Few sporting pleasures can rival that of the post-victory brag.
Shortly after the Kuikoro had seen off their Amazonian rivals, the Karajá, in arguably the most hotly anticipated event of the first World Games for Indigenous Peoples, the tug-of-war, one of the athletes could not resist emphasising the ease of their 40-second victory.
“It was really simple,” Pique Kuikoro said. “To win, you just have to stay prepared, breathe at the right time and keep your feet planted in the sand.”
Not all the games at this nine-day event in Palmas, a sleepy city in the sweltering agricultural heartland of Brazil, are quite so straightforward.
There’s football, of course, and archery, but also spear-throwing, log-carrying and xiknahiti – a game that’s like football but played on all fours and only with the head.
Almost 2,000 competitors from over 20 countries, from the Aeta people of the Philippines to the Neyihaw of Canada’s Saskatchewan province have gathered for a series of sporting contests billed as the indigenous Olympics.
Unlike the Olympics, the goal of the event is not to win medals – after all, every participant will be entitled to one – but to raise awareness of indigenous culture worldwide.
But it comes at a time when tensions are on the rise across Brazil between indigenous communities, who comprise around 0.5% of the country’s 200 million people, and those of European descent.
According to the Catholic church’s Missionary Council for Indigenous Peoples (Cimi), 138 indigenous people were killed in clashes over land last year, a rise of 130% over 2013.
On Saturday, a protester from the Enawenê-Nawê people in the central-western state of Mato Grosso was shot during a confrontation with a group of farmers and lorry drivers.
Last Thursday, a group of more than 100 activists from indigenous groups and social movements invaded the local assembly in Mato Grosso do Sul to call for a boycott of the state’s agricultural products due to a land dispute.
“Given the context of the current situation in Brazil, we are strongly critical of these games,” Cléber Buzzato, the executive secretary of Cimi, said. “The government is trying to promote the idea that we celebrate indigenous peoples, while in reality both their rights and sometimes their actual bodies are under attack.”
The games have coincided with a string of protests against PEC215, a constitutional amendment currently being debated in congress which would strip the federal government of its powers to demarcate indigenous territories, handing them instead to a legislature stacked with deputies funded by the agricultural industry. It would also grant congress the power to revise the boundaries of pre-existing reserves.
At present, FUNAI, the indigenous affairs agency, along with various other government bodies, demarcates the land in conjunction with indigenous communities. However, the slow pace of the process has come under severe criticism from indigenous rights’ activists.
Representatives of the agricultural lobby, however, argue that the main problem is that no one represents the interests of the landowners and food producers. For Luís Carlos Heinze, a federal deputy for the rightwing Partido Progressista (PP) from the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, the current demarcation system, established by former president Lula da Silva, is “a mess”.
“In my state alone you have 38 lawsuits against the government,” he said. “Imagine, you have worked the land for three, four or five generations, then some government anthropologists come along and kick you off your land.”
As an example, Heinze cited the government’s attempt to create the Mato Preto indigenous reserve in Rio Grande do Sul. “Over 300 families live there; landowners, producers who have been there since the last century. Now they want them out to make way for an indigenous community. If I stole your house, would you be happy with that?”
Padre Ton, a former deputy from the ruling Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) who led the indigenous peoples’ parliamentary front, said PEC 215 is likely to win congressional approval, but could still struggle in the senate.
“The government is weak at the moment, and it has to cut some deals with the agricultural lobby,” he said. “There are very few people in congress who defend indigenous rights.”
Ton argues that tension between landowners and indigenous peoples is likely to rise if the amendment is passed. “The bill is designed to cater to the interests of the major landowners and the mining corporations. The PEC will increase the conflict,” he said.
