Surviving on Paper: Recent Indigenous Writing in Brazil

Abstract

The revised Brazilian constitution of 1988 represents a sea-change in Brazilian indigenism, by officially recognizing Brazil as a multi-lingual and multi-cultural society. This modified the constitution of national identity and consequently modified the previous tenet of Brazilian official indigenism, which was to acculturate indigenous cultures into a monolingual Portuguese-speaking national culture by eliminating the cultural and linguistic characteristics, which were their marks of difference. What official policy has not modified, however, is the need for tutelage and protection which continues to subjugate the indigenous population to official federal policy, given that this protection and tutelage are seen to be the jurisdiction of the central federal government.