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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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