THE (UN)COVERAGE OF A THOUSAND PEOPLES:

REFLECTIONS ON THE COLONIALITY OF POWER AND THE MAINTENANCE OF TUTELAGE OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN BRAZIL

Abstract

This essay analyses the Indigenous history and agency present in the literary work "The Land of a Thousand Peoples: Indigenous History Told by an Indian" by Kaká Werá Jecupé (2020), originally published in 1998. It proposes a dialogue with decolonial Latin American authors such as Enrique Dussel and Aníbal Quijano, as well as addressing the concept of ethnicity as defined by Kabengele Munanga. Throughout this essay, we seek to argue how the infantilization of Indigenous peoples by a modern construction of the coloniality of power has permeated the conceptions and policies of guardianship implemented against Indigenous peoples in present-day Brazil. We observe that these conceptions and policies derive from a colonial conception of rationality and domination that appears to extend from the European invasion to the enactment of the New Civil Code of 2022, which ultimately removes Indigenous peoples from their legal status as "relatively incapable" and subject to the guardianship of the Federal Union.