1
Part One (I), June 2004
1
|
Xavante[1]
By Alann De Vuyst alias Wéré'è (many persons in one)
The Foreword and the main article are composed and enriched with the most accurate way by Emmanouel Laleos, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society
Foreword My correspondence with Wéré’è began somewhere in the middle of May 2004, after his first contact with me through ‘The Great Web of Percy Harrison Fawcett’. Since the 6th of June, Wéré’è kept me informed, by e-mail, about his entire extraordinary story concerning his emotional, and amazing adventures with the Xavante nation, also of his blood pact relationship with the Chief of that nation in 1989. Wéré’è started the narration of his story, which has been interrupted by me several times, in order to make some clarifications.
Today, Wéré'è is one of our many connections that we have in South America. He has given us important information about the Brazilian Xavante nation, a bellicose indigenous people, who inhabit the cerrado near the riverbanks of the Rio das Mortes (River of the Dead), the Rio Kuluene and the dry cerrado forest of Mato Grosso in Brazil. Permits, from Indian bureau of Indians affairs, called FUNAI, are needed to visit their territory, and are hard to get, if not impossible. A filming party led by Rolf Blomberg, the first non-Brazilian expedition ever to go there, traveled over 12,000 miles to make a documentary about the daily life of “primitive tribes”, which also included the Xavante. They recorded their dances and realistic war games, as well as many recordings of the colorful and little known parts of this vast country, such as the exotic fauna and flora of its immense jungles, and of the everlasting yet unsolved mystery concerning the fate of Colonel Fawcett.
Different reports and rumors had it that both the colonel and the Xavante may have met at one point. According to one of these reports, Colonel Fawcett wanted to visit the Xavante nation during his last ill-fated expedition in 1925. He had asked the Kalapàlo Indians to help him reach their (Xavante) territory, and to give him guides and porters. The Kalapàlo Indian leader, Izarari, refused to do it, as he claimed that his people were not on friendly terms with the Xavante.
Colonel Fawcett persisted, and pressed Izarari repeatedly to let him have the men he asked for. Izarari, probably had Fawcett and his son killed, in order to get rid of the white stranger. Raleigh Rimell, the third member of Fawcett’s expedition, was already dead, after being gravely ill with a malignant infection of the leg, caused by the bot-fly larvae, and he had most likely died of blood poisoning.
According to many contemporary explorers and writers, that was and is still believed to be, what happened to Fawcett’s ill-fated expedition of 1925, even if the truth, as we have uncovered it from the results of our five years research, is quite different. Emmanouil Lalaios
“Dear
Emmanouil,
I am a Flemish Belgian artist who, at the time of writing, is living in Flanders, continuing my book about my stay with the Xavante nation of Mato Grosso. However, I am not often in Belgium anymore, as I live a life of a world nomad. The last 20 years I have lived in SE Asia, India, Nepal, and Brazil. In Thailand I got in touch with the Karen refugees near the Myanmar border, and 2 years ago I celebrated the Hmong New year with the Hmong nation. I also visited the Kamu and the Lahui in Laos. However, my story here, concerns my adoption through a blood pact with a Xavante chief in 1989.
It was in the reservation of Parabubure, in one of the villages, that I saw a Xavante boy with brown hair, which was very unusual, as they all have jet black hair, like most Indians. Most probably, he was the product of a possible mix of Xavante blood with Brazilian blood.
E-
What
was the age of the boy and when was that visit of yours in the
reservation?
W- It
was in 1991, in October I think. He must have been around 6 or 7 years
old, very shy and afraid of me. I have never seen any kid like that
with the Xavante. I am not sure, - it is too long ago, - but I believe
even his eyes weren’t pitch black like his folks.
E-
Do
you have a photo of him?
W- I
have no pictures whatsoever of that boy, but maybe I can trace him, as
he was a child of an ‘Alemão’ (Portuguese for German).
Due to my inhibition, and
fear that the crying boy would get more upset, I didn’t take a
picture of him. The
‘father’ said to me smilingly, that he
was his uncle, and he laughed with him as he cried. Many
boys hid from me, as I was white, and blue eyed. I
was alone and had no interpreter, so what could I ask them? I
believe he lived in the village of Aldeona, which is part of the
reserve Kuluene, which again is a sub-reserve of the Parabubure
reservation. The latter is about 330.000 hectares.
The Parabubure Xavante reservation
The
reason why I am mentioning the Xavante is because I have stayed with
them, and perhaps they could be the missing link to Colonel Fawcett. When
you mentioned him on your website, it occurred to me that I had a book
in my collection which talks about him too.
The
Dutch author, Marcel Roos, who wrote this book, about his expedition
into Mato Grosso, to the Serra Do Roncador in 1949.” which is called
‘Het Geheim van de Roos’ (The Secret of the Rose), claimed that it
was going to unravel the mystery of the disappearance of Colonel Percy
Harrison Fawcett.
En
route, he got in touch with the Xavante, whom he tried to interview
about the mysterious primitive rock paintings in the area of Roncador.
The Xavante told him to leave.
The Dutchman Marcel Roos and Colonel Fawcett The
document 512 Translated by Alann De Vuyst
“...As
if they (rupestral art signs) were forming a sentence. With increasing
awe I find a certain resemblance with the image scriptures from the
document “512”.
Does
the “lost city” of 1753 exist after all?
I can imagine, how the young Percy Fawcett must have felt, for
when I was in the jungle of Ceylon, I found similar indecipherable
writings on a rock. How he must have felt the urge awakening in him to
disclose their secrets and how, whilst reading the tale of the
Portuguese Bandeira of 1743, he thought he had found the right tracks
that would lead him to Mato Grosso, where he disappeared in 1925,
proceeding into the direction of Roncador…
Did he really hope to find, on this highland, the secret
“Z”, the Ancient City, inhabited by the descendants of Atlantis,
who are being kept in isolation by savage Indian tribes?
Did
he include the Xavante with the latter?
The questions overwhelm me while observing the signs, which
contain a message, left behind by the unknown culture of the people
that roamed this region, in the gray antiquity of time. It is out of
the question that the Xavante would have applied the drawings on these
walls. Even a monkey wouldn’t manage to clamber up the ten-meter
high, smooth granite wall, above which they appear. Similarly,
reaching them from above, alongside the steep protruding flank of the
highlands, is impossible too!
Why
would the Xavante make the effort to draw signs, which for them have
no meaning at all? I
would like to investigate this area much more deeply. But alas I
don’t get the chance.
Dr. Hoge just came to tell me that the Indians (the Xavante
with whom he just recently met) are getting impatient and want to
leave. Thus, the inspector has decided to break up the camp and go
back. Dr. Hoge has little interest in the inscriptions, and for
anything that has nothing to do with snakes (he is a biologist). Nilo,
who accompanies him, quickly takes a few shots for the archives of the
S. P. I. (service ao Proteçao do Indio), but is too busy with the
Xavante who are a more gratifying subject for his camera. I too have
to limit myself to a few photographs, and a few meters of film, as
proof of a remarkable find. Maybe later it will be the subject of a
debate by antiquity experts, who usually are very sceptical about
these kinds of inscriptions, in particular if they have been
discovered by a layman like me.
Back
at the camp, I try to find out more about the Indians and the rock
paintings. Except for the confirmation, that they exist in other
places of Roncador too, there is nothing more I can get out of them.
This is due to the limited knowledge of Xavante vocabulary, and the
lack of imagination of the interpreters, but also very often because
of the deviating answers from the Xavante. It seems they want to avoid
kindling our interest for something, which may incite us to stay
longer on their hunting grounds and penetrate these even farther. When
José, the cook, shows his golden teeth to a few Xavante and asks them
if they know the yellow glitter of this metal, they answer positively.
As soon as we try to find out where they have seen it, though, they
divert us with a vague referral to a river “somewhere in the
North…” They have never heard of a lost city.
In the end they get tired of our questions and abruptly stop
the conversation with a “Mo Tô!” (Go away, go!). This seems to be
the signal for the others too, who have been walking around nervously
and make us understand that it is time to finish the interview. Their
repeated “mo tô” sounds like an order and a threat! The inspector
has the animals rounded up, whereby the Xavante get really excited,
when they hear the tingling of a bell that hangs around the mules’
neck… “
The meeting and the ceremony
On
my question concerning his story with the Xavante and when and why they
had adopted him, Wéré’è referred
to this event with the following description:
“I stumbled upon two Xavante chiefs, (Caciques), in a small
pension called
Rio Verde,
in the popular area of capital Cuiaba
in
1989, in the month of July. We talked for hours; me asking them whether
I could stay in their village to learn about their culture. Somewhere in
my young life I had always believed that I had been an Indian in another
life. Here in Belgium I had
worked as a volunteer with non-profit organizations to accompany Native
American and Canadian delegations in Brussels, in their quest for
justice and human rights, and who were traveling to Geneva.
That’s how I met Floyd Red Crow Westerman, and some people of
the Nuchalk nation from the Bella Coola reservation in British Columbia,
to name but a few.
However,
back to my two chiefs; and during my stay in their village of Santa
Cruz, the chief named Josué, mentioned many a time that we had the same
blood and only the color of our skin was different. In the end, one
evening, I was taken by surprise and summoned to the village center
where we had a blood brother ceremony. He was 39 and I a mere 30.
Josué
had an uncle, an old chief, named Arão who lived in the village of
Corrego da Mata, about 8 km away. The
old man had come all the way on foot to meet me, in Santa Cruz and to
witness the blood pact that was bound to happen there.
We drank each other’s blood"
Wéré’è and the Xavante chief Josué during the blood brother ceremony
He
handed me a yellow-feathered headdress, which he had made for me. He
said that, not so long ago he had had a vision of a white man, who would
come to make peace with the Xavante. He
thought that I was the one. He
had tears in his eyes and hugged me, as he told me this, while my blood
brother simultaneously translated for me.
Ever since, my name has been Wéré’è
(Many Persons in One).
Two
months later I had to leave the reservation, because another village called
Aldeona, of the opposite faction/clan to where I was staying, spread the
rumor that I was a sorcerer, and that I was there to kill the Xavante and to
dig for gold! It was the doing
of a young sorcerer of 26 years old, who wanted to have me killed. In
short, I had become a kind of political refugee, who could not move out of
the hut where I was staying, and where there were posted, four warriors, who
guarded me during three nights. Because
my life was in danger, I was helped to leave the reservation, to only return
in 1991 upon my blood brothers’ request.
On my return, I helped to create two permanent water channels from
two different springs in two Xavante villages, respectively Santa
Cruz, where I had stayed in 1989
and Corrego
da Mata.
During 1990 I’d been
collecting money for this project in Europe, mainly Belgium. It
wasn’t an easy task, because I had had no experience in this field; after
all, I wasn’t an NGO man, a technician or an engineer, but an artist
painter
The
Xavante village of Santa Cruz located in the southern part of Rio
Kuluene
E-
How
far is the village of your blood brother from the nearest white town?
I
asked Wéré’è.
W- The
nearest town of Campinápolis
must
be about a two hours bus or car ride from the reservation, and the Xavante
village is the nearest one to the western border. The river Couto Magelhães
flows through the Xavante village, São Pedro, which lies north of the
reservation. I knew the cacique
(chief) of that village in 1991. From
Cuiaba
to Campinápolis
is about a 2 day and one night journey. There is a shortcut, which reduces
the journey to Kuluene to half the time, leaving from the Salesian run São
Marcos reservation. But, as I
had had a spot of trouble with some of the Salesians, I stayed away from
them.
Corrego da Mata, a village I visited with my blood brother and where with the Salesian missionaries I had installed a long tube over 4 km channeling water from a well to the village, I did the same for Santa Cruz.
From
Campinápolis
to Nova Xavantina it takes about 5 hours, and another 6 hours over unmade
roads, and broken, eroded bridges. Journeys
by road are unwise during the rainy season. Indians are classified as
minors, and are dealt with through state intelligence. Never
tell the police you want to stay with this or that tribe, because you will
get arrested and be deported, unless you are an anthropologist, and even
then it takes up to 5 years before you can get your permit.
Most
of the time, I was dependent on the Xavante’s truck, and good will, to get
back to Santa Cruz. Had it not
been for the caciques, who
expressed their
will to invite me, then surely
FUNAI would have said ‘no’ to me.
The legend of the Enchanted Lake
W-
Near the Xavante village, in the Kuluene reservation, lies a very
mysterious lake. I remember it
to be steel blue in color, and in which the Xavante dare to swim, but are
afraid to dive in, for fear of being sucked in at the bottom by the evil
spirits. The Xavante people believe that bad spirits dwell in lakes, and
good spirits in running water, such as in rivers.
E-
Do
you know, the name of the Lake the
Xavante
were afraid to swim in (because of their belief that it is a demonic one)?
I
asked Wéré’è,
W-
I
believe the lake is called ‘a lagoa
encantada’ (the enchanted lake). They named it that, because there is
no life in that water. One of the cacique has seen a UFO hovering over the
lake on 2 occasions. I
thought the lake had the color of grey/blue, just like hard steel.
The “enchanted lake”, a tiny lake near the village of São Pedro
E-
Do
you know the lake’s coordinates?
W- I
have no coordinates, as the maps of the indigenous area are considered state
intelligence. There were rumors that maybe there could have been tunnels
connected to it. It is situated on the east side of the Parabubure, Xavante
reservation. The Parabubure area only shows a tiny lake, near a
Xavante village, right on the eastern border of the reservation. It bears no
name whatsoever. I don’t think it could have been that one, as I cannot
recall any village nearby, that time, but then one forgets after so many
years.
There
are the people known as the snake eaters, who go by the name of Nambiquara
Indians, who also live in Mato Grosso, and who have been part of the Ungha
Mongulala nation, mentioned in the Chronicle of Akakor. The map of Mato
Grosso shows all reservations, but near Parabubure or along the border,
there is no lake is shown. I
cannot recall if any lake was situated on it, but it might.
Detailed maps do exist, with all reservations mentioned marked on
them, – they used to be sold by CEDI, an NGO in Sao Paulo.
E-
I do know that Fawcett examined very closely the customs and the language of
some tribes, including the Nambiquara Indians,
I reported to Wéré’è
In
Fawcett’s writings 1920-1924 there are numerous notes on particular
Indian tribes. He studied the language of tribes he intended to visit as
well as their customs and etiquette. The tribes he studied in detail are;
Mundurucu, Apiaka, Kayabì, Bororo and Nambiquara. All these nations
inhabited areas North-West and West of Cuiaba.
Fawcett never ever mentioned, or ever collected information about the
Nafhaqua, the Kalapàlo, the Xavante or the Suià (all to the Northeast) and
he had never been to Mato Grosso.
W-
The Nambiquara were mentioned in the book the Chronicle of Akakor
itself, as the snake eating people. You
mentioned that Fawcett never got in touch with the Xavante; he might have,
because they too secure a portal and have seven keys to it.
Some Indians, of the Xingu
reservation, believe
he drowned in the Rio das Mortes. They will not allow anyone to go near the
area of the Serra do Roncador. There are many sacred areas that the Xavante
protect, to which no white man is allowed to go, unless a Xavante
accompanies him, and they refuse to do this anymore, just as they refuse to
dive in the lake.
Other
readings on Fawcett, tell me that he was a very arrogant man, and that he
really misbehaved with the Kalapàlo, who helped him and guided him. He
even left his son behind at one point, and went off alone. Some believe the
Kalapàlo must have taken revenge on him at night. Though a finger also
points at the Kuikuro...
The Serra do Roncador
W-
The Serra do Roncador is known to host several mystic organizations. I met a
widow of a Swede, (second generation), who founded a kind of druid sect in
that area.
E-
Regarding
the Serra do Roncador and your connections there, I
asked Wéré’è again.
What else did the Swedish widow find, or see there, besides the airfield of
beings from outer space?
-
The
people there are very interested in occult powers, and that’s why they
talk so much about the spiritualist Alan Kardek. There are lots of new age
and esoteric groups there. Her
husband, I once saw a picture of him at her home, wore a kind of Ku Klux
Klan outfit, only the hood was like a chopped off KKK hood. She told me they
had had gatherings in the Serra do Roncador. Her
husband had bought a piece of land there, which is now her property, because
he did not want the area to become developed and spoiled. There were ideas
and plans to build an airport as well – the second in the world, (the
other is in Japan), - for aliens from outer space. That’s how much Mato
Grosso is just full of whispers, spiritualists, religious sects and occult
forces.
E-
What
was the name of the Swede’s widow?
W-
I
am sorry that I cannot remember her surname. But I know the people she
worked for, in an indigenous handicraft shop in Barra do Garças,
called Berô
Can.
She might still be working for
them; she was still there when I last saw her in 1995. I painted three huge
murals on their shop facades, representing the three Indian nations of the
region. This year someone sent me an e-mail telling me that a few years ago
it was deleted by a new tenant.
Jerônimo
Xavante
E-
Have
you ever been near the area of the airstrip which serves the aliens of outer
space?
E- Unfortunately
not! According to the State’s pilots, they have never witnessed any UFO
activity. Which I find strange really, when so many ordinary people, even
the utmost skeptics, have seen something, and started to believe in what
they have seen. Some have
visited a psychologist, or were at the point of doing so.
The
airport has never been built in Barra do Garças, but the idea is still
there.
The
table mount of Jerônimo is, according to many people who have visited it,
in the national park Chapada dos Guimarães, an airstrip for (UFO). Lots
of people from the region have experienced magnetic or electric fields, and
have seen white circles, or almost transparent creatures, emerging from
those white lights.
There
is a kind of corridor, which
extends some distance, both above and below the 15 degrees parallel,
(South), and, according to my sources, this corridor stretches from the
federal district Brasilia, to Peru and Bolivia,.
The
National Park Chapada dos Guimarães
which I
visited, is huge!!! You need a
4X4 to get around it. I have
seen the ‘Veu da Noiva’, the Jacaré, and from a distance the plateau of
‘Jerônimo’. I also passed by the ‘O Dedo de Deus’, (the finger of
god), but that’s on the road from Cuiaba to Barra do Garças.
The national park Chapada dos Guimarães
E-
What
is your personal opinion concerning these airfields of UFOs?
W-
Listen
Emmanouel, I do believe in the realm of Akakor, and I think it isn’t just
a whim of the national government to have an airstrip built, no matter how
ludicrous this may sound to Mr. Average. The
area is notorious for lots of mystics and sects. It may be that the sect, to
which that widow’s husband belonged, was known as ‘O Monasteiro do
Roncador’ (the Monastery of Roncador). There
is a whole area of magnetism and energy in Mato Grosso.
That sect, or group, possessed many secret rituals, and they believed that
in the region of the Serra do Roncador, at the foot of an outcrop named ‘O
Dedo de Deus’ (the finger of God), a portal (door), materializes
when
an alignment of stars takes place. They have 200 or more followers.
They
say that when the portal is open, one can hear voices and music, and one can
see people walking about, as if in a city. There are said to be other
portals in Manaus, Foz d’ Iguaçu in
the State of Paraná, and
at the Serra do Roncador.
I
met a German, who didn’t want his picture taken, known as ‘o Alemão’,
who could have been a man with a Nazi past. For
years there had been another German, who was killing tourists in that part
of the Amazon region; the federal police were still looking for him in 1995.
He had a girlfriend who was a
nurse.
The
same year, in Sao Paulo, I
met with a surgeon, who was treating Yanomami Indians with shot wounds.
He told me about a German he had met in Manaus. The German had asked
him to send a few tourists to him in Manaus. I
also had a conversation with Vicente Rios, (I hope I have his name correct),
who made a documentary of the “Destruction of the Amazon Forest During 10
years,” for the BBC. He had
filmed, and had spoken with the parents of a boy who had been kidnapped by
the Ureu-Wau-Wau
Indians.
Fabio, a small blond boy of
seven, who was never seen again.
Director
John Boorman based his film, ‘Emerald Forest’ on this story, and met up
with Vicente. When the
Ureu-Wau-Wau had been pacified, they were asked to show the boy’s grave,
but there were no bones in it. So
no one knows what happened to him. Some
believe he is still alive, and can give a plausible reason. They
say that possibly the Indians wanted to learn Portuguese from him, so that
they could understand the ways of the Brazilians.
During
my correspondence with Wéré’è, he
noticed that I did not respond to the name of Marcel Roos, so in his next
mail to me he said:
W-
You didn’t react to the Dutch author’s name Marcel Roos and his
story. Is it that maybe you don't
think it's important?
E-
When
you visit the Xavante in June, as you said for the completion of your book,
how long do you intend to stay there?
I
asked Wéré’è …
|
