Martin Schoeller: Kayapo Warrior Tribe
Portrait photographer Martin Schoeller travels to the remote Brazilian Amazon where the Kayapo people balance the colorful traditions of their heritage and the enticing commodities of the 21st century.
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Transcript
In the Amazon, Kayapo warrior culture, they were only
pacified in the late sixties. While other indigenous groups around they were
already pretty much vanished, they’ve managed to stand up to the outside world.
They're still very much in touch with their culture and their traditions. They
are not like other indigenous cultures.
When National Geographic calls with an assignment to go down
to Brazil, to the Amazon, first you're very excited, then there’s a problem
with FUNAI, with the authorization, you don't know if you actually can go. Then
it goes back and forth. Then you are going all of a sudden. This is all the
equipment we took. My approach to photographing these cultures is that I treat
them the same as if they were a famous person in Hollywood. I bring my lights and
my studio setup. I want to differentiate myself from just a pure journalistic
photographer. I want to be a documentary photographer but I also want to
document their faces and their bodies against a plain background so we have quite
a lot of equipment.
Then we were told we’ll be going with a woman named Dr.
Barbara Zimmerman. She sent us this picture of herself. And we ended up in
Maraba, which is in the Amazon. We had to drive for six hours to Tucumã, the
closest town in the north of the Kayapo lands. And on the way there, you drive
through a landscape that looks like this. I thought it looked beautiful. It was
very pretty. But basically it's all cut down rainforest. So, Barbara kept on
telling me, No, this is ugly, horrible. This is what cut down rainforests look
like. This is the enemy right here. And this is where we went. You see Brazil, and
you see the green area. All that area is indigenous territory. It's a huge
territory that they have. It's about a quarter the size of France. Or the same
size as South Korea. It’s actually the largest piece of protected rain forest in
the world. Protected as long as they protect it. As soon as you leave Tucumã, which
is right on the border of the land, you fly over the rainforest and-- Our first
village was called Kendjam and right next to Kendjam is this beautiful rock that
just comes out of the rainforest. This is an aerial view of the village. I feel
like it's out of a movie. It couldn't be any prettier. This setting.
The Kayapo warrior culture where young men at an early age
would learn how to fight and kill. They were only pacified in the late sixties while
other indigenous groups around they were already pretty much vanished, a lot of
the neighboring tribes. But because they had this strong warrior culture, they
even raided each other's villages. There's stories where I met one chief,
Pukatire. His village was raided when he was about 5-6 years old, and he was
taken hostage by other Kayapo and grew up with a different Kayapo family. And
his mother was killed in front of his eyes. They’re a very fierce warrior
culture. I think that's the main reason they're still around today.
This is now the beginning of our first real day. The men
were going hunting, we asked if we could go along. This is Ynhire, my favorite person
I met in Kayapo lands, because he’s very traditional, very tough and
hardworking. He’s constantly doing something while we’re driving the boat down
to a spot. He's shooting at fish with a bow and arrow. Then we pull up at the sandbank
and he starts digging and pulls out these little grubs for fishing, it turns
out. They keep on digging and digging. Take out a lot of turtle eggs. They took
all of them out and put one back in. It's in their culture to always leave one
egg behind. So with that grub, it took him five minutes to catch this fish. This
piranha. They’re not good for eating, so he would cut it up and use it as bait
for other fish.
This is Okêt. They wear their traditional bead jewelry. 2010
I think was the last World Cup. So they incorporate elements from Brazilian
culture into their jewelry. He was excited. He heard a wild pig. There he shot
this. And they just use tree bark to tie the animal up. He doesn't have any red
paint on his legs, but oftentimes they put red paint on their legs before they
go into the jungle because that way they can find their way home easier. The
red paint stays behind on leaves and grasses. And while we were maybe in the
jungle, Ynhire by himself caught all this fish maybe in one hour and a half. With
that one piranha he caught earlier. Whenever you come out of the jungle, everybody
goes swimming. The mahogany boat paddle turns into a plate. For lunch. So he
then cut up the pig in different pieces and then traded with Ynhire part of the
pig for some fish. They had so much food, so many fish and fruits that it felt
like they couldn't even eat it all. I’ve seen rotting bananas. Fish laying
around, papayas. The food was so plentiful. I've never seen anything like it. They
still have bows and arrows but, ever since they encountered the first white
people, the first thing they got was shotguns which are obviously a lot easier
to hunt with.
Older people are allowed to get money from the Brazilian
government if you’re over a certain age, which is hard to prove because none of
them have a passport or any ID cards. But that’s a way to get a little bit of
money and they buy shotgun shells with it. The hunter who shot the pig, his
wife has a pet pig at home. So-- It was quite ironic. When they shoot a mother that
has a baby, and the baby doesn't die, they take the baby home, and raise the
baby pigs as pets. And while we were gone, the women were sitting right next to
the men's house hanging out, practicing a dance. The great chief Ropni had
agreed to meet us in Kendjam, in his village, Metuktire. But he said he'd come
up to meet us with Mekaron, old friends of Barbara's.
So it turns out these women were practicing a dance for his
arrival. This little baby already has his huge earlobe pierced out right after
they're born. And that was Day one, pretty much. It was a long day. This was
our dinner. I skipped the eye.
The women said they'd take us out into the jungle. They've
all worn these dresses for the last 40 years. They have them custom made, they
have their own style that they like. They trade beads, fruit and other things to
get these dresses. This is my other favorite subject. You can see why. Some of
them still have traditional wooden boats, then they have metal boats that they
got from the Brazilian government. It's a mixture of cultures coming together in
these villages. Plastic and metal. The women are as hardworking as the men. Everybody
has their job. They always take one or two men with them when they go into the
jungle so somebody has a shotgun in case an animal comes, a jaguar. But for the
most part, it's like twenty women, maybe one or two guys. The boat's engine
broke down so we had to wait for them at the river and it doesn’t take long. And
they're just settled in. Anywhere in the jungle they're as at home as at home. You
know, they start smoking... or cutting their hair. The babies always come with
their mothers no matter where they go, all the time. And this young girl climbing
a tree with a big machete in her hand. Very good idea to send a six, seven year
old up a tree with a machete. What she does is she cuts out Açaí, which is a
berry that was very popular here. After pomegranate, I think before coconut
water. It’s supposedly very high in antioxidants and they grow in the wild so
they harvest a lot of it. They peel a lot of bark off trees. Sometimes you
wonder if that's such a good idea. They strip many trees for many different
purposes.
It was so nice to see that after one day everybody was so
comfortable with us because we made a donation for each village we went to. And
we had two groups before over the last four-five years. And both times the
money went to the men. So the men got to decide with that money. This time it
was the women's turn. So the women were extremely friendly to us. Normally as a
man, it's hard in these cultures to make a connection with the women.
On that day, we were expecting Ropni. Together with Mekaron,
he's the most famous Kayapo chief. After Ropni showed up, this older lady came
up to him and they started crying hysterically. I was not prepared for it. They
literally started to wail and I learned later it’s a traditional crying
ceremony, so when you see each other again after a couple of years you start
crying hysterically to remember the people that you have lost that you both
have known. It went on for literally five, ten minutes. And then somebody else comes
and they cry again. It was very moving. It was very moving. Then everybody's
being greeted. They line up and everybody comes, says hello to this chief. All
the way on the right is Mekaron, who lives outside of Kayapo lands. He speaks
very good Portuguese and he was also instrumental in getting the Kayapo land
demarcated. It's tradition that when the new chief comes the whole village gathers
in the men’s house, but a lot of the men were out of town. They were at a
soccer tournament up the river.
The Kayapo are actually quite vain. They love looking at
themselves. They videotape themselves, they photograph themselves, they
photograph their ceremonies. Some of them have TVs. They watch their own
ceremonies over and over again. So they love looking at pictures. And then we
set up our studio in the schoolhouse. And I started taking some portraits. I
love the contrast of the glasses with their face paint. And they have two
different kinds of paint. The black one which stains your skin and it takes about
two weeks to come off. And the red one is more oil-based and rubs off very
easily. Their sense of style is amazing. This red paint with blue feathers is
spectacular. And then you have the Brazilian flag on his arm. And he's wearing
a necklace made out of river pearls.
In the background you see that rock on the right side that
you saw in the beginning. We climbed that rock. And then you get up on it, and
one of the Kayapo pulls out his cell phone. And you’re just, Oh, my God, this
is wild, but-- They don't have any cell phone service. So where they are, they
don't talk with them. But I guess they get them really cheap and they use them.
They have songs on them. They use them as cameras. They take a lot of pictures of
themselves and other people with their phones.
They were pacified in the sixties. And in the seventies they
started having contact with the outside world. Ropni led a couple of raids against
rubber tappers, missionaries, farmers. Anyone infringing on territory he
thought was Kayapo lands. And in the process they killed a lot of intruders because
it was such a headache for the Brazilian government killing all these intruders
that in the 80s with the help of Sting, James Cameron and other groups, they
were given this big piece of land. While their neighbors have these tiny little
parts, they have this huge territory. And there's only 7,000 Kayapo.
Our next village, our last village, Turedjam is right on the
edge of their land. This bridge was built a couple of years ago by the
Brazilian government. They decided on settling there. It wasn't a Kayapo
village, but the Kayapo wanted to be closer to the outside world and start a
new village. And because they're Brazilians, they can vote in local elections. Whenever
there's elections coming up, they make new demands, so-- One of their first
demands was that they build them a bridge. So those 300 people voted for this
local official and they got their bridge. Because they have a bridge, and
they're close to Tucumã, the village where we started, they even have taxis coming
to this village. A couple of years later, a new election was coming around and
they demanded electricity. They're hooked up to the grid. This is their men's
house. It's even lit at night. It was pitch-black in the other villages. As
opposed to the outside world the jungle there looks more like what you'd expect
with these tall trees, this old-growth tree. I liked their jungle better than in
Kendjam or Metuktire because they had this grand feel to it. They know how to
find some vines to get water when they're thirsty.
So, they're still very much in touch with their culture. And
their traditions. As long as you can walk, you're doing some kind of work, there's
no such thing as retirement at a certain age. There's always somebody getting
painted no matter were you go, any time of the day. Young and old. Kids looked like
they were suffering. Some people you can only paint when they're sleeping.
There was a lot more chubby people in this village. Their
closeness to a supermarket has its effect and some even had a fridge. There
were some TVs. Mind-boggling was that Ecuadorian traders had come by and sold
them DVDs with people dressed like Sioux Indians playing flutes. They bought
these DVDs and they were running 24/7. They were looking at people dressed like
Sioux Indians playing flutes and drums. He's still practicing with his war
club. The traditional Kayapo weapon is not a bow and arrow. It's a club. That's
what Ropni used on a lot of white guys too. They picked up the bow and arrow from
neighboring tribes. You see these guys looking like this, watching a soccer
game. And a couple of hours later they looked like this. Getting ready for a naming
ceremony.
We got very lucky. There was a whole other village visiting.
Because in this new village they wanted to show off what a great party they can
have. What a great ceremony. They prepared for months for this naming ceremony that
goes on for days. And they invited the neighboring village to join them. So
there was a lot of people getting dressed up. That was very fortunate. Suddenly,
they would dance and run off into the jungle. Stay in the jungle for half an
hour. This is a young boy that’s about to get a name.
A couple of days later. They had to dance the same dance for
24 hours. They were going in a circle. It gets darker and darker. In the middle
of the night, they’re still dancing. Then they started to take some breaks. The
whole village sets up tents. And sleeping bags. They start camping around. Alcohol
is strictly forbidden. All the Kayapo chiefs put a big ban on alcohol. So we
didn't see one drunk Kayapo, luckily. But they love their soda. It felt like at
a tailgating party. The older people start sleeping. And some people totally
pass out. This little boy is getting his name by his grandfather. The man on
the right is his grandfather. And then everybody goes home.
So here comes a little video so you see a little bit about
how these people move.
People still know? The people - our people still know. They
know the war dances and the war songs. Oh. Ah!