If the winners tell a story This is an exception:

Payto Pan and Hepaperim. This is a story told by the voice of the vanquished, right. The Indians are writing history. “

But understanding what the vanquished had to say was another matter entirely.

• According to the study, indigenous lands are the most protected areas in Brazil over the past 35 years.
• Demarcation of Indigenous Lands: STF Initiates Judgment

Professor Eduardo Navarro of USP is the author of old tupi dictionary, the language spoken by the Indians who inhabited the northeast coast when the Portuguese and Dutch contested Brazilian lands.

Six letters in tupi are from that time. Written in 1645., stayed illegible… The riddle that the professor decided to solve.

“There were days, for example, when I had to decipher this line for hours, you know? Look at the blurry line on this one, you know? “, He says.

One problem is that words were written in separate syllables that were attached to the next word. As if Guimaraes Rosa wrote it like this: “She wants courage from us.”… And only after a lot of trial and error did we manage to understand the correct sentence: “She wants courage from us.”…

it took 20 yearsbut Professor Eduardo Navarro translated the letters. It turned out that they were sent to relatives who were allied with the Dutch Indians, who fought on the other side, on the side of the Portuguese.

“Felipe Camarao, he wrote three letters to his cousins, his relatives. Pedro Poti was his cousin. And then he says: ‘“We forgive everything. Come to our side. If you don’t, we won’t feel sorry for you anymore. If you refuse, we will have to do what we do not want. In other words: kill them ‘“, Says Eduardo.

In another section, Felipe Camarao – an indigenous leader who served the Portuguese – regrets European rule…

“‘I cannot allow the traditions of our father, my late father, to be forgotten, abandoned. ” It really was the reason yearning for them we will see it in the correspondence, do you understand? “- says the professor.

The letters were answered, but nobody knows what happened to the answers… This only makes these matches even more valuable. And for those who study the history of Brazil, and for those who are engaged in linguistics. These are the only documents written by Indians and existing from that time in colonial Brazil.

For these people who live in Baia da Treisau, in Paraiba, cost even more… They Potiguara Indians, descendants of Pedro Poti… In the age of technology, they knew the content of the cards. through the Internet…

“Good morning Pedro Potiguara, how are you?” Eduardo Navarro replies.

“We are all right. In the name of God Dupa, we ask permission here in the bewitched so that we can be together that day and celebrate this gift these are three translated letters that were written in the 17th century by the potiguars that were present there, and this is a relic for us“, Says Pedro Potiguara.

But this relic is not from the Indians… Yes it is at the Royal Library of Holland, which contains all the documents of the West India Trading Company. Now, Potiguara want letters back to Brazil…

“For us, this is a historic milestone that will forever remain in our lives. Atubaete, thank you very much, ”says Pedro Potiguara.

• Indigenous women in Brasilia for more rights and against ‘timelines’
• Timeline for Indigenous Lands: Understanding What’s at stake in the STF decision