A reinvenção Tiriyó na missão religiosa católica entre as décadas de 1960 a 1980.

Abstract

The presence of explorers in the North of the state of Pará has a long history. However, it was the increased flow of people in the region that raised the need for better control over the border by the Brazilian government. In this context, the 1959 excursion gave rise to a religious mission, whose main objective was to establish the bases of a military post in that region. For this purpose, the missionaries function had been to gather the dispersed indigenous people and, at the same time, to guarantee dominion over the territory through the Mission. As it was a national territory, the religious presence played the role of extension of the State. In this way, the indigenous people’s socialization project aimed to keep them fixed there, populating that Amazon region, within a prospect of national communion. The Tiriyó are among the groups that have suffered numerous outside interferences. It was only after the 1970s and 1980s that there was a reaction by the indigenous people to mitigate the negative effects of the internal changes suffered by the group. This period also coincides with the predominance of the Portuguese language and other cultural elements, such as the legal code. The combination of these factors made it possible for the indigenous population to have a greater desire to be freed from external influence and the consequent affirmation of their tradition. Thus, the incipient contestation of the methods employed by the agents culminated in the indigenous protagonism of the struggle for the rights acquired in the new society. In this work, we will analyze the relations established in the Paru of Oeste Mission, between the years 1959 to 1985. For this purpose, we will make use of the indigenous people memories and other documentation produced by them. These sources are located in the FUNAI of Belém and also in printed newspapers from the capital city. We will also analyze official records found in the religious collections from the cities of Recife, Belém, and from the Tiriyó Mission, as well as from documents produced by the military corpus. All these sources are available at INCAER-RJ and in the FUNAI of Belém.