::01

Labor division is basically between men and women. The economic and political autonomy of the domestic groups, constituted as production and consumption units, is counterbalanced by the system of kinship relations (socially created) and of the ritual kind. Such system of reciprocal relations is the link with the larger community, the entire Rikbaktsa people. A break in reciprocity, which happens occasionally, is the cause of conflicts and differentiates the ties that exist between the various Rikbaktsa subgroups.

The Rikbaktsa see themselves much more as hunters and gatherers than as farmers, even though agriculture – and the ritual ceremonies associated with it – plays a central role in their social life’s pace and organization.

Rikbaktsa economy is characterized by the alternance along the year of different activities, which depend on the season. The production and consumption unit is the extended family, that is, the inhabitants of each residence. It is only during the rituals that take place with agricultural activities (clearing of new planting fields and harvest of new maize) and in a few other occasions that cooperation is wider.

The Rikbaktsa use slash-and burn (called coivara) to clear their round roças (planting fields), which have between half and 2 hectares. New roças are cleared every 2 or 3 years; the old ones are left fallow and eventually are taken over by the forest. Sometimes, in addition to the fields near the village, the Rikbaktsa have others, more or less distant, which, along with the abandoned roças, make up a source of food reserve from which they harvest roots and bananas, which continue to produce for years.

The Rikbaktsa plant two kinds of maize, different types of yams, cassava, rice, beans, cotton, urucu (the fruit of the annatto tree), several varieties of bananas, sugarcane, peanuts and pumpkin. They also plant pineapple, citrus (limes, oranges, tangerines), mangoes and other fruits, although not regularly. It is said that they used to plant tobacco for medicinal use.

The roças belong to the domestic group, which is comprised of the “owner of the ‘maloca’” (hut), his wife, his single sons, his daughters (both single and married), his sons-in-law and his grandchildren. The married man with children who move away from his father-in-law’s maloca and builds his own hut clears a new roça for his family. In most villages, however, the most enterprising and influential heads of family may clear their fields with the help of relatives and members of their villages and of neighboring villages, while at the same time sponsoring the ritual cycle of celebrations that takes place along with the annual cycle of agricultural activities.

New fields are cleared in May and June, when the dry season is well underway. In the capoeiras (open fields), clearing takes places from July until mid-August. Felled trees are burned in August/September; roças are planted after the first rains begin, in early October.

Much of the food eaten is obtained through hunting, fishing and gathering, activities the Rikbaktsa carry out all year long. Hunting is a male activity par excellence. The social role of the hunter/warrior seems to be the central point of reference of the set of values that constitute male identity, the “archetypical” figure of the provider of nourishment and defender of the community.

The Rikbaktsa eat almost every animal available to them; the few exceptions are alligators, anteaters, snakes, jaguars and the white-haired ape they “night monkey”. But they appreciate the meat of all other monkeys, which are their most frequent prey. Peccary is also highly valued, as well as agouti, pacas, deer (both red and grey), coatis, tapir (which they sometimes raise for food), various kinds of armadillos (of the giant armadillo’s tail cartilage the Rikbaktsa make bracelets worn by girls and women), river otter, tayra etc. Large quantities of various birds – whose meat and feathers are highly appreciated – are hunted as well: macaws, parrots, hawks, curassows, toucans, storks, ducks, cormorants, trumpeters, guans, tinamous, pigeons, owls and small birds of every kind.

The Rikbaktsa also eat all kinds of fish, as well as tucunaré eggs deposited in submerged tree branches, and river turtles and their eggs, which are found in large amounts buried to hatch in the sands of the beaches that are formed along the rivers during the dry season. Children as young as 3-years old can be seen playing on the villages’ ports killing fish with their bows and three-tipped arrows. They also catch newborn fish with their hands under the vegetation along the riverbanks and eat them raw. Although varied and practiced throughout the year, fishing is not always abundant. In the rainy season it becomes less frequent – the best time for fishing is the dry season.

In the rainy season, the rivers flood large parts of the forest, since the region is generally flat, with just a few hills. Many lagoons are formed then, and the fish, which have laid eggs in the end of the dry season, spread around the flooded areas, rich in nutrients. Their dispersion makes fishing more difficult, but the Rikbaktsa continue to fish, using mostly with bows and arrows.

In general, the Rikbaktsa are constantly aware of what nature offers them, directing their diet, their activities and their rituals in accordance to the rhythm of growth, alternance and maturation of the vegetal and animal life forms, natural resources which they take advantage of intensively at the appropriate time of the year. Gathering in the forest is a daily activity, and is practiced by men, women and children alike each time they leave the village; they take fiber to make rope and look for firewood, straw, wood for various uses, medicinal plants etc.

In addition to the extensive variety of wild fruits, the most important foodstuff in the Rikbaktsa’s diet gathered in the forest continues to be brazil nut. With high nutritive qualities, it is widely consumed, be it raw, ground, cooked and prepared as porridge, or as an ingredient for bread, cake or beiju (a kind of fried pancake made of manioc meal) dough, in addition to its use as oil for frying.

Also widely consumed is honey produced by various types of bees. It is used as a sweetener, mixed with water or in the several kinds of chicha, the generic name given to different varieties of soups and beverages that the region’s indigenous peoples prepare. The Rikbaktsa make chicha from bananas, soft corn, yams, corn with banana, local fruits such as patauá, inajá, buriti, buritirana, assari, seriva, bacuri, bamy, aboho, bamy with corn and an infinity of others. They do not make any kind of chicha – or, in fact, any beverage – that is fermented for more than two or three days at the most, and thus their drinks have no detectable alcohol content. Their chichas are tasty, very nutritious, and, in the hot local climate, prevent dehydration, and are consumed abundantly by all – men, women and children.

The Rikbaktsa prefer honey as opposed to sugar, even though the latter is widely used as well – raw, which they produce in small amounts, and refined, which they buy. Honey produced by the jati bee (a tiny, black and yellow stingless bee), which is fine, clear and has a delicate flavor, is considered ideal for children, and is believed to have medicinal qualities against coughing.

The Rikbaktsa raise several kinds of birds, thus having a living stock of feathers from which to make their ornaments, and to which they resort to every time they need. They raise macaws, parakeets, curassows, guans etc. The most common are the macaws (yellow, red or big-headed). It is common to see macaws walking around the houses, inside them or on trees near them. The Rikbaktsa show great affection towards them, and constantly feed them with brazil nuts, corn and other products. Despite that affection, every now and then the macaw, with feet and head firmly held and making a lot of noise, has its feathers picked and is left almost featherless. But in just one week the feathers start to grow again, with even brighter colors – more “mature”, as the Indians say. Many Rikbaktsa raise chickens as well, not only for their eggs and meat but also for the cock’s long tail feathers, which have been incorporated to the traditional feather ornaments and produce beautiful aesthetic effect. Last but not least, almost every maloca has a dog, a valuable help during hunting expeditions.

In the last decades the deforestation of the areas around the Rikbaktsa lands have jeopardized the reproduction of wild animals, while the development of commercial fishing in the rivers that make up the limits of their territory has reduced fishing stocks, affecting both the activities of hunting and fishing and thus increasing their dependence on the outside market. With natural rubber prices falling down, especially in the 1990s, the Rikbaktsa have increasingly relied on the production and sale of feathery art, and, secondarily, in the sporadic sale of fish, brazil nuts and other products to the local small commerce as a way to obtain some kind of income.

As an economic alternative to the model of regional occupation based on extensive deforestation, the Rikbaktsa have been developing since 1998 a project of sustainable stewardship of their lands, based initially on the extraction and canning of hearts of palm for sale and, in the future, on the processing and commercialization of brazil nuts and other products. It is a pioneering initiative, administered by the Associação Indígena Rikbaktsa – Rikbaktsa Indigenous Association – (Asirik), created in 1995, with technical assistance of the Instituto de Estudos Ambientais (IPA) and the Instituto de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Humano e do Meio Ambiente (Trópicos), in partnership with Funai, the Coordenadoria de Assuntos Indígenas do Mato Grosso (CAIEMT), the Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e Recursos Renováveis (Ibama) and the city government of Juína, in the State of Mato Grosso, financed by the Prodeagro’s Programa de Apoio Direto às Iniciativas Comunitárias (PADIC) and the Programa de Gestão Ambiental Integrada - PGAI/PPG7.

Such activities directed towards the market are mixed – and sometimes are subordinated to – with the traditional economic activities, in a social project that is aimed at multiplying the income and the productive capacity of the Rikbaktsa while encouraging the preservation of the organization, rhythm and diversity of their daily life.