Sorrow and struggle in the Amazon: Tuíre Kayapó, the Indigenous woman who postponed the end of the world, dies

Brasil de Fato

Tuíre Kayapó, one of the most important Indigenous leaders in Brazil, died on Saturday (10) at a hospital in the town of Redenção, in the state of Pará. She was 57 and battled uterine cancer. Her death ended an outstanding story of defending the rights of Indigenous and Amazonian peoples. From the disputes about the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Plant up to the legal argument known as “marco temporal” (usually translated into English as “Time Frame Law”), Tuíre has always taken a stance about government attacks against forest peoples.

Tuíre raised international attention in 1989. That year, the city of Altamira, Pará, was home to the First Meeting of Xingu Indigenous Peoples. The event, which gathered 600 Indigenous individuals all painted for war, aimed at discussing the Kararaô Hydroelectric Plant, later renamed Belo Monte Hydroelectric Plant.

At a certain point, the then 19-year-old Tuíre put her machete on the face of the president of the Eletronorte company, José Antônio Muniz Lopes. According to her recollections of the episode in an interview with the Socio-environmental Institute (ISA, in Portuguese), Tuíre said to the man: “White man, you have no forest. This land isn’t yours. You were born in the city and came here to attack our forests and rivers. You won’t do this.”

The photograph of her action became known worldwide and drew the attention of authorities, activists and international artists, postponing the construction of the power plant for 20 years. After finished, Belo Monte was dubbed “the end of the world” among people in Volta Grande do Xingu. Tuíre was, in Aílton Krenak’s words, the woman who postponed the end of the world.

It is important to note that the Kayapó call themselves Mẽbêngôkre, which means “the people who came from the water hole” in their native language. According to their cosmology, in order to arrive in this world, the Mẽbêngôkre made a long journey, reaching the surface of Earth through water. Therefore, rivers are their roots, which makes it easy to understand why this Indigenous people opposed so vehemently Belo Monte: a barred and deviated river would mean the end of fishing and navigation, but also a way to see the world. If rivers are the Mẽbêngôkre’s roots, building the power plant would drain the people’s liquid roots.

In addition, another element profoundly marked the disputes surrounding the plant. At first, Belo Monte was going to be called Kararaô, a war cry in the Mẽbêngôkre language. The Kayapó are a warrior people. For them, courage and strength are sacred attributes expressed in war cries. Preventing the power plant from being named Kararaô was a way of demarcating the limits between white people’s power – that is, electric energy – and the Mẽbêngôkre’s power. It was a way of making it explicit that, while white people’s power was to destroy, the Mẽbêngôkre’s power was to protect the forest.

I talked to Tuíre only once, in an interview in the city of Belém last year. On the occasion, she was already under health treatment, but decided to talk to the press about the Temporary Framework, which was then being voted on in Congress. Tuíre spoke in her mother tongue, Mẽbêngôkre, and her partner cacique Dudu (“cacique” is a political leader among Indigenous peoples in Brazil) translated it into Portuguese. Despite not being able to understand her words without translation, I could feel the strength that came from them, the steadfastness of her eyes and the conviction in her voice. Strength, steadfastness and conviction were there until the very end of her life, regardless of the interlocutor.

Thirty years after the First Meeting of Xingu Indigenous Peoples in Altamira, Tuíre went to a meeting in the Chamber of Deputies, in 2019, and confronted Federal Deputy and Bolsonaro supporter José Medeiros. During the meeting, the politician criticized NGOs working with Indigenous peoples and defended mining of minerals on Indigenous lands, which Tuíre strongly opposed.

In 2023, she faced her last battle: marco temporal. In her interview with me, published in Brasil de Fato, Tuíre criticizes politicians who, even without knowing the forest, insist on saying what is best for it: “Because senators live in the city, congressmen live in the city. They don’t live in the forest. But us – we live in the forest, in the Amazon (…). They should do programs aimed at the city. They just want to do their programs and projects inside our lands, our forests, and our Amazon. This land is ours. We’re the ones who are going to create a project, who are going to do something in our forest.”

These words echo those she said to the president of Eletronorte, and express her discontent with the white men’s politics: to decide the fate of Indigenous peoples without listening to them. In the last 35 years, there have been many attempts by the Brazilian state to silence Indigenous peoples. At each of these attempts, however, Tuíre’s voice rose.

Saudade [a Brazilian word whose closest translation into English is “to miss something or someone”] is an always present feeling in the lives of the Mẽbêngôkre. This applies to both the living, who miss their dead, and the dead, who miss the living. After a Mẽbêngôkre dies, their soul, called the karon, leaves their body and begins a journey towards the village of the dead. There, the karon lives a life similar to that of the living: they marry, have children and fight wars. However, the karon of the dead often goes to the village of the living, especially during celebrations. The mẽbêngôkre rituals are both a celebration of life and a tribute to the dead. The Kayapó refuse to forget their dead, and the karon don’t forget the living. The Mẽbêngôkre are so united that not even death separates them.

Have a good journey, Tuíre. The Kayapó cosmology says that, when it’s day here, it’s night in the village of the dead, and when it’s night here, it’s day there – always the opposite. I hope the village of the dead is an enormous Amazon in which trees keep standing and rivers keep flowing free, with no barriers.