Religious fundamentalism and land disputes boost the destruction of Guarani Kaiowá prayer houses

Brasil de Fato

In less than a year, Guarani Kaiowá Indigenous from the retaken land named Kunumi Verá, in the town of Caarapó, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, have lost two Oga Pissy – prayer house, in English. “They set the place on fire, and we didn’t get to extinguish the flames,” says Simão Kaiowá, the leadership of the Aty Guasu, the Great Assembly of the Guarani Kaiowá people.

The most recent arson was in February 2024. The Oga Pissy was built with the joint effort of twelve people, men and women from the Indigenous community. To this day, the indigenous people have been unable to rebuild the space.

“It was where we prayed, our holy house,” he laments.

Between 2019 and 2023, at least 13 Oga Pissy were destroyed in Indigenous territories and Indigenous lands retaken in the states of Mato Grosso do Sul, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul, according to data from the reports on Violence Against Brazil’s Indigenous Peoples organized by the Indigenous Missionary Council (Cimi, in Portuguese).

Although called “prayer houses,” these large circular spaces, built with thatch and wood, have other uses besides the spiritual, as explained by researcher and Cimi agent Matias Benno Rempel, who accompanies the Guarani Kaiowá in Mato Grosso do Sul in their struggle for the right to their territory. “It’s a fundamental place of social organization, where macro-families always meet to discuss their issues,” he says.

In this sense, the Oga Pissy works as a meeting point for the community to hold celebrations and make decisions. “It is also a political committee, a place where people meet to talk about their lives,” explains the researcher.

And precisely the political dimension of the Oga Pissy that encourages agribusiness advocates to use violence. “They identify these spaces as places where we organize; then they go there and burn it,” Rempel explains.

In March 2022, a group of non-Indigenous people accompanied by military police invaded the Tarumã Indigenous Land, in Araquari, Santa Catarina, destroying the Guarani’s Oga Pissy, houses and work tools. According to the Cimi report, “the group of attackers claimed to be complying with a court order for repossession. However, they did present a court order”.

The territory is under attack from land grabbers, deforesters and loggers. In 2019, another Oga Pissyat in the Tarumã Indigenous Land was set on fire by hooded armed men. Also in 2019, residents of the Morro Alto Indigenous Land, in Araquari, lost their prayer houses to flames. Those responsible for the arson were said to be people opposed to the demarcation of Indigenous lands, according to information collected by CIMI from the community. 

Massacre in Mato Grosso do Sul

Most records of this kind of violence come from Mato Grosso do Sul, where the Guarani Kaiowá fight to retake their ancestral territory, which is currently dominated by agribusiness. “There are no conflicts in Mato Grosso do Sul; there is an ongoing massacre against this Indigenous people,” warns Rempel. Of the 13 cases of destruction of prayer houses the report identified, nine were registered in the state. 

In the Rancho Jacaré Indigenous Land in the town of Lagoa Carapã (Mato Grosso do Sul state), prayers are held in their own houses, since the Oga Pissy was burned down twice in 2021. “It was a religious dispute,” says Vanderleia Rocha, one of the residents. “So, we had to contact evangelical pastors to talk to people in the churches to respect our Oga Pissy. But it was a troubled beginning,” he explains. In one of the arsons, prayer Cassiano Romero, 92, lost holy objects, documents and other belongings. The Oga Pissy was also his home.

Rempel explains that, by retaking their ancestral land, one of the main constructions of the Guarani Kaiowá was the Oga Pissy. “It is the element that unifies the worlds: the physical world, that on the ground, and the world of the encantados [the spiritual beings] that keep the hope among the Guarani Kaiowá people.” That’s why the destruction of these places exceeds property violence, being a cruel act of destruction targeting the culture of an Indigenous people.  

“The pain of these crimes is plenty. When talking about heritage, in some cases, centuries-old artifacts of the Guarani Kaiowá people have been lost along with the prayer houses,” he points out. “Magical items protected by prayers and guardians over time, which protected destinies and ensured the harmony of the world.”