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Gallery|Indigenous Rights

How Brazil’s Indigenous rights hinge on one tribe’s legal battle

The Xokleng were cleared off their traditional hunting grounds over a century ago to make room for the European settlers.

Lazaro Kamlem, 47, 'cacique' of Palmeira village, stands in a wood canoe in Itajai river in Xokleng Laklano Indigenous land, Jose Boiteux, Santa Catarina state, Brazil. [Amanda Perobelli/Reuters]
Published On 25 Aug 2021

Pushed into a degraded corner of their ancestral lands, the Xokleng people of southern Brazil anxiously await a Supreme Court ruling that could restore territory they lost decades ago.

Sitting by a wood stove, Xokleng elders recall the days when plentiful fish and game fed their families, before the bulk of their fertile lands were sold by the state to tobacco farmers in the 1950s.

Now the Xokleng pray that Brazilian courts will fulfil a dying shaman’s prophecy that they would one day win their lands back.

On Wednesday, the top court in Brasilia will decide whether the Santa Catarina state government has applied an overly narrow interpretation of Indigenous rights by only recognising tribal lands occupied by native communities at the time Brazil’s constitution was ratified in 1988.

The case began when the state government used that interpretation to evict a group of Xokleng from a nature reserve in their ancestral lands. The decision was appealed by Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency Funai on behalf of the Xokleng.

It was “another attempt to eliminate us,” said Brasilio Pripra, a 63-year old community leader. “Our people have lived here for thousands of years.”

The Xokleng were cleared off their traditional hunting grounds over a century ago to make room for European settlers, mostly Germans fleeing economic and political turmoil.

At one point, the state rewarded the killing of Indigenous people and mercenaries collected the ears of their dead, a painful history documented by anthropologists and passed between generations.

“Before they killed us with guns, now they kill us with the stroke of a pen,” said João Paté, a former “cacique” or chief.

Across Brazil, the Supreme Court ruling will affect hundreds of Indigenous land claims, many of which offer a bulwark against deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

A defeat in court for the Xokleng could set a precedent for the dramatic rollback of Indigenous rights which far-right President Jair Bolsonaro advocates. He says too few Indigenous people live on too much land in Brazil, blocking agricultural expansion.

Determined to keep their traditions alive, the Xokleng gather around bonfires at night to tell stories in their own language and keep up their rituals of dance and prayer, sometimes painting the faces of their young ones. [Amanda Perobelli/Reuters]
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Lazaro Kamlem, 47, is a descendent of Shaman Kamlem, the Xokleng medicine man who said on his deathbed in 1925 that they would lose their land to "white men," but would one day gain it back. "We are here and we will resist to the end. This struggle will not be over," said Kamlem. [Amanda Perobelli/Reuters]
A car passing by a tobacco plantation on a land which the Xokleng Indigenous people claim as their territory in Vitor Meireles, Santa Catarina state. [Amanda Perobelli/Reuters]
Community leader Brasilio Pripra, 63, shows the document issued by Santa Catarina state office about Indigenous land in the region in Xokleng Laklano Indigenous land. [Amanda Perobelli/Reuters]
Joao Pate, 78, a former 'cacique' or chief, poses for a photograph in Xokleng Laklano Indigenous land. The Xokleng number some 3,000 people today, crowding into their 14,156 hectares of hilly territory, where landslides threaten homes and most land is too steep for agriculture. [Amanda Perobelli/Reuters]
Vanda Kamlem, 87, sits surrounded by her grandchildren at her house in Xokleng Laklano Indigenous land. "We cannot plant food living in this hole. They want to get rid of us. They don't like us," said Vanda. A former midwife, Vanda remembers the days when she gathered pine nuts from the abundant Araucaria pines, known as monkey-puzzle trees. Now, the forests have been cut down and fish have become scarce as the rivers turned cloudy, she said. [Amanda Perobelli/Reuters]
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Children play as their parents participate in a prayer in Xokleng Laklano Indigenous land. Across Brazil, the Supreme Court ruling will affect hundreds of Indigenous land claims, many of which offer a bulwark against deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. [Amanda Perobelli/Reuters]
The Xokleng number some 3,000 people today, crowding into their 14,156 hectares of hilly territory, where landslides threaten homes and most land is too steep for agriculture. They are claiming a further 24,000 hectares (93 square miles) of rich tobacco country that they say belonged to them for centuries before settlers moved in. [Amanda Perobelli/Reuters]
Xokleng elders recall the days when plentiful fish and game fed their families, before the bulk of their fertile lands were sold by the state to tobacco farmers in the 1950s. [Amanda Perobelli/Reuters]
Fisherman Luiz Cabral, 52, throws a fish in a wooden canoe on the Itajai river near the north dam, on Xokleng Laklano Indigenous land. [Amanda Perobelli/Reuters]
The Xokleng still share their food in communal meals but the beef they roast is bought off the reservation, as they lack enough land to hunt or to raise cattle. [Amanda Perobelli/Reuters]
Loreni Ngavem Pripra, 44, sits with Xokleng Indigenous women as they chat after lunch in Xokleng Laklano Indigenous land. [Amanda Perobelli/Reuters]