organization said 305 such incidents occurred in 2021. of 109 in 2018.
In contrast to this backdrop, a record 181 applicants who, as indigenous people, are campaigning for Brazil’s upcoming elections, and Bolsonaro’s main opponent, former leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, pledged to end illegal mining on indigenous lands if elected.
Watson, along with Survival International, explicitly linked the man’s death to the policies of the Bolsonaro government in his speech on Sunday, in which he warned that other indigenous tribes remain at high risk:
“If President Bolsonaro and his allies in agribusiness succeed, this history will repeat itself over and over again until all the country’s indigenous peoples are wiped out.
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