We, from the Council of Wajãpi Village – APINA reported that representatives of our organizations accompanied the Funai teams to the Mariry region on the morning of July 30, 2019. The Funai team stayed in Karapijuty village to wait the arrival of a helicopter that was going to exhume Emyra Wajãpi’s body, but this operation was postponed until next Friday, August 2. We accompanied the other team that went to the central village Mariry to interview the witnesses from Yvytõtõ village who saw non-indigenous invaders.

In the afternoon we had a meeting with the chiefs and representatives from the Mariry region to explain the work with Funai in testimonial recording and we started the interviews. The witnesses from Yvytõtõ village near Mariry village confirmed that they saw two armed invaders in the late afternoon of July 26. They said that after they saw the residents of Yvytõtõ village they sent two people to Mariry village to report the presence of the invaders and this information was transmitted by radio to several villages in our Wajãpi Indigenous Land.

While we were interviewing our relatives in Mariry village, we were interrupted by two women warning us that they had just seen an intruder running past the house where they were cooking. The Mariry village warriors immediately followed him, but they found no trace.

Then we returned to our meeting and the warriors watched the paths around the village. In the middle of the meeting, two indigenous health agents arrived from Ytawa village and reported that they had passed by Komakawyry village, where they saw that farm animals were killed and household objects were thrown away. The family in this village had moved to Ytawa village because they were afraid about the invaders. One of the health agent said that his son had gone to Wyraury village to warn of the presence of invaders and he would be back on July 28, but he did not return yet. So the agent said he was very worried and that he would look for his son. Then, they left for the Ytawa village.

After a few minutes, they ran back saying that they had found the invader’s footprints in the mud of the road and had also found a dead Juruti bird. They wondered why this juruti had no injuries, because we, Wajãpi people, only kill juruti with an arrow. So they suspected that the invader had killed the Juruti with a trap. So, they took our team to see the footprints, but we didn’t follow the tracks because it was getting dark. The women who had seen the invader running earlier said that he had gone this way. We recorded and took pictures. of a closed shoe footprint, which we do not use in our ways. We, the Wajãpi, know very well how to read footprints because we are hunters and everyone has agreed that this trail is from an invader.

On the 31st morning, we went to Yvytõtõ village with the Funai representative to reconstitute the testimonies with the witnesses. We recorded when they showed the places where they saw the invaders on the 26th and the trails they made in the woods. The women said they spotted two invaders in the late afternoon and that they were armed: one tall black man and one shorter man with curly hair. They said they wore clothes that look like from de army. They said that at night the invaders returned, in a group with four persons, and spent a few hours in uninhabited houses in the village. Our relatives said they communicated with signals and used flashlights; the dogs barked a lot. The women ran away to the fields, afraid that they could kill all their families. The men stayed in a distant house watching the invaders move, they were very worried and could not sleep. At about 4 am the non-indigenous invaders communicated with each other and left.

At the beginning of the day on Jully 27, our relatives left Yvytõtõ village and went to Kanikani village to join with other families. So far some communities in the Mariry region are leaving their villages to join with others to protect themselves, and women are afraid to go to the fields. Our warriors are doing groups to looking for traces of the invaders and so they are not going hunting. This is harming a lot our lives, so we urgently need Funai’s permanent presence in the central village of Mariry and for a longer-term investigation by the Federal Police or Army into this region.
All records of photos and videos we made are with the Funai team and we will also take a copy to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Amapá.

Aramirã Tour – Wajãpi Indigenous Land, August 1, 2019.