Xavante Tribe - The chief with the cassette recorder - EXT #13

by Micha Ende - Germany

The Xavante are an indigenous tribe from central Brazil who, due to the onset of enslavement by the Portuguese, left their land in what is now the state of Goiás and retreated to the northern Amazon basin, now part of the state of Mato Grosso, where they lived in isolation until the 1930s, having no contact with the white colonizers.

The tribe became known nationwide and later internationally through the cacique (chief) of the São Marco Reserve, Mário Juruna, born in 1942 or 1943. From the early 1970s onwards, he used a cassette recorder to record the promises made by officials from the Indian Affairs Agency (FUNAI) and later also by politicians in the capital Brasília, and later proved them to be lies.

Juruna was the first indigenous representative for the social democratic workers’ party PDT in Rio de Janeiro from 1983 to 1987, but was abused as a folkloric figurehead, a “political clown,” and withdrew from politics in frustration, returning to take care of his tribe’s affairs. Mario Juruna died in Brasília in 2002 as a result of diabetes, a disease of civilization.

The Xavante still preserve some of their archaic customs to this day, including an initiation ritual for 14-year-old boys that transforms them into adult “warriors.” The internationally renowned Brazilian thrash metal band Sepultura recorded these ritual chants for their album Roots (1996).

micha-ende.com

EXT photo magazine #13

Link to online interview on YouTube - by MAP.

Micha Ende on EXT.