Power relations still permeate the lives of indigenous populations in Brazil. One of the flags, the fight for land and to guarantee the maintenance of their way of life, seems to be far from having an end. A master's study by the Institute of Geosciences (IG) showed that the intrusion of the BR-210 Perimetral Highway in the State of Roraima, in the 1970s, brought epidemics, diseases and socio-spatial disruption to the Yawaripë indigenous people (Yanomami subgroup). 

Although the destruction is still intense in these villages, there have been actions by the Yanomami themselves to recover their culture as a form of resistance and rescue of the cultural characteristics that were, little by little, disappearing with the intrusion of the highway and of non-indigenous people in their territory, among they are prospectors, miners, loggers, modernized agricultural producers, rural settlers from Incra projects. 

The intrusion of the highway changed social relations and autonomy over the group's migratory movements across the territory. Prevented from exercising their customs, due to massive contact with workers from the highway construction company and other agents, the Yawaripë had changes in the technical basis of their collective life, which required changes in behavior and the way they use the territory. 

What is at stake is the land ownership regime and the power relations over the use of the territory. This is the finding of anthropologist Cíntia dos Santos Pereira da Silva in a study guided by professor at the Institute of Geosciences (IG) Vicente Eudes Lemos Alves.

Cíntia began researching the Yawaripë in 2013 and did field work in Roraima in 2014. The Yawaripë live in the communities of Serrinha and Cachoeirinha, approximately 1 km apart, with a population of around 145 inhabitants (according to DSEI data – Special Indigenous Health District, 2014).

In this immersion, we sought to analyze the guiding thread of the process of social disruption generated by the intrusion of the highway, in addition to revealing, through analysis of socio-spatial practices, how this group resists the total disruption of their way of life. 

The anthropologist spent 15 days on fieldwork, visited the indigenous land and carried out research in the capital, in public bodies and at the Hutukara Yanomami Association (HAY). During the visit, she was accompanied by employees from the Instituto Socioambiental and HAY. 

As she does not speak the Yanomami language (linguistic group: Yanomam, Yanomami, Ninam or Yanam and Sanima), she needed help translating the dialogues. The employees of the Instituto Socioambiental and some Yanomami who work at HAY made this bridge. 

Even with the process of socio-spatial disruption, the expert found, they still maintain some traditions. “This process, imposed by the intrusion of the highway and contact with non-indigenous people, culminated in the weakening of Yanomami traditions and practices, converging in socio-spatial degradation, deaths and epidemics”, he laments. 

INTRUSION

Interference in the village began in the 1970s, when construction of the BR-210 highway began in Yanomami territory. The route of the highway cut through the territory where the Yawaripë live, as well as other Yanomami subgroups. The Yawaripë were the hardest hit. They were closer to the eastern limit of the indigenous land (limit with municipalities such as Caracaraí and Mucajaí). As a result, the intrusion imposed several involuntary displacements that contributed to a disruptive role in the socio-spatial life of this group.

Today, it is very difficult to carry out a census in the villages, especially due to the socio-territorial characteristics of these groups, which are marked by permanent changes in their housing, and the relative isolation of these populations. 

However, since 1973 there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of the indigenous population, due to deaths due to conflicts with non-indigenous people, especially due to epidemics resulting from non-indigenous contact. Only in 1990 did this group begin a slow and gradual demographic recovery. 

The Yawaripë are more isolated from other Yanomami and, at times, have greater contact with non-indigenous people than with the Yanomami themselves. 

One of the objectives of the research was to observe, using the comparative-dialectic method and the analysis of the theory of Social Morphology, by Émile Durkeim and Marcel Mauss, how the social destructuring of this group occurred through the investigation of their social life, their techniques and their processes of resistance to the intrusion of technical objects into Yanomami territory. The researcher compared the social morphology of Yanomami villages with the social morphology of Yawaripë villages. 

CHABUNO 

Cíntia highlights that a large part of the Yanomami villages are made up of collective houses in concentric circles, which are resonances of the use of the territory where the center is the place of the collective. 

In the central circle, there is the collective house – Chabuno. In the inter-village space, the circles are divided according to the activities in everyday microspaces. 

The circle that is 5 km away from the collective house is the immediate use area. 10 km away, in another circle, there are individual activities (hunting, fishing, farming, daily family gathering). Within a radius of 10 to 20 km, multi-family hunting and gathering expeditions take place. “These circles are part of the socio-spatial formation of the Yanomami and the maintenance of their way of life”, says Cíntia. 

The Yanomami are organized and live within inner circles. There is a spatial logic of distribution of daily activities, with the village's families all living in the Chabuno (larger circle), and each family has a specific space. 

The central area, called Yano to meow (central square), is the multifunctional space for funeral, shamanic and shamanic rituals, as well as being the place to celebrate alliances with other Yanomami villages.  

They live in Chabuno for two to three years. During this period, harvesting and hunting decrease. Then they realize it's time to set up another Chabuno somewhere else. The distance they stipulate for the next home is sufficient distance for the new Chabuno to have food, which does not exclude the possibility of returning to the old site to collect it. 

It may be that, in 20-30 years, they will return and have to rebuild another house in the place of the old site. Therefore, the need to maintain efficient use of space and the logic of its occupation. 

It is curious that, while Chabuno is being rebuilt, they set up temporary shelters near the new construction, until it is ready. “It was clear that they migrate within their territory so as not to make extreme use of natural resources. The Yanomami believe that, for the survival of the hunting and agriculture cycle, a period of recovery is necessary”, explains the master's student. 

SHAMAN

In the Yawaripë resistance processes against this 'genocidal war', there is the figure of the shaman. Technique is the mediation of man and nature. He is the only one capable of connecting and translating the teachings of the Xapiripë spirits to protect the village. 

The shaman is the one who holds the knowledge of the earthly world and is the only one who can keep the members of the village safe against cosmological attacks, witchcraft and attacks from warriors. 

In this way, natural phenomena, hunting, fishing, planting, soil fertility, all these elements are interconnected and are controlled by the interference of shamans. “Due to contact with non-indigenous people, there was also ecological degradation, demographic resurgence, malnutrition and deaths. Hence the value of rescuing the role of the shaman in the Yawaripë villages”, he argues.

LATIFUNDS

The Yanomami land is the only one continuously demarcated to a greater extent for an ethnic group in the country, being located in both Brazil and Venezuela. In addition to the 19.338 Yanomami who inhabit the indigenous land, there are also around 471 Yekuana (speakers of the Karib language), according to the DSEI (2011).  

Cíntia evaluated the Yawaripë to understand the process of social disruption and the need to now discuss the intrusion of techniques and materialities in their territory. Also due to the fact that it is the group that suffered most from the intrusion of BR-210, as can be seen (in addition to other elements) in the type of construction of the houses (regional model) with roof, doors and windows.  

This episode brought all kinds of contact, initially with employees of the highway construction company and with farmers who leased small properties on the outskirts of the indigenous land. Later, they entered Yanomami territory close to Yawaripë homes. 

The region received land allotments (by settlement) and landowners. What happened in the surroundings entered the land. “When you are at the limit, it is difficult to respect it without an effective protection policy from the State and indigenous protection bodies”, he highlights. “Farmers devastate the land to plant crops for agribusiness. This has serious implications for fauna and flora, culminating in environmental degradation.” 

Because of this, the Yawaripë began to no longer have food because the game fled and because they could no longer plant crops. It was no longer possible to fish, as the river was polluted and, therefore, they had no way to survive. They began to need assistance and, in some cases, to beg to survive. 

After a long process of struggle, the group has managed to remove farmers from their lands. However, there is a need for effective agency policies so that this does not happen again. 

Hutukara's support is giving the two Yawaripë communities the chance to recover their daily and socio-spatial activities. In 2013, the association held a meeting of shamans in the Yawaripë village. This meeting, in addition to other HAY activities, aims to bring to these communities the possibility of recovering their sociocosmological activities. 

The process of destructuring was very serious, but, for the recovery of socio-spatial characteristics, the shaman has a fundamental role, as he brings to the village the recovery of the socio-cultural characteristics of the Yanomami, comments Cíntia. 

The Yanomami must seek rapprochement and, from there, recover a part of the culture that was lost through contact with non-indigenous people. It's been 45 years of this contact. “The policies of different governments are not in favor of indigenous people but rather of large agricultural producers. These are problems of yesterday and today. So the fight continues.”

Publication

Dissertation: “The Yawaripë Yanomami: from the intrusion of the northern perimeter highway to the resistance processes of the forest people”

Author: Cíntia dos Santos Pereira da Silva

Advisor: Vicente Eudes Lemos Alves

Each: Institute of Geosciences (IG)