The dancers raise their voices in song, conjuring an ancient spirit that vibrates above the traffic roaring from a nearby expressway and the beat of funk music blasting from a neighbor's loudspeaker. In this Brazilian favela, a dense hodgepodge of humble cinderblock homes filled with some of Rio de Janeiro's poorest residents, the indigenous people whose cultures predate recorded history are struggling to keep their traditions alive in the face of modernity. Seeking jobs and forced out of their native lands by loggers, miners and farmers, an estimated 22,000 Brazilian Indians now call the crowded favelas their home. "If you're educated and not wearing a grass skirt, city people will say, 'You're not a real Indian,'" said Benites, whose husband and four children remain back in their village, an overnight bus trip away. For the past 15 years, she's lived in Rio's Mare Complex, a sprawling and notoriously violent slum where nearly half of residents eke by on just dollars a day and drug dealers ply their trade undeterred by the soldiers deployed there earlier this year. During the get-togethers, participants feast on fish cooked in banana leaves in Pataxo's yard, a narrow strip of land along a multilane expressway where the scent of raw sewage is overwhelming. Nearly one in four indigenous people now live in urban areas, according to the census figures, and anecdotal evidence suggests growing numbers are living in slums. The Pankararu have been migrating from their home in the northeastern state of Pernambuco to Real Parque since the 1950s, initially attracted by construction jobs on the nearby Morumbi soccer stadium.
Comment on Brazil's indigenous seek out city, end up in slums
By JENNY BARCHFIELD, Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle: World
Mon, 09/15/2014 - 9:25pm
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