O mito da “Terra sem Mal” e as narrativas acerca da remoção dos índios Guarani de Itaporanga/SP, no início do século XX

Abstract

This dissertation records narratives of indigenous people who are descendants of the Guarani who inhabited the settlement of São João Batista do Rio Verde, currently Itaporanga, São Paulo State, Brazil, and were forcibly relocated. Based on a qualitative approach, interviews with indigenous and non-indigenous people were recorded. All of the indigenous participants have returned to the area to reclaim their land. The data collection techniques used include interviews, document analysis and the researcher’s field notes. The theoretical basis of the research dialogues mainly with Curt Nimuendajú (1987, 2014,), Mota (2001, 2005), Pinheiro (1992, 2004, 2009), the Detailed Report of Identification and Delimitation of the Indigenous Lands of the Guarani from Itaporanga and Barão de Antonina, produced by the Technical Group of the Brazilian Indigenous Foundation (Funai), in 2010, among others. The data analysis involves content analysis technique of identified themes, as defined by Bardin (2010). Travel chronicles by explorers of the area, documents from local registry offices, and the former Indigenous Protection Service (SPI), as well as newspaper articles demonstrate that the indigenous community had inhabited the area for at least sixty years, and that the removal of the community members to Avaí, in 1912, took place for a variety of interconnected reasons. These reasons were mainly economic, but also due to disease and particularly the intense usurpation of lands by a non-indigenous settler who founded the town of Rio Verde, currently known as Itaporanga. Through the narrative analysis, the interpretation of documents, reports and publications is carried out in terms of the political, social and economic context, which led to the removal of this indigenous community at the beginning of the XX century. The re interpretation of historical facts, considering representations of indigenous people’s identities, issues of land possession by settlers, the expansion of the agricultural frontier, the construction of railroads and the exclusion by the State of indigenous community demands – all align to enable a new understandings of the reasons leading to the expulsion of the Guarani from their lands.