Behavior and Social Issues, 26, 51-66 (2017). © Fábio Henrique Baia, Sônia Maria Mello Neves, Júlio Cézar dos
Reis Almeida Filho, Ivaldo Ferreira de Melo Junior, Anna Carolina Gonçalves Souza, Isabella Guimarães Lemes.
Readers of this article may copy it without the copyright owner’s permission, if the author and publisher are
acknowledged in the copy and the copy is used for educational, not-for-profit purposes. doi: 10.5210/bsi.v.26i0.6856
ETHNOGENESIS OF A BRAZILIAN INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY, A BEHAVIOR
ANALYTIC INTERPRETATION: ETHNOGENESIS OF THE TAPUIOS DO CARRETÃO
Fábio Henrique Baia1
Universidade de Rio Verde - Brazil
Sônia Maria Mello Neves
Júlio Cézar dos Reis Almeida Filho
Ivaldo Ferreira de Melo Junior
Anna Carolina Gonçalves Souza
Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Goiás - Brazil
Isabella Guimarães Lemes
Universidade de Rio Verde – Brazil
ABSTRACT: Ethnogenesis is a process of historic construction from interethnic interactions that originate
new social categories, in other words, that form groups that distinguish from the rest of society. In Brazil,
after the Constitution of 1988, different groups used their ethnogenesis to obtain recognition of their
indigenous condition. One of these groups is the Tapuios do Carretão, a community in Brazil’s centralwest region inhabited by descendants of indigenous, black, and white people, who speak Portuguese and
are recognized by the Brazilian government as an indigenous group. The goal of this paper was to
reconstruct an ethnogenesis of the Tapuios indigenous group from a Behavior Analysis perspective, thus
improving our comprehension of this group’s cultural practices by analyzing the processes that selected
them. Behavior-analytical concepts would allow us to further understand changes in cultural practices that
occurred due to colonization. Finally, we discuss the importance of laws in planning and changing cultures.
For Brazilian indigenous groups, consequences such as the right to land and other benefits had an important
role in encouraging members of indigenous communities to seek recognition of their condition.
KEYWORDS: cultural Practices, metacontingency, macrocontingency, Tapuios do Carretão
The Brazilian census in 2010 estimated that in Brazil there are 896,917 indigenous inhabitants
distributed in 246 indigenous groups (Brasil, 2010). Before the Portuguese colonization, it is
estimated that there were over a thousand indigenous groups adding to about 4 million indigenous
people (Ossaimi de Moura, 2008). The colonization of Brazil by Portugal did not only decimate
the indigenous population; it produced changes in cultural practices that facilitated the creation of
1
Correspondence: Fábio Henrique Baia, Universidade de Rio Verde, Fazenda Fontes do Saber, Ca sixa Posta 104,
Cep. 75901- 970, Rio Verde, Goiás, Brasil. Phone: +55 64 3611-2294. E-mail: [email protected]. The authors would
like to thank Conselho Nacional de Pesquisas (CNPq) and Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa de Goiás (FAPEG) to
support this study.
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BAIA ET AL.
indigenous communities whose cultural practices are far from the behavior patterns typically
observed in pre- Columbian societies.
Because of the domination and decimation of the indigenous population in Brazilian history,
the Brazilian State has been concerned with this population. Even in colonial times, the Marquês
de Pombal’s regime—a man appointed by the Portuguese crown to govern the Brazilian Colony—
acknowledged the possession of lands inhabited by indigenous population (Chaim, 1994; Ossami
de Moura, 2008). In 1910, the Indian Protection Service (Serviço de Proteção aos Indios—SPI)
was created, an agency whose purpose was to defend the indigenous groups’ cultural aspects and
the possession of their lands. The SPI was replaced in 1967 by the National Indian Foundation
(Fundação Nacional do Índio—FUNAI). In 1973, the national Indian Act was established
(FUNAI, 2010). This document granted land already occupied by indigenous groups, and provided
protection of tangible and intangible assets, such as customs and traditions (Brasil, 1973). The
Federal Constitution of 1988 established fundamental rights for the indigenous population’s
physical and cultural survival, thus abandoning the attempt to meld indigenous peoples into a
national society while respecting their ethnic and cultural diversity (Curi, 2010).
In 2009, the Indigenous Peoples Act was drafted and adopted. It defines an Indian as an
individual who is considered to belong to a group or community, and is recognized by its members
as such. It also states that indigenous peoples are communities of pre-Colombian origin that can
be distinguished from the whole of society and from each other, with their own identity and
organization, specific worldview, and special relationship with the land they inhabit (Estatuto dos
Povos Indígenas, 2009).
One of these indigenous groups are the Tapuios do Carretão, a community inhabited by
descendants of indigenous, black and white people, who speak portuguese, and are recognized by
the Brazilian government as an indigenous group. This community is located in the state of Goiás,
in Brazil’s Midwest. The community of Tapuios do Carretão has 298 inhabitants (FUNAI, 2010).
The Tapuios are not an ethnic group, but a group recognized as indigenous because of their
ancestry and land use. This recognition stems from the work of members of governmental
organizations, such as SPI and FUNAI, and from social researchers whose work of historical
reconstruction shows that the Tapuios are one of the results of a colonization process that
dramatically changed cultural practices of Brazilian indigenous groups (Almeida, 2003; Cerqueira,
2010; Ossami de Moura, 2008).
Thus, the Tapuios do not meet all the criteria defining indigenous peoples, since they are the
result of a settlement project in the interior of Goiás and of a long process of miscegenation.
However, they are recognized as such by their ethnogenesis (Ossami de Moura, 2008).
Ethnogenesis is a process of historic construction from interethnic interactions that originate new
social categories, in other words, that form groups that distinguish from the rest of society
(Bartolomé, 2006). The goal of this paper is to reconstruct an ethnogenesis of the Tapuios
indigenous group from a Behavior Analysis perspective. This historic interpretation can contribute
to closer ties with other fields of knowledge, such as Anthropology, possibly producing greater
understanding of how this group’s cultural practices were selected out of environmental criteria.
Thus, the behavior-analytic view may contribute to understanding the processes that culminated
in the current behavior patterns of this group. This view contributes to the understanding of
ethnogenesis since it does not regard behavior as something stable and unchanging but as the result
of a selection process that is, therefore, modified due to conditional relations.
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ETHNOGENESIS OF A BRAZILIAN INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY
In order to understand the history of the Tapuios we need to revisit what occurred in Brazilian
history, so as to learn about the cultural selection processes that led to the emergence of this
indigenous group.
Indigenous Policies in Colonial Brazil
The arrival of the Portuguese led by Pedro Álvares Cabral in Brazil occurred in 1500. During
the fifty years that followed, the Portuguese Crown adopted an extractivist policy; thus, in those
years there was no colonization process. In this period the Portuguese and the indigenous groups
maintained relations based on barter (Europeans reinforced the manual work of indigenous people
with trinkets such as necklaces, whistles and mirrors) (Cunha, 2012). From 1549 onwards,
environmental factors (e.g., the French and Spanish invasions in Brazil, the decline of business
with the East, along with the failure of the hereditary captaincy managing scheme) seem to have
acted as establishing operations (Michael, 1993) for the behavior of Portuguese Crown members
that began the process of colonization by constructing villages and establishing European residents
in Brazil. This colonization process consequently led to greater and more effective control over
the Brazilian colony.
The colonial project aimed at territorial and religious expansion. One of the first methods used
by the Jesuits (missionaries of the Roman Catholic Church) was the itinerant catechesis. In these
actions, the missionaries moved to the villages and indoctrinated the indigenous populations. After
a period in the village, the missionaries returned to the towns. This indoctrination model failed and
was replaced by the practice of settlements. The concept of metacontingency (Glenn & Mallot,
2004; Glenn et al., 2016) can help us understand the cultural change that itinerant catechesis caused
on the settlement policy. It involves culturants, cultural entities composed of interlocking
behavioral contingencies (IBC) that generate an aggregate product (AP), which will produce
cultural consequences (CC) if a criterion is fulfilled. Such consequences alter the likelihood of
recurrence of IBC and AP.
Behaviors of the Jesuit missionaries, such as going to the villages, teaching European habits
(such as monogamy), Christian values (such as mercy), as well as the indigenous people’s behavior
of adopting such European cultural practices, may be characterized as IBCs. The new patterns of
behavior (e.g., monogamy) of the indigenous persons would be the AP. However, this conversion
remained only in the presence of the Jesuits. When the missionaries returned to the towns, the
indigenous population returned to polygamy and polytheism. Returning to pre-Colombian cultural
practices, such as polygamy, probably occurred due to the absence of missionaries, which were
likely producing social reinforcers such as compliments. Moreover, Jesuits were accompanied by
the military. Thus, it is possible that there was some type of aversive control for the indigenous
groups to emit European cultural practices. In the absence of the punishing agent, the suppressed
behaviors returned.
In addition, the indigenous communities were nomadic. When the missionaries returned to
the villages after two or three years, they no longer found the group that lived there and had already
been converted in the past (Freitas, 2011). Therefore, an unfolding cultural religious expansion,
that could support the recurrence of the practice of itinerant catechesis, did not take place. The
absence of CCs seems to have produced variation of culturants, since missionaries started using
new practices for Catechization.
The missionaries thus switched to a settlement policy. This policy consisted in concentrating
different indigenous groups in one place. These settlements were located near settlers’ villages.
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BAIA ET AL.
Indigenous people were brought from their villages upon invitation by the Jesuits - who provided
manufactured products for those who went to the villages and promised them security against
foreign invaders— or by force (either by settlers or other catechized indigenous groups). In the
village, the Jesuits established a routine that set a timetable for religious and labor tasks. There
were also punishments like being whipped and tied to trunks for those who did not adhere to
European habits (Sposito, 2012).
The settlers loaned the Jesuits adult indigenous men for use in extractive activities and
agriculture; after work was done, they were returned to the camps. The use of the labor force was
authorized by the ruler appointed by the Portuguese crown to govern Brazil. However, conflicts
took place among: (a) indigenous individuals who did not accept being forced to work in the fields
and fled the villages to avoid punishment, (b) Jesuits who complained that the indigenous groups
spent too much time in the field, thus hindering their education and forced labor, and (c) the settlers
who wanted more indigenous people executing labor activities for longer periods (Freitas, 2011).
These IBCs involved the behavior of settlers, Jesuits, and indigenous groups. They generated,
as an AP, an increase in labor being directed to the settlers’ farms. This triggered CC, such as new
territories and indigenous individuals being converted to Christianity. This CC allowed the
Portuguese Crown to expand its territories, since the colonized indigenous peoples presented no
threat for the settlers. Moreover, with further manpower, more resources were produced and the
Crown could afford searching for new territories to dominate.
The cultural consequence that seems to have selected the practice of settling (over the practice
of itinerant catechesis), was the territorial, economic and religious expansion. A metacontingency
analysis of itinerant catechesis and the first settlements is possible because the latter lasted for over
a century (between half of the sixteenth century and the mid-eighteenth century) (Sánchez-Gómez,
2011).
However, changes were necessary. During the period in which the settlement policy was in
force, the indigenous groups often abandoned the first villages and were hostile to the Portuguese.
This abandonment and hostility was partly due to the aggressive relationship between the
indigenous people and the settlers. Many Indians suffered aggression and were treated as slaves
(Chaim, 1974). Therefore, a new policy that could produce smaller abandonment rates could be
selected as long as it could produce consequences with higher bonus and lower onus. From 1750
onwards, with the appointment of Marques de Pombal as Portuguese prime minister, a new
indigenous policy initiated. Among the new policy’s features, model settlements can be pointed
out.
Model Settlements
Marquês de Pombal was appointed by the Portuguese Crown in order to strengthen the
Portuguese Colonial rule, fostering the political and cultural unity of colonial Brazil. On April 4th,
1755, a Permit rendering the indigenous population free, self-governing and owners of the land
they were occupying, was published. The Permit of June 7th, 1755, in turn, withdrew village
management from the missionaries and handed the government to the military corps. Progress
regarding indigenous rights was revoked with the Permit of May 3rd, 1757, which removed their
self-governing capacity. This Permit established: (a) mandatory use of the Portuguese language,
even in villages; (b) housing property in single-family units; (c) imposition of the use of Portuguese
family names; (d) use of clothing; (e) encouraging marriage between white and indigenous people;
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ETHNOGENESIS OF A BRAZILIAN INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY
(f) ownership of the lands inhabited by the Portuguese who sought the civility of the indigenous
groups (Beozzo, 1983).
Laws may be understood as rules that specify contingent relations (Todorov, 1987; 2005). In
the case of the Permit of May 3rd, 1757, one can observe the description of backgrounds and
responses, but not always of consequences. For example, it was specified that whites could not
call people black (response) if they were indigenous (discriminative stimulus). However, there was
no description of the consequences for compliance or non-compliance of this law. One can also
note that there are complete rules - verbal descriptions of contingencies in which it is possible to
identify discriminative stimuli, responses and consequences (Todorov, 2005; Todorov, Moreira,
Prudêncio & Pereira, 2004). For instance, the right for white people to inhabit lands (response)
near villages (SD), which had the consequence (SR) of possessing the inhabited land.
The Permits were important because they exercised control over indigenous peoples’
behaviors, who actually began to attend school (separate for boys and girls), use Portuguese names,
and miscegenate. Such individual behaviors may have endured due to consequences such as
avoiding punishment and persecution by Portuguese troops. It is possible that the settler’s behavior
– of creating contingencies for Indians to behave as foreseen in the charters—had come under
control of consequences written in the charter from May 3rd, 1757. This document foresaw land
possession for settlers that complied with the demands from the new colonization policy.
The laws and permits issued in the Pombal Regiment enabled the establishment of model
settlements. In these places, the indigenous persons abandoned their traditional habits and
conveyed “civilized” behavior. Hence they had access to the same rights as white people, such as
sharing agricultural produce (SR+) with settlers and the Portuguese Crown, as well as not being
punished (SR-) as had happened in ancient villages. Ossami de Moura (2008) reports that some
indigenous groups abandoned the model settlements because soldiers sometimes forced them to
hand over their own share of the produce. Nonetheless, many model settlements became towns
and cities.
The Carretão Settlement
At the end of the 18th Century, the Pedro III settlement, or Carretão, was built next to the
Carretão River (state of Goiás). The aim was to attract indigenous people (peacefully, by fulfilling
the descriptions in the charters issued during Pombal’s regiment) so that it could later become a
village. The Indian Akuên-Xavente group was pursued by means of Bandeiras—searches
conducted by settlers, soldiers and pacified indigenous individuals to locate indigenous villages.
With help from the Kayapó—an indigenous group that was enemies with the Xavante—a man and
four women were found. The man was head of the Xavante and was sent to the state’s capital city
(R) and presented to the Governor, who baptized him with his own name and bestowed honors on
him (SR +). Impressed by how he was treated, the leader of the Xavante promised the governor to
go back to his village and convince the remaining members to move to Carretão (Ossami de
Moura, 2008). One can interpret the Xavante leader's behavior through the triple contingency. The
Governor of Goiás issued reinforcements (gave his name and presents) that were contingent to
peaceful social interactions with the settlers. Thus, the behavior of remaining in civilization and
promising to lead his own people to the village were maintained due to such reinforcing
mechanisms.
A new Bandeira took place – this time under the presence of the Xavante leader, in addition
to the settlers and the Kayapó. When reaching the Xavante village, the leader was greeted with
55
BAIA ET AL.
celebration, since his relatives believed he had died. The leader told them about the friendly
interactions with white people and invited all members of the tribe to move to the village. When
moving, a group of Xavantes resisted contact with the settlers. Hence, the Kayapó intimidated the
Xavante people, who set down their arms and fulfilled the agreement; that is, they moved to the
capital so that they could be directed to the Carretão settlement.
Figure 1 shows that the relationship between the Xavante and Kayapó configures interlocking
metacontingencies. In the first metacontingency, the behavior of the Xavante of resisting and
threatening a conflict (IBC), allowed the indigenous groups to remain in the village (AP).
Intimidation and threat of war by the Kayapó played a double role. On the one hand, it served as a
CC for the culturant of the first metacontingency, as well as configuring an IBC for
metacontingency 2. On the other hand, the intimidated Xavante (AP of metacontingency 2) caused
the indigenous population to begin moving from the village to the settlement (CC in
metacontingency 2). Finally, the displacement of the indigenous people configured an IBC (in
metacontingency 3), which had "Xavante group in the settlement" as an AP. Consequently, war
between the tribes was avoided (CC in metacontingency 3). Permanence of the Xavante group in
the settlement was maintained partly to avoid war against the Kayapó, which also remained at that
location.
Figure 1. The conflict between the Xavante and Kayapó that induced the Xavante group to enter
the Carretão settlement.
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ETHNOGENESIS OF A BRAZILIAN INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY
Moreover, it is possible that other factors contributed to the permanence of the Xavante in the
Carretão settlement. Among these, one may emphasize the fact that non-permanence in the village
implied punishment for individuals, such as aggression by the military from the “pombaline”
regimen (i.e., the period when Marquez de Pombal was the prime minister). Saconatto and Andery
(2013) experimentally demonstrated the possibility of maintaining culturants when programming
metacontingencies whose CC is characterized by avoiding aversive events. The Carretão
settlement also received another group of Xavante indigenous men, and then of Javaé, Karajá and
Xerente, as well as black slaves who fled the plantations. The total population adhered to about
2,000 to 10,000 people. The Carretão settlement met the requirements described in the laws of
Pombal’s regiment. Thus, they spoke Portuguese; separate schools for boys and girls were built;
marriages between white, black, and indigenous individuals took place; agricultural production
was shared between settlers and inhabitants (Alencastre, 1979). These cultural practices were
considered civilized, since they were a recurring pattern of behavior among Europeans.
Apparently, the permits worked as an occasion—or as a cultural milieu (Houmanfar & Rodrigues,
2006)—for cultural change. However, change was only possible due to the enforcement of these
laws by troops that punished those who disobeyed the law (Ossami de Moura, 2008).
Over the years, the settlement started to decline because the indigenous groups that settled in
Carretão suffered from the internal system involving heavy labor and abuse by the authorities, as
well as hunger and disease decimating many indigenous people. Due to the harsh regime and false
promises, the Xavante returned to nomadic life and gradually moved away from densely populated
areas, thus preserving their indigenous cultural practices (native languages, etc.) (Pohl, 1976).
Abandonment of Carretão by indigenous groups can also be understood as contingencies and
metacontingencies. As a contingency, it is likely that returning to pre-Colombian cultural practices
produced the reinforcers that maintained these behaviors. Speaking in their native tongue would
produce the same consequences that were produced before intervention by colonizers. As a
metacontingency, it is possible that the behaviors of working the land were the IBCs, which
produced crops (aggregate product). However, there were no cultural consequences, since the
settlers confiscated the entire output and refused to share it with the indigenous population. The
previously described relation between IBCs and APs seems to fit into the third type of
metacontingency described by Glenn et al. (2016). According to the authors, in certain situations
the AP may act redundantly by selecting responses as well as IBCs. This seems to be the case of
the plantations. For a period of time, this AP was enough to maintain the responses of the
indigenous people of working in the fields as well as interlocking with the settlers’ behavior of
offering grain and means of production for planting. However, with time the lack of impact
possibly caused the extinction of the IBCs. The behavior of leaving the village on the one hand
may have been negatively reinforced, since it avoided aversive contingencies such as speaking in
Portuguese and following the settlers’ behavioral patterns (e.g., wearing clothes, monogamy,
praying to the Christian God). On the other hand, such behaviors may have been positively
reinforced since they produced the consequences that traditionally maintained the pre-Colombian
behavior patterns.
The village of Carretão bore the dispersion of its population which was gradually decreasing
over time, as shown in Table 1. In 1819 there were 227 inhabitants. In 1824, there were 119
inhabitants in the settlement. A measles outbreak, however, killed almost all of the inhabitants.
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Table 1. Number of inhabitants in selected years, and events related to the dispersal and
downfall of the Carretão settlement.
Year
1819
1824
Population
227
119
Events
Measles outbreak killed almost every indigenous
person. Those who did not get sick fled to the woods.
1831
-
38 children are removed from Carretão, 13 of which
were directed to various tasks and 25 handed over to
the province’s inhabitants.
1835
1849
1888
1930
78
3
-
Authorities abandon Carretão
One man and two women
Indigenous people remain until the farmers’ invasion
Note. Empty cells indicate there is no information regarding the total population of
Carretão or that no relevant events took place in that period of time.
Indigenous people who had not been contaminated fled to the woods in fearing the disease. Reports
indicate that in 1831, 38 orphans were taken from the settlement. The authorities abandoned
Carretão as early as 1835. In 1849 reports indicate the presence of 78 indigenous individuals,
meaning that some of them had returned after the 1824 measles outbreak. In 1888, however, there
were only 3 people left: a man and two women. Finally, in 1930 there were still some indigenous
people in Carretão. As pointed out by Ossami de Moura (2008), “the indigenous individuals must
have returned to the old Carretão settlement and remained there until the 1930s, when the area
was occupied by farmers, who drove them out to their current location, but always within the same
territory (p. 99)”.
The Tapuios do Carretão
According to Ossami de Moura (2008) “Tapuio” did not designate a specific indigenous
group, since the term was used to describe the inland indigenous groups who spoke languages
belonging to the Jê linguistic family. In the 1980’s the leader of the Tapuios of the Carretão
village, Manuel Simão Borges de Aguiar, was the eldest inhabitant. He repeated stories told by
one of the two women who inhabited the Carretão settlement in 1888 (see Table 1). The tapuia
women were called Raimunda Borges (descendant of a Xavante and a Javaé) and Maria do Rosario
Ramos Machado (descendant of a Kayapó and a black slave who had fled) (Ossami de Moura,
2008).
According to Aguiar’s report, at some point between 1849 and 1888, the Tapuios were
removed from Carretão by farmers and then went to the region of the city of Arowana, Goiás. In
the 1920s Aguiar married a woman who had worked for a farmer, which allowed him to access
lands belonging to the tapuia community. The farmer supposedly claimed ownership of the land
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ETHNOGENESIS OF A BRAZILIAN INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY
in order to gain free access to the settlement. Also according to Aguiar, the farmer supposedly sold
that land to another man. In 1923, that buyer claimed ownership of the lands inhabited by the
Tapuios, claiming that the indigenous groups had been extinguished in that region (Ossami de
Moura, 2008). Between the 1930s and 1980s the family of Aguiar and Machado had remained in
a region near the old settlement.
In the 1930s the Tapuios do Carretão recovered ownership rights over the land by resorting
to the Indian Protection Service, claiming that they still inhabited the land (Lazarin, 1985). The
land disputes between farmers and Tapuios lasted until the 1990s (Ossami de Moura, 2008). The
crux of the dispute involved a claim by the farmers that the inhabitants were not an indigenous
group since they were highly miscigenated and did not behave in a typically indigenous manner,
such as political and religious organization or speaking a language belonging to the Jê linguistic
family. On the other hand, representatives of regulatory agencies and government agency members
linked to the protection of indigenous groups, as well as social researchers, have shown that the
Tapuios are an indigenous group due to their ethnogenesis, i.e., their specific history distinguishes
them from other social groups (Ossami de Moura, 2008). We will henceforth discuss some cultural
practices of the Tapuios do Carretão that are specific of this group and that served as arguments
for both farmers and defenders of the natives.
Verbal Behavior
Before the Carretão Settlement, indigenous members of the Xavante, Javaé, Karajá and
Kayapó tribes were members of the Jê family verbal community. The settlers, however, forced
natives to use the Portuguese language. Such an obligation arose from the orders issued by the
Marquês de Pombal (Chaim, 1974). Thus, the inhabitants of Carretão became members of the
Portuguese verbal community. In addition to adults, children were also exposed to verbal training
in Portuguese, including school classes. Therefore, the original inhabitants of Carretão and their
descendants abandoned the Jê family verbal community and adopted the Portuguese language.
Members of the village who inhabited Carretão in the 20th Century used Portuguese only. The
farmers argued that not speaking Jê family languages was a hint that those people did not belong
to the indigenous community (Lazarin, 1985). In this sense, the decree of June 7th, 1755, set a
change in cultural practices of indigenous people inasmuch as it specified conditional relations
between verbal responses and consequences. The descendants of the indigenous individuals who
originally inhabited the Carretão did not use Jê family languages since they were trained to use
Portuguese only. This cannot be used to deny an indigenous identity to the group, since the cultural
practice of using Portuguese stemmed from a colonizing process that had been imposed on that
indigenous communities.
Social and Family Organization
Another argument used by farmers to justify land dispute was that members of the Carretão
community could not be depicted as indigenous since their political and family organization
differed from that of pre-Columbian indigenous societies. Traditionally, those indigenous societies
have a non-nuclear notion of family, i.e., there was no such thing as a family made up by a father,
a mother, and their children living in a dwelling. In those communities the idea of ancestry was
shared by the whole group (Pohl, 1976; Ossami de Moura, 2008). Once more, Pombal’s permits
established conditional relations for the settlement’s inhabitants to live in single-family units.
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Figure 2. Changes in cultural practices of the ancestral notion from pre-Colombian peoples to
Tapuios do Carretão
Thus, natives started to live in single-family homes and acquired an ancestral notion linked to
specific parents (father and mother) (Figure 2).
The political organization also changed. In pre-Columbian societies the natives have a
peculiar organization with tribal leaders such as chiefs, shamans and warriors. However, Pombal’s
laws specified that authorities and leaders of the settlements were only white men whose power
derived from orders issued by members appointed by the Portuguese crown (Beozzo, 1983).
Therefore, former leaders (chiefs and shamans) lost their status. Contemporary Tapuios have
community leaders in their society (as was the case of Aguiar in the 1980s). But they respect
control agency authorities of the Brazilian government, such as FUNAI members.
The family and political organization of the Tapuios do Carretão differed from that of other
indigenous groups inasmuch as the colonizing process led to cultural changes that were passed on
to their offspring. That is, today the Tapuios differ from other pre-Colombian groups due to
contingencies imposed by colonizers. Those practices are maintained because land ownership
security depends on legal measures carried out by control agency members who provide protection
to indigenous groups. The Tapuios do Carretão still rely on members of control agencies to ensure
ownership of their land.
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ETHNOGENESIS OF A BRAZILIAN INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY
Economic organization
Between the 1910s and the 1980s, the economic organization of the Tapuios do Carretão
differed from that of pre-Columbian indigenous groups (see Figure 3). While these indigenous
groups lived on a subsistence economy scarcely inserted in a capitalist society, the Tapuios began
to sell their workforce and use of their land. In that period, before the National Constitution of
1988, economic practices of the Tapuios included (1) lease of their land—a situation in which
community members rented their land to farmers; (2) sharecropping—by means of which the
Tapuios provided land and labor whilst farmers provided agricultural inputs, profit being equally
divided between both parties; (3) daily and contract works—the Tapuios provided farmers with
labor in exchange for a daily payment; and (4) land-grabbing, by which Tapuios illegally sold their
land to real estate speculators (Lazarin, 1985). The concept of macrobehavior can help understand
the economic organization of the Tapuios before the National Constitution of 1988. According to
Biglan and Glenn (2013), macrobehaviors are composed of independent operant behaviors of
many people, which generate a cumulative effect on the environment. Each Tapuio issued a type
of response whose function was to produce money. Those responses did not depend on the
behavior of other members of the community.
Figure 3. The evolution of the economic organization of the Tapuios do Carretão
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However, as a cumulative effect, the community started to have trouble keeping its land.
Moreover, the lack of available workforce within the community meant that the Tapuios were
unable to produce food, either by hunting, fishing, or growing crops for the community as a whole.
Although the operant behavior of each member of the community was independent, the cumulative
effects put the survival of the entire community at risk. Keeping the land now depended on
government control agents to recover land that had been sold or leased.
From a behavior analytic point of view it is possible to suggest that the family, political, and
economic organization of the Tapuios do Carretão occurs due to support contingencies—a
situation in which the interlocking contingency is maintained at least partly by other contingencies
that are external to it through the maintenance of the behavior involved in the intertwining (Andery,
Micheletto & Sério, 2005; Tadaiesky & Tourinho, 2012). The social organization of the Tapuios
may be an example of interlocking contingencies—such as dwelling in single-family homes maintained by supporting contingencies, since the behavior of control agency members have
maintained and still maintain the recurrence of this cultural practice when they provide social
approval and other potential reinforcers (e.g., ensuring land ownership according to indigenous
descent).
National Constitution and Visibility
The Tapuios do Carretão have a long history of struggle for possession of their land
(Cerqueira, 2010); they have been fighting to keep their property rights since the 19th Century. In
the 20th Century the conflict intensified, driving members of the community to seek aid in
governmental bodies such as the SPI. In the 1930s, the Tapuios organized a group that went to the
SPI to prove that the settlement was neither abandoned nor were the indigenous groups extinct.
Hence, for the Tapuios, recognition of their status as an indigenous community has always been
essential. The concept of metacontingency helps us understand this phenomenon of struggling for
possession of land. These IBCs involve behaviors that produce, as an AP, their recognition as an
indigenous group. This culturant produces ‘maintaining the land’ as a CC.
Recognition as an indigenous group faces difficulties, as previously mentioned. Mauro (2013)
points out that in Brazil, since the 1988 National Constitution, there has been a growing movement
of indigenous groups seeking recognition of their condition. According to the author, one of the
main obstacles lies in trying to specify traits of the phenotype of indigenous individuals—a notion
based on a “classical anthropology”, which considered that indigenous groups had a fixed
configuration, were resistant to change, and considered behavior as something static, therefore
defining of ethnic groups.
The recognition of indigenous groups through their ethnogenesis is an important mechanism
to access specific constitutional rights of indigenous people. The National Indian Statute of 1973
already conveyed a definition of indigenous persons that excluded criteria such as phenotypes or
static behavior patterns—a definition maintained in the 2009 Statute of Indigenous Peoples.
Indigenous groups in Brazil are defined as “collectivities of pre-Columbian origin that are
distinguished from the whole of society and each other, with their own identity and organization,
specific worldview and special relationship with the land they inhabit” (Estatuto dos Povos
Indígenas, 2009, our translation). This definition has highlighted the ethnogenesis—historical
formation of a particular social group, as well as reaffirmed identity according to land use. The
Tapuios do Carretão are therefore an indigenous group due to ethnogenesis and their special
relationship with the land they inhabit. The history of the Tapuios was forged by the dispute over
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land ownership from the 19th Century until the 1990s. Ownership rights to their land was granted
to the Tapuios by the Brazilian National Constitution.
The National Constitution of 1988 played an important role in changing the Brazilian public
policy for indigenous groups in Brazil. Until 1988, Brazilian laws asserted that indigenous people
had temporary rights, which were only guaranteed until they became “civilized.” The Constitution
guaranteed the indigenous population rights such as healthcare, education, social security, and
ownership of the land, even if they still belonged to a social group that differed from Brazilian
civilized society. After this set of laws, public policies were developed in order to enhance the
specificities of the groups (Ossami de Moura, 2008).
The creation of public policies after 1988, combined with the rights already provided by the
Constitution, triggered a process of indigenous visibility in Brazil. Several groups have sought
recognition as indigenous since the promulgation of the Brazilian Constitution (Mauro, 2013). In
Brazil, members of society who are recognized as belonging to an indigenous group have several
rights such as access to quotas in public universities, land ownership rights, and social security.
The so-called indigenous visibility can be understood as metacontingencies. The involved
IBCs contain behaviors linked to the history of those societies, such as typical dances, language
use, social organization and land use. The AP is their recognition as an indigenous group by the
government control agency (FUNAI). CC include the right to public policies for indigenous people
and land tenure for society. Because of these CCs, behaviors involved in IBCs and their aggregate
output have lasted nearly 30 years.
Final Remarks
Understanding the ethnogenesis of the Tapuios do Carretão in a behavior analytic perspective
can contribute to dialogues between behavior analysts and anthropologists. Behavior Analysis
believes that behavior is a fluid phenomenon and that it is determined by environmental events
(Moore, 2009). The view that behaviors are selected for their consequences, as proposed by
Skinner (1981), may contribute to the recognition of indigenous groups inasmuch as it promotes
an explanation of how current behavior patterns in some societies differ from those related to preColumbian peoples.
An approximation between Behavior Analysis and Anthropology can contribute to
recognition of indigenous peoples. This is so because Behavior Analysis helps us understand how
a behavior has evolved throughout time as a function of environmental change. An indigenous
group may currently present behavior patterns that are very distinct from those of pre-Colombian
peoples—such as the case of the Tapuios do Carretão, who speak Portuguese, and have a
matriarchal notion of ancestrality and social organization. These differences were the result of
changes in social contingencies to which the Tapuios were exposed.
Interpretation of historical facts in a behavioral perspective may help build a foundation for
arguments in favor of recognizing specific groups descending from indigenous peoples. This
demonstrates how changes in cultural practices were part of an evolutionary process. Distancing
between cultural practices of pre-Colombian peoples and current practices should not be used to
justify that specific groups are not indigenous. On the contrary, changes in cultural practices
occurred due to intervention processes of European colonizers that changed the social environment
of indigenous peoples, by establishing new cultural consequences. In this sense, the concept of
metacontingency stands out as an important conceptual tool. Changes in cultural practices are not
63
BAIA ET AL.
random, they occur by consequences established for the whole group, as in the case of permanence
of model settlements as previously stated.
Therefore, a behavior-analytic interpretation can complement anthropological analyses by
describing processes of selection of behavior and cultural practices in the individual and cultural
levels. While Anthropology and History describe past events, Behavior Analysis helps in arranging
these events so as to explain how they were determinant in changing behavior and cultural
practices.
The ethnogenesis of the Tapuios is rebuilt from the historical narratives of its members
(Cerqueira, 2010). This poses a limitation to this paper. Narratives are verbal behaviors, and as
such may be controlled by environmental events that differ from the events been reported. In the
case of the Tapuios, verbal reports were an important aspect for them to keep their land. Thus, it
is possible that their narratives are more controlled by specific consequences than by the course of
events.
The concepts of Behavior Analysis used in this paper to interpret historic events and the role
of environment in determining behavior were constructed from data obtained in controlled
laboratory conditions. The fact that laboratory data led to formulations of concepts allows behavior
analysts to interpret phenomena outside the laboratory without departing from their
epistemological tradition. As pointed out by Todorov (2009), the behavior analytic research
tradition obtains data from various sources ranging from casual observations to laboratory
experiments.
Other interpretative research has been conducted by behavior analysts. Skinner (1957) based
the analysis of verbal behavior on concepts whose formulation stemmed from laboratory empirical
data. In the cultural field, other authors wrote interpretative papers related to various phenomena
ranging from the establishment of a public policy for respect of pedestrian crossings (Lé SenechalMachado & Todorov, 2008) to economic policies in the Soviet Union (Lamal, 1991). It is not the
first time indigenous groups are the subject of a paper under a Behavior Analysis perspective.
Lowery and Mattaini (1999) interpreted the cultural practice of Native Americans in the sharing
of power and their influence in American politics.
This paper can potentially contribute to important social issues by highlighting the decisive
role of the Brazilian National Constitution in the process of indigenous visibility. As pointed out
by Todorov (1987), the Constitution is a set of laws that specify conditional relations. That set of
rules prescribes behaviors that should be positively reinforced and those that should be
extinguished or punished. The Brazilian state promoted cultural change by prescribing specific
rights to citizens who are recognized as indigenous persons. Thus, many indigenous groups began
to culturally behave so as to keep those rights, since as a result they would keep their land and
ensure rights to its members. Almeida (2003) points out that, after the Constitution of 1988, several
groups began to use the notion of ethnogenesis to obtain recognition of their status as an indigenous
group. Enacting laws plays an important role in cultural changes, since government control
agencies rely on these prescriptions of contingencies and metacontingencies to implement cultural
changes.
The current condition of indigenous persons in Brazil is not ideal. Indigenous groups are still
struggling to keep their land, as conveyed by the struggle of the indigenous people of the Xingu
River region to keep their lands that have been expropriated for the construction of a hydroelectric
dam in Belo Monte, in the state of Pará. However, other advances have occurred due to the
National Constitution of 1988, such as rights being ensured and the development of public policies
aimed at maintaining cultures at the expense of a civilizing process for these people. Thus, we
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suggest that, at least in democratic cultures, laws and law enforcement measures should configure
an important aspect of cultural planning.
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