THE TIKMũ'ũN
The Tikmũ'ũn, known as Maxakali, are speakers of the Maxakali language, classified within the Macro-Jê linguistic family. They number 2,629 people, distributed across four territories in Minas Gerais:
TI Maxakali: Água Boa (Santa Helena de Minas) and Pradinho (Bertópolis), 5,305 ha, 2,079 people;
Aldeia Verde Indigenous Reserve (Ladainha), 72 ha, 219 people;
Cachoeirinha Indigenous Reserve (Teófilo Otoni), 19 ha, 20 people);
Village-School-Forest (Teófilo Otoni), 122 ha, 311 people.
Source: SESAI, 2025.
According to the Tikmũ'ũn, their ancestors came from various regions, each bringing their own repertoire of songs and rituals that are performed in their villages today. Although they are systematically and unduly treated as a single people, these Tikmũ'ũn maintain the memory of the diversity of their original groups, who, during the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, roamed the areas between the southern coast of Bahia and eastern Minas Gerais, along the valleys of the Pardo, Jequitinhonha, Mucuri, Buranhém, Jucuruçu (or Prado River), Itanhém (or Alcobaça River), Dôce, and São Mateus rivers, as well as other smaller rivers in this region.
If the project to destroy their territories has advanced, the assimilation of the Tikmũ'ũn has not. Even today, they undertake journeys through their ancestral regions where they compile what their relatives taught them: sets of songs, dances, lexicons, stories, and a large body of knowledge about fauna and flora, which they call YÃMĨYXOP. They vigorously update in their villages approximately 12 corpora of ritual songs, an Intangible Heritage of inestimable cultural, historical, and linguistic richness.
THE TIKMũ'ũN AND
THE YÃMĩYXOP
The Tikmũ'ũn teach stories of their ancestors' encounters with different peoples, whom they call yãmĩyxop: bat peoples, parrot peoples, koatkuphi peoples, monkey peoples, kõmãyxop peoples, caterpillar peoples, tapir peoples, firefly peoples, wasp peoples, ant peoples, tadpole peoples, paca peoples, water-caboclos peoples, big-eared peoples—the "botocudos"—, the ẽhẽ people—other "botocudos"—and with different beings (mĩmputax, thunder-son, bee-son, otter, panãnot). They also teach stories of how their relatives transformed into other peoples: hawk peoples, yãmĩy peoples, yãmĩyhex peoples, tapir peoples, and peccary peoples.
Thus, they do not possess a single, unequivocal history, or simply the history of their contact with white people. The Tikmũ'ũn possess a rich, complex historiography of encounters marked by alliances, wars, affiliations, adoptions, exchanges of songs, food, plant knowledge, and so on. Through their daily relationships with the yãmĩyxop, they update an intangible heritage of inestimable cultural richness. Each of them possesses quite distinct forms of vocal enunciation, regimes, and staff (responsories, alternating soloists, female choirs alternating with male choirs, antiphonal choirs), songs, texts, instruments, and dietary regimes. But what has been attracting the attention of some scholars is that these sets of songs correspond to a real historical linguistic collection, which allows us to glimpse lexical and grammatical data from the various languages of interrelated indigenous peoples who inhabited this region that was once covered by the Atlantic Forest and who are now extinct.
The Yãmĩyxop serve as distinctive classificatory systems among all these repertoires of which the Tikmũ'ũn peoples have been the custodians.
Each of the 12 yãmĩyxop enumerated today by the Tikmũ'ũn contains approximately 30 hours of songs, each possessing a distinct lexicon, with distinct classification systems, and most likely inherited and preserved by the Tikmũ'ũn from the various peoples speaking languages of the Maxakalí family. These repertoires are the inventory of a detailed knowledge of the Atlantic Forest, such as this song of the honeyeater:
(Drawing by Donizete Maxakali)
I want the arapuá honey hui hui
I want the honey of the white girl hui hui
I want the honey from the yellow mandaguari hui hui
I want the honey from guaraipo hui hui
I want the honey from the white lady hui hui
I want uruçu honey hui hui
oh, I want, hui hui
I want the honey from the yellow mandaguari hui hui
I want the honey from the yellow mandaguari hui hui
I want honey from Saranhão hui hui
I want the honey from Mombucao hui hui
I want the arapuá honey hui hui
I want the honey from the dog bee hui hui
I want the arapuá honey hui hui
I want uruçu honey hui hui
I want the honey from the leaf-cutting bee hui hui
I want the honey from the mandaçaia hui hui
I want honey in guaraipo hui hui
I want the honey from the little bee hui hui
I want the honey of the white girl hui hui
I want uruçu honey hui hui
I want honey from the little bee hui hui
I want the honey from the white lady hui hui
I want Jataí honey hui hui
I want the honey from Iraí hui hui
I want mombuca honey hui hui
I want mombuca honey hui hui
I want the honey of the white girl hui hui
I want the honey from puxxokata hui hui
I want honey from koxkak hui hui
I want the orchid bee honey hui hui
I want the honey from the bee hui hui
I want honey from pukyãykuxnõg hui hui
I want to eat any fruit hui hui
I want to eat the fruit of the gameleira hui hui
I want to eat papaya hui hui
I want to eat genipap hui hui
I want to eat cashew hui hui
I want to eat the fruit of the white embaúba hui hui
I want to eat pineapple hui hui
I want to eat passion fruit hui hui
I want to eat the fruit of the embaúba from the swamp hui hui
I want to eat the big seed fruit hui hui
I want to eat jabuticaba hui hui
I want to eat mango hui hui
I want to eat the fruit like jabuticaba hui hui
I want to eat banana hui hui
I want to eat sugarcane hui hui
I want to eat jackfruit hui hui
huh
THE TIKMũ'ũN LANDS
Although they no longer have forests, the Tikmũ'ũn continue to sing the songs that enumerate their knowledge of their biodiversity, producing and reproducing their collective cultural practices and preserving their language. In these practices, they face and resist countless devastation by extractive groups and farmers, exposing them to yet another facet of the violence to which Indigenous peoples have historically been subjected in Brazil. Because of this surprising strength and cultural resilience, the Tikmũ'ũn are respected by Indigenous peoples throughout the country and sought after by researchers and artists from Brazil and around the world. Therefore, recovering these territories is urgent to guarantee fundamental rights to the Tikmũ'ũn and also to protect a cultural heritage for all humanity. Historians' studies allow us to map the presence and movement of the Tikmũ'ũn peoples across a vast region between Minas Gerais, Bahia, and Espírito Santo, encompassing the basins of the Pardo, Jequitinhonha, Mucuri, Prado, São Mateus, and Rio Doce rivers. Various colonial pressures and successive massacres led these peoples to gather on the border between Minas Gerais and Bahia, where the Maxakali Indigenous Land is located.
Map source: Paulo Dimas de Menezes. Map comprising (in green) the entire region historically traveled and occupied by the Tikmũ'ũn peoples.
MAXAKALI INDIGENOUS LAND
According to historian Maria Hilda Paraíso (in: The Time of Pain and Work: The Conquest of Indigenous Territories in the Eastern Backlands, São Paulo, USP, 1998), reports of an "Amixokori" group date back to the 16th century, as referred to by the Tupi of the East. Studies and accounts by historians allow us to map the presence and movement of the Tikmũ'ũn peoples across a vast region between the states of Minas Gerais, Bahia, and Espírito Santo, encompassing the basins of the Pardo, Jequitinhonha, Mucuri, Prado, São Mateus, and Rio Doce rivers. The researcher maps historical records of Maxakali settlements with their dates.
Various colonial pressures and successive massacres led these peoples to initially cluster on the border between the states of Minas Gerais and Bahia, where the Maxakali Pradinho/Água Boa Indigenous Land (Bertópolis and Santa Helena de Minas, Minas Gerais) is located. Thus, in addition to being limited to a small territory transformed into pastureland by the invaders, the Tikmũ'ũn found themselves deprived of water sources, forests, and the resources necessary for their survival. After the 1988 constitution, the Tikmũ'ũn Territory did not undergo any revision studies to reconstruct their traditional territories.
Three fronts of expansion mark the destruction of the ecosystem where these people lived. 1. The Entradas and Bandeiras (Indian Expeditions) sought mineral extraction sources and employed them as labor, keeping them in barracks and villages, as evidenced by the travel accounts of naturalists who visited the region. 2. A front, decisive in the devastation of the Mucuri Valley, sought to establish settlements of small properties and facilitate transit from the Mucuri region to the coast with the establishment of farmers and ranchers. Records of this period include settlements of the Capuchins and Teófilo Otoni, who in 1847 was responsible for the Navigation and Commerce Company that was to connect central-western Minas Gerais to the coast. 3. The third front of expansion, mineral extraction, completed penetration of the region. In the early 19th century, the decline of gold and diamond mines drove settlers to the Doce and Mucuri River Valleys, which until then had served as a geographic barrier preventing the smuggling of precious stones from the mountains to the sea. To eliminate this barrier, it was also necessary to eliminate the "human barrier": the thousands of Indigenous people who had lived there since time immemorial. The authorities believed that "as long as there was forest, there would be Indian raids." The best way to subdue these peoples would, therefore, be to dispossess them of their lands. The plan was announced by the then governor of Minas Gerais, Ataíde e Melo:
“(...) these cannibals would find themselves in need of abandoning their homes; and once pursued, they would hide in the woods as they fell apart and over time they would be tamed (if it is possible to tame monsters of this nature).” (apud Paraíso, 1998: 180).
Limited to a small territory transformed into pastureland, the Tikmũ'ũn found themselves deprived of water sources, forests, and the resources necessary to sustain their livelihoods. After the 1988 constitution, their traditional territory did not undergo demarcation review studies.
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF THE HISTORY OF THE TIKMũ'ũN PEOPLES AND THEIR TERRITORIAL SITUATION
01.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the headwaters of the Itanhém River, the last refuge of the Tikmũ'ũn people after three centuries of intermittent contact, were completely covered by Atlantic Forest.
02.
In the first decades of the 20th century, especially after the opening of the Bahia-Minas railway, a new wave of “nationals” headed to that region and settled in the current cities of Machacalis (MG), Bertópolis (MG), Santa Helena de Minas (MG) and Batinga (BA).
03.
Terrified by the appearance of indigenous people on their farms and in their villages, local residents hire the services of a well-known "Indian tamer" in the region, named Joaquim Fagundes.
04.
In 1920, the government of Minas Gerais announced the “donation” of 2000 hectares in the area for the construction of an Indigenous Post, in the area known as Água Boa.
05.
Joaquim Fagundes then began selling the lands where the Tikmũ'ũn lived, claiming debts owed to him by the former Indian Protection Service due to his “pacification” efforts.
06.
Fagundes persuaded most of the Tikmũ'ũn families to accompany him to another land in the Água Preta region (present-day Itanhém, Bahia). There, dozens died, decimated by outbreaks of measles, malaria, and whooping cough.
07.
The survivors return to the banks of the Umburanas River, but find their lands besieged by farmers. With the outbreak of conflict, Fagundes disappeared from the region.
08.
In 1941, the SPI finally demarcated a portion of land in Água Boa (Santa Helena de Minas, MG) and created the Engenheiro Mariano de Oliveira Indigenous Post. However, it left out of the demarcation the neighboring land where the indigenous people of the current village of Pradinho (Bertópolis, MG) lived.
09.
Only in 1956, after the commotion generated by the cruel murder of a Pradinho leader by local farmers, the SPI demarcated a new portion of land, maintaining, however, the corridor of farms that divided the villages of Pradinho and Água Boa.
10.
After decades of demands and struggles by Indigenous people, with the support of CIMI and CEDEFES, FUNAI finally declared a new demarcation in 1993, unifying the two territories. The removal of ranchers, however, would only occur in 1999.
11.
Once again, the new demarcation ignores the territory traditionally occupied by the Indigenous people themselves, which borders the demarcated land. Furthermore, almost all of the original Atlantic Forest territory had already been devastated and replaced by colonial grass ( Panicum maximum ) by that time, due to decades of ranching activity.
12.
In 2004, serious conflicts broke out between families from Água Boa and Pradinho, who left the demarcated land to reclaim one of the neighboring portions of land that was left out of the demarcation.
13.
After the escalation of violence, encouraged by local farmers, FUNAI, with support from the Federal Police and after a court order, moved the indigenous people to Governador Valadares and then Campanário (MG), where they lived for two years until the Federal Government acquired a farm in Ladainha, where they moved in 2007 and created Aldeia Verde.
14.
The acquired farm, however, did not have a running watercourse within its territory, giving rise to a new problem that worsened throughout the first decades of the 21st century.
15.
Between 2007 and 2020, the local population grew from around 100 people to 400, and Aldeia Verde became the largest in population concentration of the entire Tikmũ'ũn people.
16.
The absence of a river, the increase in internal conflicts due to the high population density, a scheme of exploitation of social benefits and the entry of evangelical missionaries into the community created an unsustainable climate that culminated in the departure of more than 100 families from Aldeia Verde in June 2020 to land leased by the Ladainha City Hall.
17.
Still in 2011, just over four years after the land acquisition, the anthropologist and then Funai employee in Brasília, Renata Otto Diniz, visited the Hãm Yixux Reserve (Aldeia Verde) and sent the Technical Information/CGID/2011 to Funai's General Coordination of Identification and Delimitation (CGID), in which she warned of the problems associated with population growth and forwarded the demand that already existed for expanding the territory in order to incorporate a running watercourse within it.
18.
Three years later, in Technical Information No. 03/SEGAT/CR/MG-ES/2014, Funai anthropologist Jorge Teixeira reaffirms the group's demand and highlights population growth and the intensification of internal disputes within families living in Aldeia Verde.
19.
June 9, 2018. Letter from Aldeia Verde "urgently requesting that, through available means, a territory that meets our needs be acquired. May the government recognize the specificities of our people and uphold our rights."
20.
In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was declared by the WHO
Isolation intensifies internal conflicts in Aldeia Verde.
21.
To support indigenous people and ensure their isolation in the village, the MPF created Covid-19 Support Committees in all municipalities where Tikmũ'ũn villages are located.
22.
The committees' actions uncover a practice already known and denounced for years, involving the exploitation of Indigenous social benefits by merchants, employees, and some Indigenous leaders. Several Indigenous people learned of previously unknown benefit cards in the hands of these agents. A Federal Police operation carried out in July 2020 seized several cards and documents, and a man accused of running the scheme was arrested.
23.
Since 2019, the work of missionaries and Neo-Pentecostal pastors in Aldeia Verde has also increased. Some families have converted and begun leading the conversion work of other Indigenous people, especially young people and children. The newly converted condemn participation in rituals, body painting, and discredit shamans.
24.
Early 2021: New Ladainha City Hall administration does not renew the lease agreement or support the indigenous people in their search for new land.
25.
The village is located in a high-risk area, downstream from a small hydroelectric plant. According to a fire department report, no structural repairs were made to the plant, and the entire area is recommended for evacuation.
26.
Searches for land continue > difficulties > overpricing, exploitation, displacement.
27.
On February 17, 2021, the 96 families of Aldeia Nova in Ladainha moved to another area they rented, also in Ladainha, in the district of Concórdia do Mucuri, where they found themselves without health care, without crops, and without solutions for the lack of land.
TI MAXAKALI (PRADINHO AND ÁGUA BOA)
After centuries of escapes and forced displacements, the Tikmũ'ũn eventually took refuge in the headwaters of the Umburanas River, on the border between the present-day states of Minas Gerais and Bahia. There, the siege closed. Between 1910 and 1915, the survivors were contacted by the newly created Indian Protection Service (SPI). However, it was only in the mid-century, in the 1940s, that an initial area of just 2,000 hectares was officially recognized and demarcated for the Indigenous people in Água Boa, following a visit and publication of a report by German ethnologist Curt Nimuendaju in 1938, which identified the presence of families living in the region known as Mĩkax Kaka (Under the Stone), present-day Pradinho territory. Despite this, the Pradinho area would only be recognized more than a decade and a half after the demarcation of Água Boa in 1956, following the commotion generated by the murder of Antônio Cascorado Maxakali, who was killed and burned by local farmers. Despite their proximity, the two plots of land remained divided by a corridor of farms until the late 1990s. Among the farmers who divided the territory was Captain Manoel dos Santos Pinheiros, one of the main perpetrators of the dispossession of Tikmũ'ũn lands in the second half of the 20th century. In response to this absurd territorial division, a major international campaign was organized by indigenous leaders in conjunction with the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI), the Eloy Ferreira Documentation Center (CEDEFES), and the international NGO DKA-Austria. Finally, in 1996, the demarcation of the Maxakali Indigenous Territory was approved, uniting the two territories.
Despite this historic achievement, the territorial boundaries recognized at that time ignored the entire expanse of land surrounding Água Boa and Pradinho, which is also part of the Tikmũ'ũn traditional occupation territory. In practice, the new recognition kept them confined to one of the smallest demarcated Indigenous lands in the entire country. Furthermore, the forest was reduced to an immense desert of grass, a landscape that now predominates in the Maxakali Indigenous Territory. The violations of their rights and the dispossession of their lands were never recognized or remedied by the Brazilian government. Despite repeated calls from leaders for a review of the territorial boundaries, no formal process of recognition and delimitation of Indigenous land has progressed in recent years. In short, there has never been a study that defines and allocates to them the lands under conditions guaranteed by the 1988 Constitution, namely, “the lands inhabited on a permanent basis, those used for their productive activities, those essential to the preservation of the environmental resources necessary for their well-being and those necessary for their physical and cultural reproduction, according to their uses, customs and traditions” (Article 231; §1).
In this devastated land where they have been "encircled," as they often say, there is practically no forest, water, or animals left. When the German ethnologist Curt Nimuendaju visited the Tikmũ'ũn in 1938, he observed that "already two-thirds of this paradise of the Indian farmers and hunters, which was covered by uninterrupted forest, has been transformed by the intruders into vast pastures of colonial grass, for the most part without a single row." (Nimuendaju, 1958 [1939]: 56). Currently, the Água Boa stream and the Umburanas River, the main watercourses that run through the Maxakali Indigenous Territory, are increasingly dry and unsuitable for drinking, bathing, or fishing. Many villages go entire months without access to drinking water. During droughts, fires spread easily through the grass, covering the territory with smoke and causing various respiratory diseases. From time to time, diarrhea outbreaks lead to the death of children. Social benefits introduced by the Federal Government's income transfer programs don't reach many families, as their cards are often retained by local merchants. When they leave their lands to hunt and fish, they are attacked, insulted, or shot.
We're from Água Boa. My grandfather, Captain Pacheco, lived with his children in Água Boa. But the non-Indigenous people wanted to kill my uncle, so he ran away. Then another white man told him, "At night, they're going to kill you." They said, so he ran and went to live elsewhere. My uncles went to a place called Mikax Papnok (White Stone) within Água Boa. This land belonged to my father, Hermano, and my uncle.
They went and stayed with other relatives of ours who already lived there. My father returned to the post in Água Boa. This place used to be called "Posto." My father stayed at the Posto. My father's brother insisted he go live in Mikaxkaka (in Pradinho). He was going to Mikaxkaka. But he didn't go right away. He stayed in Água Boa for a while. They returned to Água Boa. The white men continued to persecute my grandfather, and he stayed at the Posto. He ended up dying there.
After my grandfather was buried, my father went to Mikaxkaka to meet his relatives. And he lived there. My grandmother went with him. I saw my grandmother, but not my grandfather. We lived in Pradinho.
When I grew up, my father used to tell me:
- My daughter, we come from there, from Água Boa, our land is at the Post. It's not here. You weren't born here. You were born at the Post.
My sister, my other sister, Vitalina, then Adelina, Milton, and I were all born in Água Boa. And then we left. And there Edgar, Valdemar, and Miguelzinho were born. But we went: my mother, my father, and my grandfather took us from Água Boa. There, the old government began building houses for the Tikmũ'ũn.
Then my father put me on the hump and took me. I didn't understand anything. It was at Mikax kaka that I began to understand a little.
At the Água Boa post, they also built a good house for the Tikmũ'ũn. And they built a separate house for my father. They built it here in Jaqueira, near the border. That's where my grandfather died.
Then the children went to where their brothers called them. Captainzinho, my father's brother. My father lived there with him. In Mikax kaka. And there weren't many people there. There were very few. It wasn't like now, when we are a people of many people. Now we are many people, many adults.
The white people came from far away. Antônio Fabrício came from far away. Severiano also came from far away. And he stayed. He came alone, without children. He arrived, made friends with the Indians, and said:
- Oh, I'm going to live here, I'm going to live here." They were deceiving the Indians. "I'm going to live here, near you. Then I'll milk you and give you milk. And I'll give you food."
Then the Indians let him live there, they said:
- He's going to give us food
They went and the white man killed a pig, gave bacon to the Indians and they thought:
- They are good, they give us food!
Then they had children, and the children grew up. Boys, girls, and then they got married and built a house, and the other one built another... and they gathered many. Then the Indians saw all those houses. When I was little, there was only one person, and there was a lot of forest. This land we've now taken from Severiano used to have a lot of forest. Now there's no forest anymore. There was forest even in Bertópolis. I saw all this forest. Severiano and Antônio Fabrício's children grew up and cleared the forest. They cleared a lot, large sections to plant grass. Severiano's children destroyed the forest. And Antônio Fabrício kept clearing it from there to here. There where Reginaldo and his uncles lived.
The farmers divided it among themselves. Brothers and sisters would come and live there with them. And the land wasn't theirs. It was ours. But the white people arrived little by little, and then more came. So they live there and feel bad, thinking the Indians were taking over their land.
And they killed. If someone got drunk, they'd tie him to the horse's rope and kill him. Right on our land. I saw it. I saw the Indian pass by, he didn't even do anything wrong, and they killed him. They'd say, "Oh, he did this, and I killed him." But it was a lie.
It was because of the land. They kept killing, killing, to finish it off, and they would stay on our land.
Delcida Maxakali
IT GREEN VILLAGE
Few things are worse and sadder than the lack of a river in our territory today. Without a river, we have nowhere to fish, nowhere to bathe, nowhere to wash our clothes, or let the cooked cassava rest. Without the river, our children have nowhere to play and grow strong, which is why they get so sick these days. Without the river, our rituals are also compromised: our spirits have nowhere to bathe when they come to dance with us, nor do we, men and women, when we paint ourselves to dance with them. The spirits are also not coming to bathe the children as they used to; the monkey-spirit is not bathing with the women as he used to, the spirit-women have nowhere to fish, and the yãmĩy no longer comes with his elephant-spirit. The boys also have nowhere to bathe when the caterpillar-spirits take them to spend a month in the kuxex, unable to see their mothers and sisters. At the end of their confinement, the couple has no river to blow into and end their journey. period as it was in the past. Nowadays, we have to drink water from artesian wells that reach a few taps in the courtyards of some village groups, but the pump always breaks down, and we're left without water for days at a time. Furthermore, the water often comes out red, and the quality is not guaranteed. It's also not part of our culture to bathe or shower only twice a day, like white people. The dams in the village are unfit for bathing or drinking, and yet, our children, with no other alternative, end up fishing and bathing in these ponds, which causes constant illness and injuries, as wires and other sharp objects accumulate in these waters, carried by the rain. We can't continue living this way! We can't tell our children not to bathe or fish! What does the government expect us to do? Tell them to stay home and watch television and play video games? (Letter from the Aldeia Verde community to the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office, June 9, 2018)
In 2005, a serious conflict culminated in the departure of two groups from the Maxakali Indigenous Territory, including families allied with Noêmia Maxakali. Initially, these families attempted to reclaim an ancestral territory near Água Boa known as Tehakohit, a place where chants originated and where the parents of Izabel Maxakali, Noêmia's mother, lived. However, a repossession forced the Federal Police to intervene and remove the families. Over the course of two years, the families were displaced four times: first to a soccer field in the municipality of Santa Helena, then to a farm in Governador Valadares, then to federal land in Campanário, and finally to a farm acquired by FUNAI, where they established Aldeia Verde in 2007. The land acquisition came after many unsuccessful searches and when the funds threatened to be returned to the public coffers. To make matters worse, a hepatitis outbreak struck the village in Campanário, killing two children and driving the indigenous people to despair. It was in this context of urgency and tension, therefore, that the Tikmũ'ũn decided to acquire the farm in Ladainha. From the outset, however, the decision was controversial and precipitated by bureaucratic constraints. No river flows through the 522-hectare reserve, and its mountainous terrain makes it difficult for the Tikmũ'ũn to disperse within it.
TI CACHOEIRINHA
IT VILLAGE-SCHOOL-FOREST
I'm going to talk about our dream.
The dream of my Village-School-Forest community.
Our dream didn't come true now.
We have been dreaming about the land since 2005
Because I was a teacher and I taught children.
I was talking about all the hunts that no longer exist. They only have the name.
Our drawing represents all the animals that no longer exist because they've all disappeared: the larger game, the jaguars, the tapirs, the alligators, the capybaras. And it represents other animals we lost in Água Boa because the forest there disappeared.
We left Água Boa, reclaimed it, and took back our land. Our territory. It was in 2005, in the municipality of Santa Helena de Minas. But it caused a lot of problems with politicians and landowners.
And we came to Ladainha. I was the one who chose the name Aldeia Verde, because when we arrived, we saw Mata Verde, had a meeting, and chose the name.
And we stayed. And our family grew quite a bit. But the land didn't grow. There was no room to build houses, no flat land to plow and grow food.
Then we thought about fighting to avoid deforesting the Aldeia Verde forest.
We have to preserve.
Fight to obtain land with a river and lowlands, with space for families to build their homes.
We suffered greatly last year with this incurable disease. I thought it would kill our elders, our shamans. We held the Shamans' Meeting to train the young people within the village. This disease isn't one we can cure. I thought it would kill shamans and important people.
We visited several lands. I counted and lost count. I couldn't find any land. The farmers didn't want to sell, they didn't want to help the indigenous people. We saw that there was a lot of prejudice. They don't want to sell land to indigenous people.
Then we visited Itamunheque. Four of us went, and then eight of us. We have eight leaders. The entire community has its own group. We held a large meeting with the leaders who are responsible for their families. They liked the land, so we held a meeting and made a decision.
Because this land, the Mucuri Valley, was our largest territory, it had no boundaries. But today, our land is very small. We have 95 families on a small plot of land, and a single person occupies land of over 100 acres. A farmer has vast land, and we, Indigenous people, are landless.
Our dream is to take the land and restore it. Because it needs healing, it needs treatment. Because the land is alive. The land speaks, the land looks at us, and the land cries out.
But the farmer doesn't hear that the earth is crying out and needs help.
That's why we want to reforest, and create the Forest-School-Village.
Our dream must come true.
Our dream is to take land and reforest.
Essa terra é nossa.
Nũhũ yãgmũ yõg hãm.
Porque essa terra é nossa?
Sem a terra não tem escola diferenciada.
Sem a terra não tem saúde diferenciada.
Porque nós lutamos para conquistar a terra.
Nós realizamos nosso sonho e hoje vamos criar muitos projetos em cima da terra. Da nossa terra.
Porque nós chamamos Aldeia-Escola-Floresta?
Porque onde tem aldeia tudo é “sala de aula”.
Onde tem árvore e sombra é “sala de aula”. As crianças vão cantando o nosso ritual. Imitam.
Na beira do rio elas vão brincar, cantar e escrever na areia.
Tudo é “sala de aula” dentro da aldeia.
Todos os homens vão dentro do mato e vão cantando dentro do mato. Vão tirando madeira e vão cantando.
Por isso colocamos o nome Aldeia-Escola-Floresta porque toda a aldeia é escola.
Onde tem sombra as mulheres vão se juntar e fazer os artesanatos.
As crianças vão chegando, escutando do lado e aprendendo também. A aldeia inteira é escola.
Onde tem barraca de ritual é uma escola verdadeira, muito importante. Vai ter canto, história, cultura, comida tradicional.
Nós, comunidade da Aldeia-Escola-Floresta, queremos terra para Yãmĩyxop, para crianças, para o futuro.
Porque nós nascemos todos junto com a floresta, nascemos todos junto com a caça.
Essa terra é nossa mãe porque ela alimenta todos nós.
Todas as caças os nossos cantos registram.
Alguns bichos que perdemos, o canto registra.
E os desenhos também representam os animais.
Tem bichos grandes que perdemos, mas registramos o nome. Nosso canto fala seus nomes.
Nós Maxakali somos sofredores, mas nosso Yãmĩy nos acompanha.
Todos os dias os Yãmĩy saem comigo, com todos os Maxakali.
Porque eu falo Aldeia-Escola-Floresta?
Se eu sair daqui, se eu for para o mato, o meu Yãmĩy está me acompanhando, eu vou cantando dentro do mato.
Se eu brincar no rio, outro Yãmĩy vai me acompanhar. Eu vou imitar qualquer bicho: peixe, jacaré, andorinha, vou fazer seus cantos.
Por isso é que chamamos Aldeia-Escola-Floresta.
Aqui, a minha casa é escola, porque estamos passando o nosso conhecimento para os jovens que estão aprendendo agora.
Nós somos professores. Nós estamos falando. Eles estão escutando as falas.
Pegamos a palavra boa para esperar a nossa memória, para não cair.
Tem que crescer. Ter o conhecimento diferente, pegar o outro conhecimento para crescer a Aldeia-Escola-Floresta.
Isael Maxakali
Janeiro 2022