The Enawene Nawe are a small Amazonian tribe in an area of savannah and tropical rainforest in Mato Grosso state, western Brazil. They are a relatively isolated people first contacted in 1974 by Jesuit missionaries. Today they number around 500 and live in large communal houses or malocas that radiate out from a central square where ritual and communal activities are performed. They chose for many years to have very little interaction with the outside world, but threats to their land have led them to campaign vigorously for their rights. The Enawene Nawe say the 77 hydroelectric dams to be built on the River Juruena will pollute the water and stop fish reaching their spawning grounds.
Enawene Nawe man / Photo by Fiona Watson, Survival International
During the fishing season the men build dams across rivers in this area and spend several months camped in the forest, catching and smoking the fish which is then transported by canoe to their village. Fish is an essential part of the Enawene Nawe diet and plays a vital part in rituals such as Yãkwa, a four-month exchange of food between humans and spirits. The Enawene Nawe also grow manioc and corn in gardens and gather forest products. Honey gathering is celebrated in keteoko (the honey feast) when men collect large amounts of wild honey in the forest and hide it on their return to the village, only revealing it when the women start to dance. Unusually for an Amazonian tribe, they do not hunt or eat red meat. Most of their land was officially recognised in 1996, but this crucial area called the Rio Preto where they gather to fish was left out.
Land invasion is destroying the forest and polluting the land and rivers
For decades the Enawene Nawe have faced invasion of their lands by rubber tappers, diamond prospectors, cattle ranchers and more recently soya planters, all destroying the forest and polluting the land and rivers. Maggi, the largest soya company in Brazil illegally built a road on their land in 1997. This was subsequently closed by a federal prosecutor. Blairo Maggi who owns the soya company is also the governor of Mato Grosso state who are now building this vast complex of hydroelectric dams upriver from the Rio Preto.
“They are at a critical point in their history. Either the deforestation of the Rio Preto area and the dams are stopped or the Enawene Nawe will no longer be able to fish, which is crucial to their survival, their beliefs and their relationship with the spirit world.”
- Survival
You can read more about the plight of the Enawene Nawe on the Survival website. Survival supports a land protection project run by the Enawene Nawe and the Brazilian non-governmental organisation OPAN. A short film on their Tribal Channel, shows how the Enawene Nawe rely on the forest and the rivers, and tells how their ancestral spirits will respond to the destruction of their land.
[...] Electricity Consumers. Meet The Enawene Nawe Tribe from Survival International. [...]