What is billed as the first “indigenous Olympics” started on Thursday with a raucous cultural mash-up that saw grimacing Maori warriors, gong-bearing Filipinos and feather-crowned tribespeople from Brazil preside over a traditional fire-lighting ceremony.
The World Indigenous Games was to officially open yesterday, when Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was expected to attend a lavish opening ceremony in the Games’ host city, Palmas, a remote outpost in the sunbaked heart of Brazil.
However, Thursday’s fire ritual, which saw hundreds of indigenous people from around the world converge on Palmas’ central square decked out in their traditional finest, set the tone for the coming event, which runs through Oct. 31.
Photo: AFP
Tribal representatives spontaneously broke into traditional song and dance as the media and other indigenous peoples from as far afield as Ethiopia and Mongolia formed tight, flashbulb-popping, iPhone-snapping circles around them.
A phalanx of Maoris from New Zealand, looking fierce with wide-eyed stares and menacing throat-slicing gestures, appeared to stand guard over the knot of Manoti men from Brazil’s central Mato Grosso State as they labored over the fire, finally emerging triumphant with a flaming torch.
Elvis Balabal Julius of the Philippines’ Igorot people hailed the event as “amazing.”
“It’s my first time outside of the Philippines and I took five planes to get here,” said Julius, 23, sporting only a loincloth and the metal gong with which he and two other tribe members had entranced their audience. “I never thought I would see so many indigenous peoples together. We’re very similar and very different at the same time.”
The upbeat mood of the fire ceremony contrasted with the palpable anger at a protest earlier in the day by a small group of Brazilian indigenous people denouncing what they said was poor organization and unnecessary spending on the Games.
About a dozen protesters decried the event’s more than US$14 million price tag, saying the money provided by several government sources, as well as the UN, would have been better spent improving the conditions of Brazil’s impoverished indigenous peoples.
Narube Werreria said she saw the event as a bid to cover up the real situation of Brazil’s beleaguered indigenous populations.
“The government is using the event to cover our eyes and say everything is all right here,” said Werreria, a state government employee from the Karaja tribe, whose lands are near Palmas. “But everything is not all right.”
Estimated to have numbered between between 3 million and 5 million in pre-colonial times, Brazil’s indigenous people now make up just 0.5 percent of the country’s 200 million-strong population. They face rampant poverty and discrimination and clash frequently with farmers, ranchers and illegal miners eager to oust them from their ancestral lands.
“In Brazil, soy plants are better treated than Indians,” Cacique Doran, a leader of the Tupi Guarani people, shouted at the protest.
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