Agenor Tupinambá poses with indigenous adornments and internet users speak of ‘cultural appropriation’

Ívina Garcia – From Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – The Amazonian influencer Agenor Tupinambá, who was at the center of the debate with the Filó capybara controversy and the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama), returned to be criticized after publishing a photo shoot where he appears using adornments of Mura indigenous people and graphics.

The more than a thousand comments on the publication on the social network Instagram are divided between people accusing Agenor of “cultural appropriation” and others praising the posture of becoming a defender of the forest. “Capybara village? Protector of the forest? You are a descendent of landowners and still raise buffaloes, shame on your harmonized face”, wrote one internet user. “No idea this guy, ‘tô’ shocked with such a big shameless face”, pointed out another.

At the time of the controversy involving Agenor and Filó, people recalled the history of conflict between the young man’s family members and the indigenous people of the region. “Who could imagine that the grandfather of the ‘poor riverine’ is a defendant in conflicts with the Mura indigenous people, including land invasion, aggression against the indigenous leadership, and deforestation. By the way, the farm of the grandson that you believe to be a riverine community is in a deforested area”, Karibuxi pointed out in a series of tweets.

On the other hand, some people used the comments session to defend Agenor’s publication. “His mother is indigenous. Clueless people who don’t know anything and come here to talk nonsense without knowing his family’s culture. Spare me from the ignorance of some here,” he wrote. “So honor the forest and your ancestors, because they are the ones who sustain you in the face of so much opposition,” said another.

The report sought contact with the influencer through the advisory, but did not get a response by the time this story was closed.

Cultural appropriation

The debate about cultural appropriation has been going on in society for a long time, especially when talking about Afro-descendant culture and symbols of this struggle. In the case of indigenous people, Raquel Tupinambá, PhD in anthropology from the University of Brasília (UnB) and indigenous activist, says that the debate is complex, since indigenous ancestry among Brazilians is common.

“To talk about this is to talk a little about the process of colonization of Brazil, for example, when we say that Brazil is indigenous land and that the mother of Brazil is indigenous. This is because in several regions of the country women were captured and raped by white men, who generated miscegenated families,” she recalls.

“It is a complex and delicate situation, you can’t say that the person is not indigenous. The person may not have a relationship with the indigenous culture or be close to the indigenous education or experience, they didn’t have this contact with this world, but we can’t say that the person is not indigenous or doesn’t have indigenous roots,” said Raquel.

An example of this is the singer Anitta, who wore a costume inspired by the entity Cabocla Jurema during this year’s Carnival in Olinda. The look was made by craftswomen from the Ypaw Myz’ym village, in the Arariboia Indigenous Land, in Maranhão, as a way to value culture and strengthen indigenous artists, as admired at the time by the Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara.

About the use of indigenous adornments and graphics, Raquel points out that their mere use does not constitute cultural appropriation, but rather an amplification of voices. “Of course, a white person who has no relationship with indigenous people, who does not use the culture, should not promote himself through this. But there is, for example, the issue of strengthening the culture, such as the singer Anitta who had an outfit made by Guajajara women especially for an event, bringing the work of these women into the spotlight”, she assesses.