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The last male member of the indigenous Juma people in the Brazilian Amazon has died after falling ill with covid-19.
This is the death of Aruká, who was the last surviving man, although his grandchildren took an unusual step to make sure your legacy is preserved.
The exact age of the last Juma is unknown, but it is estimated that he was between 86 and 90 years old.
During his lifetime, Aruká witnessed the decline of your community which once had thousands of people who fished, hunted and worked the land in the southern region of the state of Amazonas.
This unfortunate event was the latest blow to an Indigenous group that dropped from around 15,000 at the turn of the 20th century to just six in the 1990s.
Following a series of massacres by rubber shooters and the spread of deadly diseases, Juma’s number declined to Aruka’s family was the only one left.
“He always spoke with sadness about how in the old days there was a lot of Juma and how now he was the last man left,” he recalls. Gabriel Uchida, photographer who documented the life of this indigenous people.
Aruká had three daughters, but with the community already decimated, they married members of the indigenous group. uru-eu-wau-wau.
According to the tradition of these communities, this means that the grandchildren and great grandchildren of Aruká they are considered to be part of the group of their fathers, uru eu-wau-wau, and not of their mothers.
Although, breaking with tradition, some of the grandchildren of the so-called last Juma decided to identify as one of the original two groups.
“We will continue the tradition of our people”, he pointed Bitate, one of the 20-year-old grandchildren.
Moreover, he said that “He is with us, lives with us and represents our people through the grandchildren and future great-grandchildren to come..
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Bitaté’s cousin, aged 18, Kuaimbu, echo the sentiment and say “We don’t want the struggle of our people to be forgotten. We are proud of the struggle of our grandfather and our mothers, and we want to continue ”.
Kuaimbú incorporated his grandfather’s last name into his own and calls himself Kuaimbú Juma Uru-eu-wau-wau, a change he plans to make official soon so that it is reflected in his identification as well.
“Soy grandson of a juma, son of a juma. I have the right to bear it in my name, ”he says.
Changes in the traditions of the Juma people after Aruka’s death
Indigenous rights activist Ivaneide Bandeira he says that to include “Juma” in the surname is an unprecedented fact and that it had not been seen before in any other patrilineal indigenous group.
Regarding previous statements from Aruka’s grandchildren, he said that “it is a message from the grandchildren that they are here to stay and that they are resisting,” says Bandeira, a member of the Kanindé ethno-environmental protection association.
The researcher points out that the history of the Juma, like that of many indigenous groups in the Amazon, is “a story of death”.
The an activist accuses the Brazilian state for their “complete incompetence and inability to take protective measures” to prevent the disease from reaching the village of Aruká.
He also argues that anyone who enters indigenous territory should have been tested and quarantined to prevent the spread of the virus.
Finally, Bitaté, Aruka’s grandson declared: “we are far from the city and there are few trips. The disease should never have reached us. The government was not worried. It is a lack of responsibility on their part.
However, Aruká’s death is not an isolated case, since according to the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health of Brazil, out of a total of 896,900 members of the indigenous peoples of this country, 572 died of covid-19.
The independent indigenous organization APIB maintains that the number of deaths is much higher and represents 970 deaths from the pandemic.
Many of them, according to their numbers, are old people who brought stories and oral knowledge to life.
Source: BBC NEWS WORLD
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