Rio de Janeiro, Feb 12 (EFE).- A presentation on the culture of the Yanomami in which there was no shortage of allusions to the genocide and the recent famine suffered by the ethnic group in northern Brazil captured attention this Sunday on the first night of parades of the samba schools, the main attraction of the Rio de Janeiro carnival.
The popular Salgueiro samba school, third to parade this Sunday night, chose as the theme of its samba and its parade the ‘Hutukara’, as the Yanomami call the “original sky from which the earth was formed”, which they allowed a cry to be staged in the sambadrome in defense of the survival of the ethnic group and of the Amazon itself.
The staged samba, which included among its composers well-known Brazilian musicians such as Dudu Nobre and Arlindinho Cruz, exalted the struggle of the Yanomami to survive “in an endless war” in which they refuse to surrender to “order and progress.” , the motto displayed on the Brazilian flag.
Although the parade mainly highlighted the mythology, customs and legends of the Yanomami, there was no shortage of allusions to a massacre of indigenous people of the ethnic group in 1991 that the justice system described as the first genocide in the history of Brazil and to the eternal crisis caused by illegal miners who invade their reserve, devastate the Amazon and contaminate their rivers with mercury.
There was also no lack of allusions to the plans of the Brazilian dictatorship that harmed the ethnic group and to the backhoes that destroy the Amazon rainforest.
Salgueiro took advantage of the fact that the tragedy of the Yanomami gained relevance last year, when the Government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was forced to declare a humanitarian emergency due to famine, malaria and malnutrition that caused the death in 2022 of at least 99 children. of the ethnic group under 5 years old.
The theme, for this reason, quickly gained support among the 80,000 people who filled the sambadrome to attend the first night of parades by the samba schools of the so-called Special Group, considered the largest open-air event in the world and the main attraction of the Carioca carnival.
The Yanomami Land, with 9 million hectares in the Amazon on the border between Brazil and Venezuela, is the largest indigenous reserve in the country, and is home to 27,000 indigenous people who practically live in the same conditions as 500 years ago.
Tribute to other indigenous martyrs
The parade also paid tribute to the British journalist Dom Phillips and the Brazilian indigenous activist Bruno Araújo (whose widow participated in the parade), murdered in 2022 in the middle of the Amazon for their defense of uncontacted ethnic groups, and other indigenous peoples of Brazil who also They have suffered long tragedies for the defense of their lands, like the Guaraní.
The main consultant for the Salgueiro parade was the Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa, one of the main indigenous leaders of Brazil who paraded in the school’s last float alongside several chiefs from other towns.
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Kopenawa even helped composers include Yanomami words like “napé” (stranger) and “yoasi” (evildoer) in a samba according to which the indigenous people learned the Portuguese language from the “oppressor” to make him see their pain.
On the float that closed the parade were thirteen prominent Yanomami indigenous people, some of whom had never left the reserve and among whom stood out Ehuana Yanomami, the first woman of the ethnic group to write a book in their language, and Morzaniel Iramari, the first filmmaker. yanomami.
The indigenous theme was also present in the parade of the Grande Río samba school, which staged the Tupinambá myth of the creation of the world from the jaguar in the sambadrome.
The first day’s parades impressed the public with some technological tricks, such as the 55,000 LED bracelets distributed by the Grande Río school, the same group’s enormous neon-lit jaguar that stands up and roars, the giant balls of soap exhaled by the last float of Beija-Flor or the dancer hoisted by her head that levitated 12 meters high.
And there were also accidents, such as the one caused by a float from Porto da Pedra that ran over and injured a woman at the entrance to the sambadrome.
Six other schools will parade between Monday night and Tuesday morning, and the winner among the twelve of the Special Group and the new carnival champion will be announced on Ash Wednesday, as well as the one that descends to the second division.
Carlos A. Moreno
By: EFE
The post A parade regarding the Yanomami indigenous people attracts attention at the Rio carnival appeared first on Minuto30.
2024-02-12 06:56:12
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