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In the beginning of the 1940s, the members of the
peasant community that lived in the hills identified themselves
as "caboclos of the Umã Hills".
At the time, they were discontent with the Floresta city
administration, which taxed the land in which they planted,
and with the fact that neighboring landowners would take
cattle to their roças.
Informed by Tuxá Indians (from the municipality
of Rodelas, in the State of Bahia) that there was an
organ of the federal government that recognized indigenous
territories in the Northeast Region, some caboclos
went to the SPI office in Recife, claiming to descend
from Indians and demanding the creation of an indigenous
reservation for them. As a condition to recognize them,
the SPI imposed the demonstration of a toré
ritual, a tradition that, in the eyes of the inspector,
would attest the caboclos' "ethnic consciousness".
Unprepared for an exhibition of that ritual
tradition, the caboclos asked for help from the
Tuxá, who sent eight Indians to the hills to
"teach" the caboclos the toré.
In 1945, an inspector of the SPI came to the hills,
witnessed a toré ritual be performed and
thus attested the Indian presence there. In 1949, the
Indigenous Post was created, and the caboclos
were officially recognized as Indians by the State.
Today, the toré continues to be used as
a diacritical sign in the maintenance of the Atikum
ethnicity, which pragmatically gives them the right
of access to their land.
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