"pacification"

"pacification", originally uploaded by Tatiana Cardeal.

During the Rikbaktsa “pacification” and soon after it, influenza, chickenpox and smallpox epidemics decimated 75% of a population, which was estimated in some 1.300 people at the time of contact. As a consequence, the Rikbaktsa lost most of their lands, and the majority of their small children were taken from the villages to be raised at the Utiariti Jesuit Boarding School, almost 200 kilometers from their homeland. There, the little Rikbaktsa were raised along with children of other indigenous groups also contacted by the missionaries. The surviving adults were gradually transferred from their original villages to larger ones, which were centralized under the Jesuit’s catechist administration.
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In 1968, about 10% of the Rikbaktsa’s original territory were demarcated as the Erikbaktsa Indigenous Land; from then on their children began to be taken back to their villages, and missionary action concentrated in that area.
Since the end of the 1970s the Rikbaktsa have struggled to regain control over part of their traditional lands. However, it is still occupied by miners, timber companies and colonization companies.

From Rikbaktsa Location and history, by Rinaldo S.V. Arruda,
at the Instituto Sócio Ambiental.

> VII Indigenous National Festival, at Bertioga city.

Copyright © 2007 Tatiana Cardeal. All rights reserved.
Reprodução proibida. © Todos os direitos reservados.