Eduardo Viveiros de Castro: “Landed natives against State and Capital”

‘The indians are the first natives of Brazil.  The land they occupy is not their property – not only because the native territories are “lands of the Union” [of the Federative Republic of Brazil], but because it is they who belong to the land and not the contrary.  To belong to the land, instead of being its owner, is what defines the native.  In this sense, many peoples and communities in Brazil, in addition to the indians, can be said to be, because they feel so, indigenous much more than citizens.’