Sydney Ferreira Possuelo (born 19 April 1940, in Santos Dumont) is a Brazilian explorer, social activist and ethnographer who is considered the leading authority on Brazil's remaining isolated Indigenous Peoples.
Sydney Ferreira Possuelo (born 19 April 1940, in Santos Dumont) is a Brazilian explorer, social activist and ethnographer who is considered the leading authority on Brazil's remaining isolated Indigenous Peoples.
Sydney Possuelo started his career assisting the famous Villas Boas brothers with their work among indigenous peoples of the Xingu River area.
In the late 1980s, he was instrumental in FUNAI's pacification and assimilation of the Arara (Para) people after conflict erupted between the Arara and construction crews working on the Trans-Amazonian Highway. The Arara fell victim to Eurasian diseases and lack of coordination between white and Arara meant that despite FUNAI's preparation for such eventuality, the resulting epidemic caused significant demographic upset. Lack of support for the consequences of contact and socioeconomic marginalization of the newly assimilated Arara had devastating consequences for their wellbeing, and disillusioned Possuelo with the existing policy of assimilation and acculturation of previously-uncontacted tribes. [1]
With support from like-minded FUNAI officials, particularly Gilberto Pinto Figueiredo, Possuelo successfully advocated for the creation of the Department of Indigenous in Isolation (Departamento de Indios Isolados) within FUNAI and became its first Director in 1987.
The Department of Indigenous in Isolation doubled the surface size of officially designated Indigenous land in Brazil over the next two years.
Working in the most isolated areas in the Amazon region, Possuelo has led many expeditions, getting in contact with or learning about isolated tribes in Brazil, with the aim to protect them from outsiders. He was responsible, among others, for the restoration of peaceful relations with the "uncontacted" Korubo Indians, who had previously killed some FUNAI officials, including Possuelo's close friend Raimundo (Sobral) Batista Magalhães.
On January 24, 2006, Possuelo was dismissed as director of the Department of Unknown Tribes within FUNAI. Days earlier, he had criticized FUNAI director Mercio Pereira Gomes for suggesting that Brazilian Indians held too much land, comparing Gomes to "ranchers, land-grabbers, miners, and loggers." [1]
Possuelo is still continuing his efforts at defending isolated tribes through the non-governmential Instituto Indigenista Interamericano. [2]
In a 2022 interview, Possuelo criticized then-president Jair Bolsonaro's approach to indigenous conservation, blaming his administration for an increase in illegal invasions of indigenous lands. In the interview, Possuelo stated that "Indigenous people have never faced a worst moment in Brazilian history than the one they are now facing" under Bolsonaro, who he accused of "giv[ing] cover to criminals and trespassers". [3] In the run-up to the 2022 Brazilian general election, Possuelo stated that he had issues with aspects of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's past, but expected him to improve the conditions of indigenous Brazilians if elected. [4]
For his many efforts Sydney has received many prizes, including honors from the National Geographic Society, Bartolomeu de las Casas in 1998, a gold medal from the Royal Geographical Society, the title of "Hero of the Planet" by Time Kids Magazine, as well as "Hero of the year" 2001 by United Nations. [5] [6]
In his 60 years of work, Brazilian-born Possuelo has made contact with seven tribes that had never previously been exposed to white people, was responsible for demarcating about 15 percent of Brazil’s territory as protected reserves for the indigenous communities, and afterward adopted an opposite – and revolutionary – policy of avoiding contact with those peoples, in order to protect them. With machete in hand and without an academic degree, he became an ethnographer and spent years in the jungles in the company of the native peoples.
For years Possuelo worked for and headed the Department for Isolated Indians in FUNAI, Brazil’s National Indian Bureau. His efforts have made him the foremost authority in the field, a spokesman for the indigenous tribes of the Amazon region and one of the most admired and decorated activists in the world. Without him, dozens of tribes would have become extinct. [7]
Possuelo is the main protagonist in the book The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon's Last Uncontacted Tribes (2011) by National Geographic writer Scott Wallace. It details a 76-day expedition in 2002 led by Possuelo to find the status of the "Arrow People", an uncontacted tribe in the Vale do Javari Indigenous Land.
Indigenous peoples in Brazil or Native Brazilians are the peoples who lived in Brazil before European contact around 1500 and their descendants. Indigenous peoples once comprised an estimated 2,000 district tribes and nations inhabiting what is now Brazil. The 2010 Brazil census recorded 305 ethnic groups of Indigenous people who spoke 274 Indigenous languages; however, almost 77% speak Portuguese.
Marshal Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon was a Brazilian military officer most famous for his telegraph commission and exploration of Mato Grosso and the western Amazon basin, as well as his lifelong support for Indigenous Brazilians. He was the first director of Brazil's Indian Protection Service or SPI and supported the creation of the Xingu National Park. The Brazilian state of Rondônia is named after him.
The Fundação Nacional dos Povos Indígenas or FUNAI is a Brazilian governmental protection agency for Amerindian interests and their culture.
Uncontacted peoples are groups of Indigenous peoples living without sustained contact with neighbouring communities and the world community. Groups who decide to remain uncontacted are referred to as indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation. Legal protections make estimating the total number of uncontacted peoples challenging, but estimates from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in the UN and the nonprofit group Survival International point to between 100 and 200 uncontacted tribes numbering up to 10,000 individuals total. A majority of uncontacted peoples live in South America, particularly northern Brazil, where the Brazilian government and National Geographic estimate between 77 and 84 tribes reside.
The Korubo or Korubu, also known as the Dslala, are a largely uncontacted, Panoan-speaking indigenous people of Brazil living in the lower Vale do Javari in the western Amazon Basin.
The Kawahiva, formerly called the Rio Pardo Indians, are an uncontacted indigenous tribe who live near the city of Colniza in Mato Grosso, close to the Rio Pardo in the north of Mato Grosso, Brazil. They are usually on the move and have little contact with outsiders. Thus, they are known primarily from physical evidence they have left behind – arrows, baskets, hammocks, and communal houses.
The Akuntsu are an indigenous people of Rondônia, Brazil. Their land is part of the Rio Omerê Indigenous Territory, a small indigenous territory which is also inhabited by a group of Kanoê. The Akuntsu were victims of a massacre perpetrated by Brazilian cattle ranchers in the 1980s and currently number just three individuals. It is unlikely that the Akuntsu language or culture will survive after their deaths, leading several observers to describe them as victims of genocide.
Vale do Javari is one of the largest indigenous territories in Brazil, encompassing 85,444.82 km2 (32,990 mi2) – an area larger than Austria. It is named after the Javari River, the most important river of the region, which since 1851 has formed the border with Peru. It includes much of the Atalaia do Norte municipality as well as adjacent territories in the western section of Amazonas state. Besides the Javari it is transected by the Pardo, Quixito, Itaquai and Ituí rivers.
Kampa Indigenous Territory and Envira River Isolated Peoples is an indigenous territory in Acre State, Brazil, which has been dedicated to uncontacted natives. The area is inhabited by the Ashaninka, Envira River Isolated Mashko, and the Xinane people, who speak a Panoan language related to Yaminawa and live by the Xinane Stream, an affluent of the Envira River.
The Matis people are an indigenous people of Brazil. Outsiders sometimes call them the Jaguar People, but they do not like the name. They currently live in the far west of Brazil, in the Vale do Javari Indigenous Territory, an area covering 83,000 square kilometres (32,000 sq mi). They practice hunting, fishing, foraging and agriculture. They work as teachers, health assistants, and surveillance of the territory for FUNAI, among other jobs, and the elders receive pensions from the government.
Jean-Pierre Dutilleux is a Belgian author, activist, film director, actor, and editor of films.
Tres Fronteras is an area of the Amazon rainforest in the Upper Amazon region of South America. It includes, and is named for, the tripoint where the borders of Brazil, Peru, and Colombia meet. The upper Amazon River flows through the area.
The genocide of indigenous peoples in Brazil began with the Portuguese colonization of the Americas, when Pedro Álvares Cabral made landfall in what is now the country of Brazil in 1500. This started the process that led to the depopulation of the indigenous peoples in Brazil, because of disease and violent treatment by Portuguese settlers, and their gradual replacement with colonists from Europe and enslaved peoples from Africa. This process has been described as a genocide, and continues into the modern era with the ongoing destruction of indigenous peoples of the Amazonian region.
The Man of the Hole, or the Tanaru Indian, was an Indigenous person who lived alone in the Amazon rainforest in the Brazilian state of Rondônia. He was the sole inhabitant of the Tanaru Indigenous Territory, a protected Indigenous territory demarcated by the Brazilian government in 2007.
The Flecheiros are one of the uncontacted peoples in the Javari region of the Amazon. Their ambiguous name simply means "arrow shooters".
José Carlos dos Reis Meirelles Júnior is a Brazilian that works for FUNAI, the agency that protects native Americans in Brazil. He is a specialist in uncontacted peoples.
On 5 June 2022, Brazilian indigenist Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips were murdered during a boat trip through the Vale do Javari, the second-largest indigenous area in Brazil.
Bruno da Cunha Araújo Pereira was a Brazilian indigenist and career employee of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI). He was an expert on uncontacted or recently contacted indigenous people in the country and on the Vale do Javari.
The Piripkura are an indigenous tribe who inhabit the Piripkura Indigenous Territory in Mato Grosso, Brazil. They are one of the last isolated Indigenous groups in the Amazon rainforest, with only three known survivors. Violence and deforestation have led to significant losses, with many tribe members killed by illegal loggers in the 1980s.
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