"O fato de que, em trezentos anos de convivência com centenas de tribos, menos de quarenta pessoas tenham merecido o registro de seus nomes e em geral por razões banais, ilustra bem a insignificância, para o branco, do índio enquanto ser humano. Em meados do século XVIII o próprio João Daniel, missionário e bom conhecedor da Amazônia, dizia que os índios “só pelas feições parecem gente, [mas] no viver e trabalhar se devem entender por feras”."
(Porro, Antonio. 2007. Dicionário etno-histórico da Amazônia colonial. São Paulo: Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros, USP)
Between 1990 and 1994, the Casa da Moeda do Brasil (Brazil's national mint) circulated a one thousand cruzeiro note (*) celebrating a national hero: Marshall Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon (1865-1958), who presided over the country's Serviço de Proteção aos Índios (SPI), the national bureau in charge of indigenous affairs. Rondon's task included building telegraph lines to connect Brazil's vast unknown West (inhabited by many uncontacted indigenous societies) to the rest of the country. In a country where the massacre of indigenous populations in the name of "progress" was still the norm, Rondon's motto, "die, if you must, but never kill an Indian" (Ribeiro 1954), gave him a mythical aura in the popular imaginary. Rondon is one of the most celebrated figures in the country's history, and his name is enshrined in a state (Rondônia), towns (Rondonópolis, etc.), streets, and neighborhoods. The banknote is part of a series featuring prominent Brazilian intelectuals (including writers Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Mário de Andrade and Cecília Meireles, scientists Vital Brazil and Augusto Ruschi, and composer Carlos Gomes).
On its face the bill features a photograph of Rondon, flanked by a telegraph station and a map outline of Brazil. The reverse side features photographs of two Karajá Indians (with their typical circular facial tattoos) taken by SPI members during the 1950s or 1960s. The image of the Karajá is juxtaposed with a Nambikwara maloca (collective hut) and images of traditional indigenous subsistence (fish, manioc) and material culture items (a maraca and several ritxoko, popular clay figurines made by Karajá women). Thoroughly decorated with indigenous graphic motifs, the $1000 cruzeiro bill is a thing of beauty, in my admitedly-biased opinion (as a native of Central Brazil who's worked closely with the Karajá since my undergraduate years, leading to an MA and a PhD on their language).
Notoriously anonymous
Although promptly recognizable, the Karajá individuals in these photos have remained nameless. That may be seen as the continuation of a tendency pointed out by Antonio Porro (2007) in the epigraph above, referring to the initial three centuries of Brazil's colonization: the fact that very few indigenous individuals had their names documented, illustrating "the insignificance, to the white man, of the Indian as a human being." In the case at hand, such anonymity is even more regrettable, as the information would be easily retrievable, if there had been political will to do so. The photos were taken at fairly recent dates by expert government employees (indigenistas) with deep familiarity with the Karajá. In addition, they were presumably obtained from the Museu do Índio, an excellent federal museum founded by Darcy Ribeiro to popularize knowledge of the country's indigenous cultures that houses a wealth of materials collected by members of the SPI (and its successor, FUNAI).
Repatriating memories
I became initially acquainted with the identity of one of the Karajá individuals portrayed in the one thousand cruzeiro bill thanks to my Karajá friend and teacher, the late Ijeseberi Karajá. With undeniable pride he explained that the young lady portrayed on the right of the bill's reverse was his aunt Jijukè (after whom he named his daughter), photographed by João Américo Peret (1926-2011), an SPI indigenista who left fond memories among the Karajá. The information was later corroborated when a book by Peret was added to the Curt Nimuendajú Digital Library (thanks to the generosity of Renato Nicolai, curator of our Coleção Nicolai): Mitos e lendas Karajá : Inã son wéra (Peret 1979). There, on page 18, one finds the iconic picture, duly identified as Didiué (a Portuguese spelling for Jijuè, which is the male-speech form of Jijuké's name).
Although the identity of the other individual on the reverse of the one thousand cruzeiro bill seems to remain unknown, the discovery of the photograph's original version helps clarify some common misunderstandings resulting from its gradual decontextualization ("discovery" here being a rather relative term, as the picture has been publicly available for a while). The original picture is available online as part of the digitized collections of famed Brazilian anthropologist Berta Ribeiro (1924-1997), who probably obtained it from the Museu do Índio collections, where it's attributed to Mário Simões (another SPI indigenista familiar with Karajá culture) or Nilo Velloso. The original shows a Karajá woman apparently breastfeeding a baby, the latter wearing a dexi bracelet, its hand resting on the mother's breast. The currency bill, on the other hand, shows a rather cropped version, erasing the baby—and the subject's gender: the picture is often mistaken to be that of a male, as the Casa da Moeda's own website describes the individuals as a Karajá "couple," a mistake that's been reproduced in social and popular media. Wikipedia describes her as "an indigenous man of the Karajá tribe," while through no fault of their own Sepultura fans usually refer to her as "the guy from the cover of Roots."
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