YOU ARE IN AKROÁ-GAMELLA TERRITORY: oral history about the resistance of an "extinct" indigenous population of Maranhão

• Grant number: 23/06544-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2023
• End date: August 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Fundamentals of Architecture and Urbanism
• Principal Investigator: Silvana Barbosa Rubino
• Grantee: Paulo Jeremias Aires
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Engenharia Civil, Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FEC). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The Akroá-Gamella people live today within the territory intersected by three municipalities in the Maranhão lowlands, namely Matinha, Penalva, and Viana. Residents maintain relationships of reciprocity, and sociocultural practices in their way of life. After years of hostility, the Akroá-Gamella was considered extinct. Still, they adapted to the context of conflict and used strategies to survive amid persecution and identity erasure. As an indigenous person belonging to the Akroá-Gamella people, I intend to seek, discuss and tell the story of the historical erasure that occurred in the territory of the Akroá-Gamellas, as well as analyze our relationship with the ground we walked on for over 300 years. I also intend to bring to the research an analysis of how we survived these almost three centuries of history and identity erasure, in the expectation of obtaining information that can contribute to the rescue of ancestral memory and to the improvement of our rights. As a time frame, I will adopt the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, more precisely the year 1900 until the public self-declaration of 2014, to discuss these historical aspects. This cut is mainly because it is the wealthiest period of memories of my people's elders, whom I intend to interview