Anambé - Settlements

From the time of their settlement on the Cairari, where Brazilian occupation was sparse, the Anambé considered as theirs the land from mid-river of the Lago Grande up to its headwaters. However, the now-defunct Indian Protection Service (SPI) never tried to legalize the ownership of these lands for the Anambé, and eventually the Indians found themselves encroached upon by an expansive national frontier. Finally, in the 1980s, and upon a proposal made by the Indians through the agency of the Missionary Indigenous Council (CIMI-Norte II), the Anambé were allotted an area on the right bank of the Cairari, between the Carrapatal waterway and Lake Comprido. The only homesteader territory was indemnified, and an area of 7,912 hectares and 42 kilometers in perimeter was demarcated and legalized on behalf of the Indians. Within thie area, local groups have rights only to their houses and plantations, and only for as long as these are maintained. In 1968 the only existing village (Jací-Tatã) was located on the bank of the Rio Cairari, on high ground with six large houses scattered about without any plan, orientation, or alignment. They were rectangular, with thatched saddle roofs and no side or front walls. Floors consisted of split palm stems. Three of the houses were occupied by nuclear families and one by an extended family. One was uninhabited and another was used for making farinha or cassava meal. The only piece of furniture in the houses was a cotton hammock (of the Cearense type), which must have been commercially acquired as indigenous hammocks were not made locally. After returning to the reserve in Guama, the Anambé first lived like their Brazilian neighbors, waiting for their crops to ripen. Then they returned to the interior of the region that they had formerly occupied and set about building houses in the regional style with straw or wooden roofs.