Os aldeamentos indígenas no Caminho dos Goiases: guerra e etnogênese no sertão do Gentio Cayapó (Sertão da Farinha Podre) séculos XVIII e XIX

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to understand the historical importance of the formation of indigenous villages in Sertão da Farinha Podre (current regions of Triângulo Mineiro and Alto Paranaíba in the State of Minas Gerais). These villages were created from the reunion of different indigenous groups from the Portuguese America in a delimited territory. The starting point of the historical process that culminated in the emerging of these villages occurred in the middle of the 18th century when that region was the South Kayapó indians site for habitation and displacement. With the delimitation of the Goiases Way by the Anhanguera expedition and with the discovery of auriferous and diamantiferous mines there was an inflow of non-indians to the territory of Goiás. Because of that, the Kayapó indians started to perform a series of attacks on the non-indians resulting in death, fire, destruction and stealing of objects and provisions. After countless frustrated attempts, Antonio Pires de Campos, an inland explorer, was hired to combat the Kayapós. His army of indians was composed of Bororo and Paresi that were displaced from Cuiabá surroundings. The war strategy which was idealized by the colonial authorities and by the inland explorer consisted in creating indigenous villages between Grande River and Paranaíba River (both in Sertão da Farinha Podre) along the Goiases Way. The indigenous villages were cores that permitted the indians to create a new identity through a process of dynamic and cultural exchange among their inhabitants, but in 1780 these villages became less important to the non-indians when groups of South Kayapó indians were settled in Maria I, in the territory of Goiás. At the beginning of the 19th century there was a continuous process of spoliation of the land that belonged to the settled indians because of the sesmarias concession and the occupation of the non-indians that came mainly from the west and mid-west regions of Minas Gerais. The war and the indigenous villages may be understood from the current Indian Culture Support policy during the colonial period but also from the relation between structure and event proposed by Marshall Sahlins. The relation between History and Anthropology also occurred from the application of the circumstantial evidence paradigm and from the use of the ethnographic projection method. Both practices were important to understand the archival sources from the 18th and 19th centuries which were the basic material for the research.