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CONTEMPORARY ASPECTS   
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CONTEMPORARY ASPECTS
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Funai maintains the Canela Indigenous Post in Escalvado village, also called Ponto. Recently, a Canela, who studied up to the eighth grade in Barra do Corda, became the head of the post.

The indigenist agency has maintained a school in Escalvado since 1977, although since 1944 there has been less formal instruction among the Canela. The school is located in a building separate from the Indigenous Post and, since the mid-1980s, classes are given in a solid building of brick and tiles, with three classrooms. In 2001, it had six teachers paid by the municipality, two of whom were non-Indian women and four Canela who know how to read and write quite well in the native language and in Portuguese. With classes in the morning and afternoon periods, there are about 120 students enrolled up to the fourth grade. After that, it is necessary to study in the city of Barra do Corda. In contrast with the Ramkokamekrá, few Apanyekrá youths have learned to read and write.

While the indigenist agency provides sufficient resources for remedies and an infirmary, medical care is provided in a brick infirmary. Three, partially trained Canela work there applying injections, indicating remedies and applying serum.

A German organization (Deutsche Missions Gemeinschaft), with headquarters in Bonn, has since 1990 supported the Ramkokamekrá Canela in agricultural production, fishing, fruit-growing, sugar cane production, among other projects. Presently, the main project consists of a dental clinic in Barra do Corda, also under the direction of a Ramkokamekrá Canela, who was trained for three months in Germany. He has problems in sustaining himself and his family, since few Ramkokamekrá Canela have the means to pay for the treatment and expect to get their dentures free of charge.

In the village circle, the Assembly of God built a church which, in 1997, was highly frequented. An elderly Canela was trained to conduct part of the religious service, but a few years later the temple was burned. A family of the Unevangelized Field Mission works to help the Canela in different ways, mainly in adult literacy in their maternal language, and has visited the Canela now and then for at least the past five years.

A Ramkokamekrá Canela Community Association was legally established around 1994 and the Apanyekrá created an association around 1995 but neither has been very active.

There are few cases of marriages with other indigenous peoples. At least a dozen Ramkokamekrá Canela families have been living in Barra do Corda for at least 15 years. There are two Canela women married with "Whites" and one Canela man married to a "White" woman in the village of Escavaldo. Among the Apanyekrá, contact with the city of Barra do Corda has been considerably less.

At least six Ramkokamekrá Canela receive salaries paid by the indigenist agency, several of them since the 1940s, while only one Apanyekrá receives a salary. These resources, added to the several retirement pensions that the Ramkokamekrá Canela presently receive, make a considerable difference in the wealth and consequently the commercial goods that enter the two communities.

In Escalvado, while the indigenist agency provides sufficient resources for remedies and an infirmary, medical care is provided in a brick infirmary. Three, partially trained Canela work there applying injections, indicating remedies and applying serum.

In the village of Porquinhos, the Funai built two brick buildings with ceramic tiles, a post and a school with infirmary, around 1973. It is difficult to keep the positions of head of the post, teacher and nurse filled, in part because of the difficulty of access to the village.

In 1996, the Bank of the Northeast from Fortaleza gave them a rice husker, maintained by the Funai post, and which worked for four years. Crocker provided the main village of Escalvado and two garden communities with mechanized manioc scrapers and presses for extracting the poison from bitter manioc, as well as ovens for toasting the manioc cereal. In 2001, only one of the manioc scrapers was working. The Apanyekrá have not received support from any of these sources.

In 2002, an administrative change in the Funai benefitted both Canela groups. The regional administrator of the agency in Barra do Corda, Mr. José Dilamar Araújo Pompeu, a Guajajara Indian, gave up his activities in relation to the Gê-speaking peoples. In his place, Mr.Raimundo Martins Franco was named, who has provided assistance to the Canela groups and to the surviving members of the "Timbira of Arapatyua" and the Krenjê who inhabit the Alto Turiaçu Indigenous Land. Since then, these groups have been getting much more support from the indigenist agency.


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:: Apanyekrá girl from the village of Porquinhos. Photo: Jaime Siqueira Jr./CTI, 1993.
William H. Crocker
Smithsonian Institution
bilcroc@aol.com
June, 2002
 
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