::01

Between the years 1968 and 1992, the Aparai and the Wayana on the East Paru River lived together with North American protestant missionaries of what was then called the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL, today it is also called the International Linguistics Society). Along with their proselytizing activities, and education proposals, these missionaries initiated work for ‘recovery’ and encouragement of commercializing articles of Aparai and Wayana material culture, seeking to guarantee the economic self-sufficiency of these Indians and to familiarize them with monetary and mercantile economy. At the end of the 1960s, a ‘canteen’ was established where Aparai and Wayana artwork could be exchanged for manufactured goods, under the direction of an Aparai Indian named Zé Pereira. After Zé Pereira’s death, a new ‘trade canteen' was created in 1975, also with the support of the missionaries and under the responsibility of another Aparai Indian, Jaké. The latter, until recently, was the principal intermediary in the commercialization of artwork and industrialized goods between the cities of Macapá and Belém and the indigenous villages.

Between 1977 and 1990, there was a great increase in the production and commercialization of Aparai and Wayana artwork, which has been supported since then by the FUNAI and its Artíndia Program.

From 1997 on, the Association of Indigenous Peoples of the Tumucumaque (APITU) initiated the Tykasahmo Project for encouraging the production and commercialization of Aparai and Wayana artwork, with financing from the Demonstrative Projects Subprogram (PD/A-PPG7), and the installation of three new ‘canteens’ for buying and selling in the villages.

From the beginning, when it was still being encouraged by the missionaries of the SIL, production of items which were exclusively for commercialization resulted in changes in Aparai and Wayana material culture. Progressively over time, items of material culture have been stylized, and produced exclusively for commercialization while, in the daily life of the villages, these same items have been substituted for industrialized goods. Besides that, one can see a broader phenomenon of transformation of culture – in its more ‘substantive’ forms: material culture, festivals, rituals, and knowledge – into merchandise, which have been reshaped to represent a stereotyped ethnic and cultural identity and a means to obtain resources for acquiring industrialized goods.

Besides the commercialization of artwork, many Aparai and Wayana have sought to dedicate themselves to other activities such as the rendering of services and work in nearby prospecting sites, or for the assistance agencies (FUNAI, FAB, government of the State of Amapá). After 1994, the APITU established a series of agreements with the state government of Amapá, which greatly increased the number of Indians hired as: indigenous teachers, health monitors, pilots and 'bowmen' for boats, advisors for the production of artwork, nurse assistants. Consequently, the Aparai and Wayana are using money more and more as a measure of worth and means of trade (currency) in various transactions outside and inside the villages.