The Yanomami, intrigued by his green eyes, watched him. They were afraid, A
thinking that he was an apparition After all, they had never seen a man Yan with green eyes. With time, they grew wom accustomed to Dr. Marcos Pellegrini,
who, in 1986, was the first white man to him a come in contact with a tribe of Yanoma-
mi Indians from the Moxafe region in Whi
Roraima. To get there, Marcos under- took a week-long journey, three days of Strang
which were on foot in the heart of the “Are jungle. For a number of months, Marcos lived any with this tribe, learning their customs which had not yet been tainted by “civi- wo
lization.” It was a harmonious society-
without epidemics or hunger. Hunting, fishing and
agricultural production provided enough for all. But after Marcos, with his green eyes, thousands
of men arrived with their dredges, revolvers and mercury. It was the invasion of the garimpeiros in search of gold. in 1991, Marcos, now a doctor at the National Health Foundation and the Indligenista Missionary
Council (CIMI), returned to visit this tribe. Green eyes and blonde hair no longer impressed the Yanomami. A number of them had other interests:
women offered themselves to him in exchange for gifts. The health of the tribe had deteriorated. Marcos noted the appearance of various illnesses,
among them gonorrhea. An old woman asked him a question, which was strange at first glance: “Aren’t there any white women?”
Afterwards, he understood. These people had met only men-soldiers and garimpeiros-who rep- resented invasion and illness. They were not accom-
panied by their wives, and took advantage of the indigenous women. Sex, so natural in the bosom of the community, had become a product with an exchange value. In this way, prostitution made its appearance in the tribe: sex was paid for with rum, medicine, clothes and food. The tribe had even stopped growing crops and were in need of food. Marcos is currently working with the tribes of the upper Purus region in Acre. There, he has also noted the sexual abuse of indigenous women and children-especially by the marreteiros, hawkers who travel by boat selling their wares. They carry rum with them to pay the women.
“I had the opportunity to interview old the former cacique Raiaou, who lives mami in the indigenous reserve of So iY ~Louren)o, in the municipality of Assis
i asked Brazil. Raiaou, who spoke in the Jam- inaut language which a local guide
uestion, translated for me, admitted to having been the victim of this rum intro- h was duced by the marreteiros. One day, ft one of the men asked to sleep with at fit his daughter in exchange for 12 bot-
t there tles. The deal was struck. The old cacique had no complaint until the
Nhite men asked for his wife. “Then, I said: ‘Respect me, you son
en?” of a bitch,”‘ Raiaou recounted, repeating the gesture he had made with his arm. He said the phrase “son of a bitch” not in JaminauA, but in Portuguese.
During my stay in Rio Branco, I discovered vari- ous Jaminau6 families wandering around the city. A team of television reporters approached a family
to ask for an interview. The reporters were caught off-guard when the girls insistently offered their
bodies in exchange for a little food or money. Not only the marreteiros, but also the soldiers scattered among the different garrisons of the Amazon are responsible for the attacks against women and children. The doctor and anthropolo- gist Antonio Maria de Souza, a researcher at the
Emilio-Goeldi museum in BelCm, has gathered dozens of testimonies of the “general”-a sort of
gang rape on indigenous girls that the soldiers engage in. “it was common practice until very recently for a group of men-in general off-duty recruits-to catch an Indian, often a young one,” Ant6nio says. “They would take her to a deserted place and force her to do ‘the general.’ In other words, they would gang-rape her. These rapes occurred innumerable times despite the punishment of some aggressors. In the city, you hear people say that the Indian girls like it.” The commander of the Fifth Special Borders Bat- talion of the Army of S5o Gabriel da Cachoeira, Colonel Francisco Abrio, does not appreciate the accusations against his soldiers. “It is the Indian women who try to rape my soldiers when they are in heat,” he says. “I must protect my soldiers because
they cannot respond to all these longings.”
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