Waimiri Atroari

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The Waimiri Atroari (other names: Kinja, Kiña, Uaimiry, Crichaná ) are an indigenous ethnic group in the states of Roraima and Amazonas in northern Brazil . At the end of 2004 it had 1,066 members. It is estimated that there were around 3,000 people in the 1960s, 1,500 in 1974 and only 374 in 1988. They speak one of the Caribbean languages , ISO 639 language code : atr.

As of February 2020, the Waimiri Atroari stated a population of 2186 indigenous people who live in 62 forest villages ( aldeias ).

The first contact with whites came in 1732 , their settlement area was visited by Francisco Xavier Ribeiro Sampaio in 1775 , and the naturalist João Barbosa Rodrigues presented a first word list in 1885. The Waimiri Atroari had a reputation for being warriors and to defend their territory by all means against invaders with commercial interests.

In the 1970s and 1980s, three major sources of conflict almost led to the extinction of the Kinja people , as they call themselves: the construction of the BR-174 road from Manaus to Boa Vista with brutal military intervention, a mining project by the Paranapanema group Extraction of cassiterite and the construction of the Balbina dam with the Usina Hidrelétrica de Balbina hydroelectric power station . in the municipality of Presidente Figueiredo with the relocation of two villages of the Waimiri, which at the time had already been drastically decimated.

The Waimiri Atroari program was started in 1987 to mitigate the negative influences in the construction of Balbina , carried out by the state Indian authority FUNAI and financed by the electricity company Eletronorte . In this context, a protected area of ​​25,859 km² was created, which, however, is cut through by 125 km of roads. The aim of the program should be limited integration while preserving cultural independence.

The Waimiri Atroari have universal health care and 65% go to bilingual school. They are doing better now than the other ethnic groups in the Amazon region. The high birth and thus growth rates, the lack of alcoholism and the high number of traditional Maryba festivals are cited as evidence of this. In contrast to others, the protected area is quite well protected; there are no missionaries, prospectors or other “unauthorized persons” there.

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  1. ↑ Dados. In: org.br. Programa Waimiri Atroari, February 8, 2020, accessed July 6, 2020 (Portuguese).
  2. ^ João Barbosa Rodrigues: Rio Jauapery: Pacificação dos Crichanás. (PDF) In: wdfiles.com. Biblioteca Digital Curt Nimuendajú, 1885, pp. 249–260 , accessed on July 6, 2020 .
  3. ^ Franz Mechsner: Flood against Indians. In: Zeit Online . August 7, 1987. Retrieved October 17, 2015 .