It is 1975. A devastating epidemic has hit the state of Roraima, in northern Brazil. It is the plague of extractivism. The first garimpeiros, small scale miners in search of gold or precious stones in the Amazon, have arrived. About 500 of them begin to climb the Serra dos Surucucus uplands. In 1980, another 2,000 enter the territory of the Yanomami indigenous people via the Uraricuera River. The epidemic rages and the garimpeiros bring other ills, not least unheard diseases like measles and malaria, which wiped out many Yanomami.
They found lots and lots of gold on our land during those years. By the time we realized what was happening, 150 airplanes were flying daily into Yanomami territory from Boa Vista to transport miners back and forth. It is a measure of the number of gold miners headed for our home that Boa Vista airport became one of the busiest in Brazil.
In 1987, Romero Jucá, president of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), a government agency, arrived in Yanomami territory. Jucá signed an agreement with an Indigenous member of another group, not a Yanomani, that allowed miners in and the moment – in which he affirms that it is necessary to bring progress to the Indigenous peoples to “maintain the family” – was recorded on video. But the wishes expressed by Jucá and the Indigenous person from another ethnic group, who came from far away to tell us he was our representative, were not the same as ours. They were not the same and never will be.
