| The first report
available on the Guaikurú dates from the 16th century,
coming from a European expedition that penetrated the
Chaco region in search of precious metals deep in the
continent's interior. Many Mbayá groups were under
the influence of missionary reductions from the start
of the 18th century. During the same century and at the
beginning of the following, the contact with colonizing
fronts intensified with the establishing of military forts
along the course of the Paraguay river, both Portuguese
and Spanish, which disputed one another over the definition
of borders. The towns founded in the region made up part
of their historical context, very often marked by conflicts
- though sometimes by accords, such as the one celebrated
in 1779 among the Mbayá and the Spanish and another
agreed in 1791 with the Portuguese.
A crucial point in their history of contact
with non-Indian society, recollected with pride and
vehemence, was the participation of the Kadiwéu
in the Paraguayan Way. This participation was subsequently
recorded in innumerable historical narratives recalling
details of the event and carefully recording their heroic
exploits. The Kadiwéu describe their vital participation
in this war, fighting alongside the Brazilians and thereby
winning the territory in which they now live as a just
return. This provides their most effective argument
for the incontestable - but ever threatened - ownership
of their lands.
The Kadiwéu Indigenous Territory received
its first official recognition at the turn of the 20th
century in an Act passed by the Mato Grosso State Government.
The area was demarcated in 1900 and a decree issued
in 1903, which already established the same natural
limits found today and mentioned above. On the 9th April
1931, decree no 54 ratified these limits. But territorial
problems have been a constant aspect of their history
and the Kadiwéu have not forgotten the attempts
to invade their land and the conflicts that have unfolded
since the start of the 20th century. More recently,
the demarcation of their lands, concluded in 1981, was
surrounded by heightened tension with invaders and left
one of the Kadiwéu villages - Xatelôdo,
located in the Serra da Bodoquena uplands - outside
the perimeter. The resulting conflicts, notably those
occurring in 1982 and 1983, were widely reported in
the media.
This history has also been marked by inevitable
conflicts with tenant farmers. Cattle ranchers started
to penetrate Kadiwéu territory almost five decades
ago, with reports of a first invasion in 1952. Since
the end of the 1950s, they began to occupy this territory
in another form with official authorization from the
Serviço de Proteção ao Índio
(SPI, the Indian Protection Service, a forerunner body
to today's FUNAI). By 1961, 61 individual contracts
with tenant farmers had already been signed. This occupation
significantly altered the Indians' use of their own
land. At the start of the 1990s, 89 tenant farms were
located within the Kadiwéu Territory, extending
across almost the entire territory such that the Indians
are squeezed into the areas surrounding their own villages. |
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