Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 6
THE COLOR RED
Mapping Flowers and Fruits in the Brazilian Savannah
On an early Monday morning in January 2003, during the hot and muggy rainy season
in central Brazil, I witnessed an extra supply of red colored pencils and crayons spread
over a Xavante school table being quickly used up. Flowers, fruits, sprouts, seeds,
and the land itself became increasingly tinged with red in the children's drawings
as we heard from two
Ritei'wa
(initiated as adults but still unmarried young men)
details about the assassination of a dear elder, Joaquim Maradezuro. I noticed how
the color of the flower called
utoparané
in the Xavante language (which is of great
importance in Xavante medicine - “it works for everything”) changed dramatically
from a bright yellow to a deep ruby red in the hands of the hard-working children.
Tones of red conveyed the young ones' deep distress at Joaquim's death as flowers
and fruits metaphorically became weapons used to fight against the violation of their
most basic human right: the right to life.
1
The tragic assassination of Joaquim Maradezuro and what happened to his body,
bones, and ashes, clearly map interactions between Indigenous Peoples on the one
side, and big landowners and the government on the other. The color red is a metaphor
that stands for these unambiguous relationships. To begin with, red is the Xavante's
favorite color. It is the favorite color for body paint, for women's dresses, and for
men's soccer uniforms. Red is both a symbol of life and death, and everything that
stands in between. The Xavante use four terms to classify colors: red, black, white,
and yellow - which includes green and blue. Gê-speaking Brazilian nations, such
as the Xavante, use body-paint as a medium of decoration and communication.
The contrast between the color red, obtained from urucu seeds (scientific name,
Bixa orellana
), and black, extracted from charcoal and the jenipapo fruit (
Genipa
americana
), reveals one's membership to an extended patrilineal family, clan, age-
set, or other social group. The everyday ritual of covering one's body in red and
black (white is reserved for the dead or ghosts) is part of the Xavante self and notion
of humanity.
We were at a small village called Idzô'uhu, inside the Sangradouro Indigenous
Land, state of Mato Grosso, central Brazil. Idzô'uhu is one of the 165 Xavante
villages spread across 9 Indigenous lands in Mato Grosso, with a total population
of about 15,000 people.
2
The children were illustrating a report for what we called
the “projeto das mulheres,” the women's project, because Xavante women from
Sangradouro envisioned and directed the initiative. The goal of the “Flowers and
Fruits from the Savannah in the Xavante Life and Kitchen,” as the project was
