Land protection issues lure student to Amazon
Kayapo tribe lives in rainforest surrounded by destroyed property
The rule was ‘don’t go without a Kayapo.’ But one afternoon, even a member of the Brazilian Indigenous tribe got Kimberley Whitestar lost in the jungle.
It was last summer, during the University of Regina anthropology student’s first month in the Amazon rainforest, living among the Kayapo people and recording their stories.
With the leader cutting his way through the trees with a machete, Whitestar and her group were attacked by bullet ants — thumbsized bugs with a sharp, venomous bite.
“They’re called bullet ants because they equate the same amount of pain as being shot by a gun,” said Whitestar, who spent the next 24 hours in burning pain.
Back in the village, Whitestar floated in the river in attempts to forget her wounds — and vultures began to swarm.
She laughs as she remembers the experience: “Yeah, they probably think I’m going to die out here.”
In spite of the flies that leave you “dripping in blood,” snakes “everywhere” and the thousands of spiders that sparkle like stars in twilit trees, Whitestar is braving the Amazon again.
She is about to spend another month with the Kayapo, in preparation for her master’s degree in visual anthropology, which uses film and photography to create a record, rather than simply writing ethnography.
Whitestar’s interest in the Kayapo people relates to her belief in land protection.
The tribe lives in the last part of protected rainforest in Brazil, said Whitestar, and “everything else around that area has been destroyed from mining.”
She is the second Indigenous student to visit the Kayapo through the University of Maryland’s Indigenous conservation program, with her credits transferring back to the U of R.
“They were curious. They were like, ‘Are you full Indigenous?’, because I was so light compared to them,” said Whitestar, who was adopted into the village and given the name Bekwekrymrek, which means beautiful and the colour red.
“They have a lot of questions.”
The community of about 8,000 people has little communication with the outside world. Few people visit, perhaps because “it’s kind of difficult to get there,” said Whitestar.
She travelled for two days: flights from Regina to Toronto to Sao Paulo to Rio de Janeiro to Belem to Maraba; then she took a 10-hour bus ride; then rode on the back of a truck to a two-seater plane for another flight; then boated two hours upriver to central Brazil.
Having learned the Kayapo language of Mebengokre, Whitestar recorded interviews on her iPhone 5 and took about 4,000 photos, recharging her equipment with solar-powered battery packs.
The technology wasn’t new to the Kayapo people.
“The unique thing about them is even though they don’t live in a modern-day world, they’ve learned the use of film,” said Whitestar. “When they meet with the Brazilian government, they film and record all their meetings and they record their ceremonies as well.”
Though they have no electricity, they have laptops and film equipment in a media centre, which was set up by a Purdue University student.
In their remote location, “They live how they lived 100 years ago, off the land,” said Whitestar. They farm yams and manioc, fish, collect Brazil nuts, and make beadwork and baskets in a setting shared by crocodiles and jaguars.
A hydroelectric dam currently under construction on the Xingu River threatens their way of life.
“I want to help them keep their livelihood,” said Whitestar. “When I get my master’s … I definitely want to work with First Nations’ duty to consult.”
Land protection was Whitestar’s reason for returning to university, after working in human resources.
“I want to do something for our people,” said Whitestar, who is from Piapot First Nation. “I don’t want to just be a professional activist; I want to be able to make some changes.”
Her anthropology bachelor’s degree was partially paid for by education credits from the residential school survivors’ settlement — $3,000 that her grandmother transferred to her, and $3,000 of her own.
Whitestar graduated from the Lebret Residential School in 1994.
“I took that opportunity. A lot of people didn’t do anything with them, but I made use of it,” said Whitestar.