Check out this new article by Mariana Reinach, from the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and CASAS member.

The article denounces that the indigenous Xokleng people of Brazil suffered death threats, discrimination, physical and verbal aggression from the population and municipal authorities of Rio do Oeste (Santa Catarina) when they opposed the display of the bones of their ancestors as a tourist attraction in a restaurant built in the Tiger Cave. The site was originally an ancient Indian refuge and cemetery, where the Xokleng people claim to have established a village. The analysis summarizes the history of interethnic interactions in the region and shows how white society’s responses to the retaking of this indigenous land mobilized two major myths that emerged at the time of the colonization of Brazil: the myth of the “good savage” and the myth of the “wild Indian”. The text shows that the story of the retaking of the Tiger Cave, with all its unfoldings, is a perfect portrait of how the racist and colonial power structure, its imaginary and modes of operation remain alive in Brazil, and are reproduced in every small town.

You can access the complete article on the Brazilian Le Monde Diplomatique website, written in Portuguese, by following this link: https://diplomatique.org.br/a-sanha-colonial-contra-a-retomada-xokleng-da-gruta-do-tigre/

Mariana Reinach

Mariana Homem de Mello Reinach is a social scientist, Ph.D. student at the Graduate Program of Social Sciences in Development, Agriculture and Society at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (CPDA/UFRRJ) and researcher at the Center for Power Studies (NEP). She works on social ecology, neoextrativism, ethnology, insurgent identities and struggles for land, territory, autonomy and recognition of indigenous and traditional communities.