Mongabay series: Sateré-Mawé

Mamuru River traditional riverine and Sateré indigenous communities are fighting to save the rainforest and their way of life against invading illegal loggers and land grabbers.

The Sateré and other groups say they’ve been deprived of healthcare; critics see it as Bolsonaro’s way of forcing reliance on mining and agribusiness for aid.

The indigenous group is re-occupying its ancestral lands on Brazil’s Mariaquã River, but an outsider is trying to appropriate those lands by likely fraudulent means, inviting conflict.

The Sateré people practice Waumat — an excruciatingly painful rite involving bullet ants — as a way of unifying and gaining strength against Brazilian land grabbers.

As Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro pushes for indigenous assimilation, the Amazon’s Sateré-Mawé people asserts its indigenous identity and land rights.