The Amazon region is a place where many indigenous tribes still live. Although most of them are now influenced by the outside world, many of them still live as they have for centuries. But their environment is threatened: by deforestation, by advancing people who want to farm, search for gold and cut wood. But the Indians will not be chased away without a fight.
Peoples without history?
The Amazon region has the reputation of being a vast, virtually uninhabited, virgin forest. Yet it has a long history of human habitation. Long before the arrival of the whites, communities had been established there, which were relatively complex and certainly not small. A significant part of the forest (about 12%) was created because people were involved in it, the biodiversity was carefully maintained by the indigenous population. These indigenous people realized that they depended on the forest for their existence and that they therefore had to maintain biodiversity, through open areas, areas of natural forest and areas dominated by plant species of great importance to humans.
Origin of the Indians in the Amazon region
Until recently, it was generally assumed that the Indians in the Americas originated from Siberia. Peoples from Siberia are said to have crossed to the Americas via the Bering Strait, this would have taken place in at least three waves. Genetic and anthropological evidence supports this hypothesis. It would have been the first wave that would ultimately have ended up in the Amazon region.
Nowadays there are researchers who believe that at least part of the indigenous population in South America comes from Australia, which means that the inhabitants are descended from the Australian Aborigines. These Aborigines are said to have made the crossing with boats and rafts. Skeletons and bones have been found that are too old to come from the groups that would have come from Siberia and, moreover, there would be morphological differences between these skeletons and bones with those of human types from Siberia. Later these groups would have been assimilated with the groups originating from Asia.
Europeans
We see the Amazon rainforest as very sparsely populated, but this is mainly a result of the high mortality among the indigenous population after the arrival of the Europeans, who brought with them new diseases that the indigenous people were unable to withstand. Many communities lived near the rivers for transport, fishing and more suitable bottoms, but it was mainly these communities that were affected by the arrival of the Europeans. The indigenous population was decimated in the first century after the arrival of the whites, about 90% of the people did not survive. It was mainly the groups deep in the forest that survived, because they traditionally lived there, or because they had fled there. The exploitation of Native Americans began with the arrival of the first Europeans and continues to this day.
Contemporary Indians in the Amazon Rainforest
To this day, indigenous people live in the Amazon region, but almost all groups have now been influenced by the outside world. They wear modern clothes, use metal objects and some groups make products to sell to tourists. Various groups have also organized themselves to combat abuse and to oppose the confiscation of their land and water. This includes using the most modern resources. In the 1990s and early 21st century, fights between Indians and miners, loggers and others who tried to drive the Indians off their land, the latter often operating illegally, were in the news.
Yanomami
The Yanomami are a well-known example of a group of Indians whose land is threatened by others. The area they inhabit is about the size of France and initially it was only anthropologists who invaded their territory. But from the 1970s onwards it was gold miners who moved into their territory and introduced new diseases. While there were around 20,000 Yanomami in the 1970s, by 1997 there were only 9,000 left.
Brazil and its Indians
Brazil has allocated about 12.5% of its total area to Indians, and about 26% of the Amazon rainforest. All this for approximately 250,000 Indians, 0.25% of the total population, 60% of whom live in the Amazon region. The Serviço de Proteção aos Índios – SPI (Indian Protection Service, today the FUNAI or Fundação Nacional do Índio, National Foundation for Indians) was founded in 1910, with the help of Cândido Rondon, a man of part Portuguese and Indian descent. He committed himself to the Indians at a time when this was certainly not obvious. After him, aid to Indians went downhill for a while and the SPI was ruled by bureaucrats. The indigenous reserves, established by Brazilian law since 1988, provide a certain stability. Many non-Indians are not happy with this situation and still try to use the areas. But in general the new situation is an improvement for the Indians and in this way the deforestation of the Amazon forest is also being prevented. Yet the way of life of indigenous peoples in Brazil remains threatened.