About the names of the peoples
Because they did not write at the time of their attraction and
pacification, the Indians who lived in Brazil were (and continue
to be) baptized in writing by whites, in a process
that has given (and still gives) margin to a lot of confusion in terms
of:
There
is great variety in the manner in which the names of Indigenous peoples
are spelled in Brazil. Different patterns co-exist side by side, sometimes
created by the staff of the Federal Governments organ for Indian
affairs, Fundação Nacional do Índio National
Foundation for the Indian (Funai), sometimes by anthropologists
and, more recently, even by Writing Manuals of the main titles of the
Brazilian press. The name of a group that today lives in the State of
Acre, for example, may be written in at least four different ways: caxinauá,
cashinaua, kaxinawá and kaxináua.
The main reason for anthropologists to choose a spelling for name in
a given way has to do with the adoption of an alphabet in which the
words of the language of that people will be written. Because Indigenous
languages frequently have sounds that have no direct representation
in the letters of the Brazilian Portuguese alphabet, anthropologists
are forced to resort to other letters and combinations of letters. They
try, in such case, to use letters whose sound interpretation are close
to the international phonetic alphabet, used by linguists all over the
world, instead of the Portuguese alphabet.
Besides, why should Indigenous names be reduced to the Brazilian form
when there are several peoples that do not live exclusively in Brazil?
Lets not forget that the borders between the national States in
South America were superimposed on Indigenous societies in such a way
that some of them live under the political and administrative jurisdiction
of two, three and even four different countries.
The disagreements on the orthography of the names of Indigenous peoples
often place anthropologists against the Writing Manuals of large newspapers.
But in this topic there is no consensus even among anthropologists themselves.
Most controversies are related to the use of capital letters and plurals.
But in that regard there is no consensus even among anthropologists
themselves. Most controversies are related to the use (or not) of capital
letters and the plural form for the names of the ethnic groups (both
of which are possible in Portuguese).
For some people, when the name of a people is used as an adjective,
there is no reason for using capital letters (Guarani language, for
example, can be written as guarani language, which, unlike English,
can be used in Portuguese). When it is used as a noun, it would be more
adequate to use capital letters, since it designates a single collectivity,
a society, a people, instead of just a group of individuals. Thus Kaingang
is correctly written in Portuguese when it is a noun.
Those who defend that the plural form is unnecessary (which is generally
required in Portuguese) justify their opinion by saying that adding
an s to a word of an Indigenous language results in a hybrid..
In addition, there is the possibility that the words may already be
plural or, perhaps, that the plural form does not exist in the Indigenous
language.
Writing Manuals, in turn, impose the use of the Portuguese orthography
for the names of the tribes, not allowing the use of the w,
y and k (!) and of groups of letters that do
not exist in Portuguese, such as sh. This criterion is inconsistent,
just as writing names always in small letters or use singular and plural
but not masculine/feminine is. Thus if krahô has to be written
craô, then Kubitscheck should be written Cubicheque, and Geisel,
Gáisel.
The confusion becomes worse when self-denominations i.e., the
verbal forms with which a people names itself enter the scene.
In many cases, research made by anthropologists and linguists find out
that self-denominations have nothing to do with the names given to Indigenous
groups by whites. A good part of the current names used
today and in the past too to designate Indigenous peoples
in Brazil are not self-denominations. Many of them were given by other
peoples, frequently enemies, and for that reason have inadequate connotations.
Such is the case, for example, of the Araweté, named as such
for the first time by a sertanista (expert on Indians) of Funai who,
just after the first contacts, established in the mid-1970s,
believed he could understand their language. Thus the name, written
for the first time by a federal employee in a report, ended up becoming
the official public identity of this people. But an anthropologist who
studied the Araweté a few years later and learned their language
found out that the members of this people originally do not call themselves
by a noun; instead, when referring to the collective to which they belong
they use the word bïdé, a pronoun that means we,
the human beings.
The word bïdé does not refer to a substance (like
Brazilian, for example, refers to Brazil), but
to a perspective (human, as opposed to animal, divine, enemy...). Depending
on the context in which it is said, it might refer to human collectivities
more or less extensive: to the Araweté themselves (as opposed
to other groups, enemies); to all the Indians (as opposed to non-Indians);
to all human beings (as opposed to animals and gods)...
Citizens of national States like us think that every society must have
a name. As the case of the Araweté clearly shows, that is not
necessarily so: even though the Araweté use the word bïdé
to refer to themselves, it is not a noun; and the we which
it refers to is not always the same.
In other cases, the connotations of the names of Indigenous ethnic
groups can be pejorative. Kayapó, for example, is a generic designation
given to these Indians by peoples of the Tupi language, with whom they
made war until recently, and means monkeylike. Other names
were given by sertanistas of the old SPI (Serviço de Proteção
aos Índios Service of Protection of the Indian, the first
government agency for Indian affairs) or of Funai, often right after
the first contacts had been made by the so-called expedições
de atração (attraction expeditions). In such conditions,
without knowledge of the language, misunderstandings were frequent,
and certain peoples ended up being known by names that were given to
them arbitrarily.
In those times of initial contacts and of precarious communications
with unknown tribes, some peoples became known by the name
of one of their members or fractions. There are also cases of names
in Portuguese that were imposed on others, such as the Beiço-de-Pau
Wooden Lip (referring to the Tapayúna, of the State
of Mato Grosso) or the Cinta-Larga Wide Belt from the
State of Rondônia, called so by Funai sertanistas because they
wore wide belts made of bark when they were contacted in the end of
the 1960s.
Attracting and pacifying the Indians, and arbitrarily imposing
names on them, has to do with colonial practices of social control:
spatial concentration of the population (with the consequent contamination
of natives by diseases and post-contact depopulation), implementation
of precarious, paternalistic systems of social assistance, territorial
confinement, and exploitation of natural resources. All this in the
name of the integration of the Indians to national society.
On the contrary, recognizing and respecting their specific identities,
learning their languages and understanding their traditional forms of
social organization, of occupation of the land and of use of their natural
resources has to do with diplomatic gestures of cultural exchange and
respect to special collective rights.
In order to know more about the orthography of the names of Indigenous
peoples in Brazil (all the bibliography below is in Portuguese), see:
- ABA (Associação Brasileira de Antropologia) "Convenção para
a grafia dos nomes tribais". Revista de antropologia, São
Paulo: USP, ano 2, número 2, 1954.
- MELATTI, Julio Cezar "Como escrever palavras indígenas".
Revista de atualidade indígena, Brasília: Funai, ano 3, número
16, 1979.
- MELATTI, Julio Cezar "Nomes de tribos". Ciência hoje,
Rio de Janeiro: SBPC (Sociedade Brasileira para o Progresso da
Ciência), volume 10, número 56, 1989.
- FOLHA DE S. PAULO Novo manual de redação, São Paulo,
verbete "indígena/ índio", page 81.
- MARTINS FILHO, Eduardo Lopes Manual de redação e estilo
de O Estado de S. Paulo. São Paulo: O
- Estado de S. Paulo, 1997, 3ª. edição revista e ampliada, entry
"Índios", page 145.