Brazil celebrates 1st Day of Indigenous Peoples after change in law; understand the difference between indian and indigenous

[ad_1]

Until 2022, the date officially marked ‘Indian Day’, but the term was considered problematic because it was generic and prejudiced, in addition to not considering the diversity of ethnic groups. Indigenous people of the Yanomami people Alejandro Zambrana/Ministry of Health For the first time, Brazil celebrates this April 19 the “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” – and no longer the “Indian Day”, as the date was known until last year. The change was made official in July 2022 with the approval of Law 14,402. 📊 Reason: The word “indigenous” is considered problematic because it is a generic term and does not consider the diversity of indigenous peoples. (See more below.) For years, defenders of indigenous causes have argued that the date, which marks the struggle of indigenous peoples for survival from the colonization of Brazil to modern genocides, should be called “Day of the Indigenous Peoples”. According to Márcia Mura, professor and PhD in Social History at the University of São Paulo (USP), the alteration was necessary to reflect the ideas and struggles of the various indigenous societies. Márcia Mura, PhD in Social History from USP and member of the Mura people, from Rondônia. Indigenous personal archive is a generic term, which does not consider the specificities that exist among indigenous peoples, such as linguistic and cultural specificities and even the specificity of contact time with non-indigenous society. According to Mura, the term indian reproduces the view of the colonizer, which refers to the Eurocentric idea that indigenous people are backward and equal, disregarding linguistic and cultural differences. On the other hand, “indigenous” is a word that means “native of the place where he lives”. The term expresses that each people, wherever they are from, is unique. The indigenous writer, PhD in Education from the University of São Paulo and post-doctorate in Linguistics from the Federal University of São Carlos Daniel Munduruku also believes that the word “Indian” “hides all the diversity of indigenous peoples”. Daniel Munduruku, indigenous writer, doctor in education from the University of São Paulo and postdoctoral fellow in Linguistics Dissemination “The word ‘indigenous’ says much more about us than the word ‘indigenous’. Indigenous means original, someone who is there before the others”, explained the author in an interview with BBC News Brasil. Munduruku belongs to the indigenous people of the same name, which is located in regions of Pará, Amazonas and Mato Grosso. Individuality of people Maria Vitória Berlink, Master in Applied Linguistics from PUC-SP, argues that the movement to adopt the term “indigenous” is significant because it represents the exposure of the individuality of peoples. “The Portuguese and Spanish colonizers, mainly, used the word ‘Indian’ for any original people they found in the territory. It is a shallow term, which does not consider any individual trait of these peoples. What these same peoples are trying to do now is to take for themselves the right to define themselves and to show that they are more than the term expresses”, he explains. In addition to nomenclature, Márcia Mura emphasizes the need to respect the individual cultural identity of each people and treat ethnic groups by name. “When we say that we are not Indians, we mean that we are Mura, Uruéu-Au-Au, Guarasugwe, all inhabitants of the Pindorama territory, which is how the Tupinambá call what the colonizers named Brazil, but different”. The debate about how non-indigenous people should refer to native peoples takes place among the peoples themselves, and the professor says that there are those who conform to the use of the term used by the Spaniards. “It is necessary to remember that many peoples have suffered an attempt to erase it since the arrival of the colonizers. They tried to erase our languages, our cultures and our memories, and left us this term full of stereotypes”, she laments. Understand the difference between indigenous and indigenous people Day to claim and not celebrate Despite the idea that April 19 is a day to celebrate indigenous peoples, Márcia Mura argues that it is not a day of celebration, but of claim. “We have nothing to celebrate, because we still need to claim and guide our struggles. We fight every day for our territory, for our culture and for the right to live as we live, when there is a society that is killing us little by little”. From January to December 2022, the accumulated number of deforestation alerts in the Legal Amazon was 10,267 km², according to data from the Space Research Institute (Inpe). This was the worst mark in the annual historical series of Deter, the institute’s Real Time Deforestation Detection system. “We are losing our lands to roads, hydroelectric plants, thermoelectric plants, pastures and illegal mining. We cannot celebrate while we try to survive”, says the professor. Yanomami Crisis: Ministry of Justice authorizes support from the National Force But she stresses that the forest is not the only place where indigenous people resist. “We are in different contexts. Inside the forest, on the banks of rivers and lakes, but also in the city, in an urban context, beyond the territory officially demarcated as indigenous territory”. Márcia Mura emphasizes the right to demarcate indigenous peoples’ territories. She also recalls that the entire national territory is indigenous and that caring for the land is everyone’s responsibility. People take care of the forest and rivers, but non-indigenous people also need to take care of it. They will also be affected if there is a lack of rain, if the biomes are destroyed. All biomes are important and are linked to each other. Everything is interconnected and we are connected to this environment. WATCH EDUCATION VIDEOS:

[ad_2]

Source link