(Brasilia) The Brazilian Constitution, which dates from 1988, has been translated for the first time into an indigenous language, a “historic” gesture of “respect and enhancement” of indigenous peoples, the president of the Court said on Wednesday supreme.
The text has been translated into Nheengatu, known as the “general language of Amazonia”, which has long served as a link for communication between the different communities living in this region of northern Brazil, especially after the arrival of Portuguese colonizers in 1500.
“It took us 523 years to reach this moment, which I consider historic,” said the president of the highest court in the country, quoted in a press release.
Translated from Portuguese by 15 indigenous experts from northern Brazil, the Brazilian Constitution in Nheengatu was published in a book presented Wednesday at an official ceremony in Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira, in the borders of the state of Amazonas (north). , in the presence of numerous indigenous authorities.
Wearing a thin crown of feathers, Judge Rosa Weber was notably accompanied by Sonia Guajajara, Minister of Indigenous Peoples, a new portfolio specially created by leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva when he returned to power for a third term, in January.
This translation is “a mark of respect for indigenous traditions”, said Ms.me Guajajara.
Thus, indigenous peoples “will be able to know their rights in their own language”, said Joenia Wapichana, president of Funai, a public organization for the protection of indigenous peoples.
One of the main battles of Brazilian indigenous people today is precisely about an interpretation of this Constitution.
This is the thesis of the “time frame”, defended by the powerful agribusiness lobby, according to which the natives would have the right to be granted by the State only the lands they occupied when the text was enacted in 1988.
But the natives argue that they did not occupy certain lands at that date because they had been evicted from them over the centuries, especially during the leaden years of military rule (1964-1985).
Drawn up at the end of this dictatorship, the Constitution establishes Portuguese as the official language of Brazil, a country of 203 million inhabitants.
But the city of Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira also recognizes Nheengatu and other indigenous languages as official.
According to the 2010 census, some 800,000 indigenous people live in Brazil, most of them in reservations that occupy 13.75% of the territory.