 |
|
Apart from possible encounters
with occasional explorers from the 17th to the 19th centuries,
the peoples of the right bank of the Guaporé river
came in regular contact with Western civilisation only
around the turn of the 20th century. In the early decades
of the 20th century, rubber entrepreneurs established
“barracões” on the Branco, Mekens, Colorado
and Corumbiara rivers. These were trading posts where
products extracted from the surrounding rainforest were
stored, and from where cargo boats left for Guajará-Mirím.
At these posts Westerners attracted local indigenous groups
with metal axes and other goods, and employed them through
debt peonage for the extraction of rubber, Brazil-nuts
and ipecac (Cephaelis ipecacuanha). They furthermore introduced
infectious diseases to which the indigenous groups had
no immunological resistance.
In the early 1930s, the S.P.I. began to transfer indigenous
groups from the southeast of Rondônia to the “colonies”
in the west, such as Ricardo Franco, nowadays called the
T.I. Guaporé, which is located on the river Guaporé
just above the confluence with the river Mamoré.
The Indians were required to live and work under deplorable
circumstances, and many tried to escape to return to their
homelands on the Rio Branco, the Rio Corumbiara and the
Rio Pimenta Bueno. Ultimately, the contact with Westerners
led to the decimation and acculturation of most groups
of southern Rondônia, often before serious cultural
and linguistic documentation could be undertaken. Between
1930 and 1980, the remnants of many indigenous tribes
were moved onto reserves that continue up to the present
day to be threatened by illegal invasions, logging and
mining.
The last representatives of the generation that was born
in traditional times remember that they lived on the upper
headwaters of the Rio Branco. After contact with Westerners,
the indigenous societies of southern Rondônia have
disintegrated and their members have become displaced.
Around 1920 many Arikapú and Djeoromitxí
went downriver to work at the rubber settlement of Paulo
Saldanha, where many Tuparí joined them in 1927.
Between 1930 and 1960 people had to move further downstream,
to the rubber settlement of São Luis, where many
Makuráp, Aruá and Wayurú were concentrated
as well. During this time, many people were also sent
to Ricardo Franco on the river Guaporé. Furthermore,
many people fled from debt bondage to Guajará-Mirím,
which was in those days the capital of the district, and
were transferred from there to Ricardo Franco or to other
reserves along the Guaporé. Nowadays, the remaining
Arikapú and Djeoromitxí live mainly in the
Terra Indígena Rio Branco and the Terra Indígena
Guaporé.
|
|
|
|
Hein van der Voort
Radboud University Nijmegen [The Netherlands]
Goeldi Museum, Belém [Brazil]
hvoort@xs4all.nl
February, 2008
|
|
Print