Indigenous Peoples in Brazil

, Jane Tomimori¹, Sofia Beatriz Machado de Mendonça¹ and Douglas Antonio Rodrigues¹

(1)

Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

We know that the occupation of Brazil by paleoindians occurred more than 12,000 years ago. Migratory theories are known from Northeast Asia , using the strip of land called Beringia , which would have arisen as a result of glaciations that dropped sea levels by 50 m, with the migrants initially colonizing Alaska and North America and then taking the rest of the American continent.

However, the discovery of archaeological sites in the southeastern states of Piauí, Bahia, and Minas Gerais showed the evidence of human occupation in Brazil up to 25,000 years ago [7]. Thus, human presence in South America may date from the same period as in North America, suggesting that other forms of migration may have occurred in addition to ground migration through the Bering Strait and Alaska, such as crossing the Pacific in coastal waters and interisland navigation, similar to what would have occurred 50,000 years ago in the occupation of Australia.

Although numbers and migratory routes may differ, there is a consensus that the American continent became increasingly more densely populated with the arrival of Europeans. The estimated population of South America at the time of European arrival at the continent in 1492 is characterized by great variability: between 1 and 8.5 million inhabitants in the lowlands of South America. Some authors estimate between 1 and 6.8 million people lived in the Amazon, Central Brazil, and on the northeast coast, which would equate the population density of Brazil to that of the Iberian Peninsula in 1500.

Ethnologist Kurt Nimuendaju recorded about 1400 indigenous people – with major language families such as Tupi-Guarani, Jê, Aruak, Karib, Xirianá, Tukano – in the territory that corresponded to Brazil, recording an immense dispersion and diversity of peoples inhabiting Brazilian territory upon the arrival of the Portuguese.

The advance of colonization, so-called just wars ,¹ enslavement, and extermination, as well as the spread of diseases such as smallpox, influenza, measles, and tuberculosis, caused high mortality rates among indigenous peoples. In the exchange of pathogens with colonizers and, later, with Africans brought as slaves by Portuguese, natives were the biggest losers since, except for certain fungal infections like Tokelau or Tinha Imbricata , nonserious or noncontagious diseases , and treponematose , known as pinta or bouba , no previously known diseases were transmitted to colonizers by indigenous peoples in Brazil.

It is argued that the main reason infectious diseases have had such an impact on indigenous communities is not necessarily that indigenous people lack specific genes related to immune responses, but the fact that Amerindian populations are biologically very homogeneous from a genetic point of view and unaware of infectious disease vectors that are widespread in Europe and that came over with the colonizers.

Mortality was of such magnitude that in five centuries disease reduced the original indigenous populations to just over 100,000 people, and it got to the point where some authors, such as anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro, called attention to the risk of indigenous peoples’ extinction in Brazil in the 1960s and 1970s.

From the 1980s, contrary to expectations, a process of demographic recovery among indigenous peoples began, largely facilitated by newly acquired rights, especially as a result of the 1988 constitution, including the right to usufruct of traditional territories and access to health treatments and services.

Death and demographic recovery of Indigenous peoples in Brazil, 1500–2016 (Source: Azevedo 2013; Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, IBGE, 2010; Secretary of Special Indigenous Health, Ministry of Health – http://portalsaude.saude.gov.br/index.php/o-ministerio/principal/secretarias/secretaria-sesai/mais-sobre-sesai/9518-destaques. Accessed August 24, 2016)

Besides population growth , which can reach 4.5% per year in some groups owing to reductions in infant mortality and maintenance of high fertility rates, there is an emergency among groups considered extinct, especially in the Northeast, where they survived camouflaged among cablocos and cafuzos ² because of persecution and prejudice.

Out of 817,963 people who identified themselves as indigenous in the last census, conducted in 2010, more than half lived in regularized indigenous lands (61.5%). Others lived in urban areas , in cities surrounding their traditional territories or state capitals, mostly in social exclusion in suburbs. The census also found 79,000 people who, though they considered themselves natives, chose not to identify themselves as such for various reasons, including prejudice, which remains intense in Brazil [9].

The distribution of indigenous lands in Brazil is very irregular and is related to the process that plays out following the discovery of wealth in different regions of the country. Thus, in the Northeast and Southeast, the first ones to be exploited, only 2% of lands are demarcated, and about 40% of the indigenous population lives in these regions. In the North and Midwest, especially in the Amazon, where exploitation began more recently, 98% of the land is demarcated, and 60% of the indigenous population lives in these areas.

There is wide dispersion in the 40% of indigenous population living in cities, as shown in the following table.

2.1 Sociocultural Diversity

Out of 1400 people registered as Nimuendaju in the early part of the last century, only 305 ethnic groups remain, and these groups speak 274 languages from various linguistic families. Also, according to the 2010 census, about 17.5% of the indigenous population does not speak Portuguese.

Despite all the tragedy that permeates relations between colonizers and indigenous societies, Brazil currently has the highest sociodiversity on the planet (Table 2.1).

Table 2.1

Distribution of indigenous populations living in urban areas, according to the Region and Federation Unit, Brazil, 2010

Region and federative unit	Population
North	177,464
Rondônia	6,707
Acre	8,976
Amazonas	95,215
Roraima	28,763
Pará	26,789
Amapá	3,770
Tocantins	7,244
Northeast	115,215
Maranhão	19,594
Piauí	1,366
Ceará	10,239
Rio Grande do Norte	1,272
Paraíba	12,489
Pernambuco	29,866
Alagoas	8,146
Sergipe	2,498
Bahia	29,745
Southeast	47,704
Minas Gerais	15,444
Espírito Santo	4,739
Rio de Janeiro	7,319
São Paulo	20,202
South	39,499
Paraná	13,251
Santa Catarina	9,241
Rio Grande do Sul	17,007
Miwest	72,288
Mato Grosso do Sul	38,971
Mato Grosso	26,513
Goiás	4,065
Distrito Federal	2,739

Source: Census 2010. IBGE

2.2 Epidemiological Profile of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil

The socioeconomic status and epidemiological profile of indigenous peoples reflect their relationship with the larger national society. In general, infectious and parasitic diseases prevail, such as acute respiratory infections and gastroenteritis. In certain Amazon regions, endemic diseases like malaria and leishmaniasis have a high incidence among indigenous peoples, as is the case of the Yanomami in Roraima. In groups with more intense contact, rapid changes in lifestyle, especially the replacement of traditional food by processed products that are high in fat, sugar, and salt, and sedentariness, have been associated with chronic diseases, in particular metabolic syndrome, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus.

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