The killers murdered his wife, son, daughter, mother, brothers and sisters. Karapiru believed that he was the only member of his family to survive one such massacre. Others, like Karapiru, were shot where they stood - at home, in front of their families. Some were inventive in their killings - several Awá died after eating flour laced with ant poison a ‘gift’ from a local farmer. The tribe stood between them and the dollars they knew the rocks would release. To the prospectors, the Awá tribe was nothing more than an obstacle to this treasure trove a primitive nuisance that needed to be felled together with the trees. The black of charcoal ash replaced the deep green of the forest’s foliage - Harakwá became a polluted, scarred, muddy vision of hell. Rivers were contaminated ancient trees chopped and burned. Huge diggers ripped at the land, tearing through layers of soil and rock to reach ore, bauxite and manganese. The Great Carajás Project was devastating for the region’s environment and its tribal peoples, despite the fact that in return for the billion-dollar loan, the financiers had asked the Brazilian government to guarantee that its indigenous territories would be mapped and protected.īut as a fortune was to be made from the forest, a flood of ranchers, settlers and loggers soon began to pour into the region. The roads destroyed swathes of primary rainforest and, on its 900km course to the coast, the railway cut through the Awá tribe’s territory.īut the project’s industrial show-piece was a chasm gouged from the forest floor - one so vast that it could be seen from space, and which in time would become the world’s largest open-cast mine. To transport workers in and minerals out, tarmacked roads and a long distance railway were built. It comprised a dam, aluminium smelters, charcoal camps and cattle ranches. Their discovery swiftly gave rise to the development of the Great Carajas Project, an agro-industrial scheme financed by the US, Japan, World Bank and EEC. In layman’s terms, the prospectors had just touched down on the planet’s richest iron ore deposit. In fact the soil beneath him contained what a geological magazine would later refer to as, ‘a thick layer of jaspilites and lenses of hard hematite.’ Reputedly, one geologist noticed a scattering of black-grey rocks on the ground, which he recognised as iron ore. The helicopter needed to refuel, so the pilot decided to land on a tree-less summit high in the Carajás Mountains. Karapiru’s harrowing story really begins with a chance discovery 45 years ago, when American geologists were carrying out an aerial survey of the region’s mineral resources. They also endured the murder of their people at the hands of ‘karaí’, or ‘non-Indians’, so that today they are not only one of the last hunter-gatherer tribes in Brazil, but the most threatened on earth. Then, over the course of four decades, they witnessed the destruction of their homeland - more than 30% of one of their territories has now been razed. When the moon is full, Awá men, their dark hair speckled white with king vulture down, commune with the spirits through a chant-induced trance, during a sacred ritual that lasts until dawn.įor centuries their way of life has been one of peaceful symbiosis with the rainforest. The Awá year is divided into ‘sun’ and ‘rain’ the rains are controlled by celestial beings called ‘maira’ who oversee vast reservoirs in the sky. Awá women even breast-feed capuchin and howler monkeys and have been known to suckle small pigs. The tribe nurtures orphaned animals as pets, share their hammocks with raccoon-like coatis and split mangoes with green parakeets. The Awá also travel by night, lighting the way with torches made from tree resin. Some foods are considered to have special properties - others, such as vultures, bats and the three-toed sloth, are forbidden. The 460 members of the Awá tribe live by hunting for peccary, tapir and monkey, travelling through the rainforest with 6-foot long bows, and by gathering forest produce: babaçu nuts, açaí berries and honey. Yet to the indigenous Awá, the land has only one name: Harakwá or, ‘the place that we know’. Karapiru’s ancestral homeland lies in Maranhão state, between the equatorial forests of Amazonia to the west and the eastern savannas. Nor could he have known that this brutal day would be the first in a decade of solitude and silence. He could never have imagined the day that he would have to flee for his life far into the rainforest, a shotgun pellet burning in his back, his family mown down by gunmen. Yet even with the acute eyesight this moniker suggests, Karapiru could not have foreseen the tragedy that befell his people, the Awá tribe of north-eastern Brazil. He tells Survival International, the only organization working for tribal peoples’ rights worldwide, that his name means ‘Hawk’ in his mother tongue.
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