Written by Ursula Wiesemann

"Ursula, it is God who gave you the knowledge to put our language to writing. For this we the teachers thank you very much. (signed) Teachers, 2/6/95" (translated from Kaingang)

This engraved plaque is one of my most prized possessions. Most of the teachers who presented it to me were not even born in 1958 when I first met with their families and slowly learned their language. Pedrinho, an outstanding ex-chief, became my longsuffering teacher. He had insisted that one of his children go to school in Curitiba, the capital of his state Paraná. He himself could not read, and though his son had been a good student, his two years in the Brazilian school system had not changed him, nor his fortune or his life style. Here is my story of the Kaingang Indians victory after their long struggle for recognition as a people. A people for whom I have grown to have so much respect and to have become so fond of over the years.

The Kaingang Indians were in a sad state when I first met them. Between the 16^th century when the foreign settlers first came and the beginning of the 20^th century when their most serious trouble started, the Kaingang Indians had been more or less able to live their own lives, though in frequent clashes with the settlers, particularly as these multiplied. Since the beginning of the 20^th century the Kaingang lost most of their habitat, many were simply massacred, others found refuge when the first reservations were created (around 1930). The reservations being administered by non-Indians who did not understand the Kaingang language or the culture, the Kaingang had less and less say in their own future. Learning Portuguese proved difficult for them, so they also found no way to understand the ways of the “white man”. Those who decided to move in with the foreign population could survive only by cutting off all their ties to their families, integrating without trace to their origin. Others tried to reason with the people in charge of them, only to be submitted to cruel punishment.

"Maybe if we could become foreigners ourselves instead of being Indians we could survive," they finally reasoned. But how, without Portuguese, let alone reading and writing skills? It was humiliating for them not to be able to communicate or express the most basic of needs, and thus be treated as stupid and belittled by the settlers. They slowly lost hope of regaining their former independence and pride, and drowned their despair in drink. With the drink came the listless stupor and lack of will to get the better of the situation. Every one, even the babies, had that sad hopeless look in their eyes which became for me the very identification mark of this group. Yes, they were slowly dying out, reduced to less than 7000 scattered over some 25 reservations all across the four southern states of Brazil. Alcoholism, and the sickness that pervades a body once it has lost its health and spirit, were decimating them. They came to regard death as their only way out of their misery. They did not terminate their own lives but were happy when disease took them or their children. "I did not bring my baby to you when it was sick though I knew that you had medicine. You see, medicine is only a prolongation of our suffering," one young mother explained to me, as she stood in my house mourning her child. Many felt that way.

When we first talked about reading in Kaingang they did not see this as any advantage in their quest to become foreigners. "If our children are to read, they should 'really' read," a delegation of Indian elders explained to me during a rare and unusual visit. I understood. "Really" meant in Portuguese rather than in Kaingang. But their children were going to a very rudimentary school in Portuguese and were basically learning only one thing: "Indians are stupid and cannot learn." This attitude was being passed on from father to son, from mother to daughter; I saw children in at least the third generation to "learn" this in their school. Was it any wonder they were dying out?

And yet some of the women and children wanted to read in the language and write their names. They were willing to give it a try as a stepping stone to Portuguese and to prove to themselves that they weren't indeed stupid. Some of the children caught on quickly and read the story booklets aloud to the adults. Although they admired the children's efforts the adults found the work hard and discouraging. There was an all round atmosphere of "what's the use anyway?" And still the situation did not change.

But then a new thing happened. The newly formed National Indian Foundation (who took over from the Indian Protection Service), in cooperation with the Lutheran Church of Brazil, in 1969 decided to open for the Indians in the South of Brazil a Training School for future school teachers called "Clara Camarão". When I was invited to direct the school it became bilingual, for I was the only one on the staff who spoke the Kaingang language. The first group of learners consisted of Kaingang only (later some Guarani, another local Indian group living on many of the same reservations as the Kaingang though not related to them, were also trained there).

The first students had little idea of why they were being transported so far away from their home reservations into a school nobody had ever heard of. This was truly a new venture for all and at first the students came simply as an act of obedience to the authorities in charge of the reservations. Although, after a while they enjoyed being together and learning, in spite of the difficulties they had in learning to read. The end goal of the authorities of course was to help the Kaingang become literate in their own language as well as in Portuguese, to train them as teachers in order to make literacy accessible to the whole population. This would also have the added advantage of instilling more confidence in this broken people so that they could rebuild their culture and co-exist proudly next to the Brazilians as equals.

Once there, they learned to read in their own language along with the other subjects taught in Portuguese. "The Kaingang lesson is the hardest work all day," they complained. This was natural. All had had some schooling in a Brazilian school, but reading to them was no more than transposing letters into sounds bereft of meaning. "What did you read?" would result in an astonished look, or then be answered with "What odd questions you ask. I read, didn't you hear?"

In their mother tongue this strategy did not work. While deciphering the words they were forced to think about the meaning, not only the word but also the whole sentence. Hard work indeed! But it opened to them the strategies for book learning.

The basic breakthrough came for each student at a different time. We were reading simple texts and trying to interpret them. Their home work consisted of reading the text and then writing down the answers to pre-formulated questions showing they had understood. After some weeks they had mastered this one and tried the next step: they were to retell the text in their own words. Nobody managed, but Galdino solved the problem his own way. He posed himself content questions and then answered them. That strategy also helped the others, for him this success suddenly changed his whole school behavior. In all subjects his understanding became noteworthy.

The Kaingang lessons also gave the opportunity to discuss their insecurities in the world they perceived as hostile. "Don't believe people when they call you worthless. You are all very precious and useful. So go ahead and show your worth"—such advice, coupled with the development of learning skills and trust in the teachers, completely changed these young people. They began to stand tall instead of showing by their very posture that they wanted to disappear into the next hole. Their facial expression changed, their eyes started sparkling. When visitors came to view what would later become our future teachers—it was the only school of its kind in Brazil and had many visitors—they looked around for the "Indians" while facing the students without recognizing them! So a further new strategy was born. Before coming to school the Kaingang so despised their identity that they would have been ashamed to speak Kaingang in front of any non-Indian. Now they used their language proudly to establish their very identity before such incredulous visitors. They displayed their reading capacity and discussed in Portuguese the many subjects treated in the learning booklets confidently with the visitors. Change was indeed in the air!

After two years at school and one year of waiting these new teachers were finally employed by their government and sent to the various reservations to teach literacy. The whole social situation was quickly revolutionized. Up to this point the government official, a non-Indian, was for all practical purposes the highest authority on the reservation. He appointed the Indian chief who appointed his sub chiefs and police force and so on. The chief usually spoke more Portuguese than the others, the men a bit more than the women and children who were often monolingual Kaingang. The only literate ones were the non-Indians working on the reservations.

Things changed when a trained Kaingang teacher showed up. He or she spoke Portuguese better than the chief, and could read and write as well as the government official. In addition the teacher was literate in the Kaingang language, understood what was going on and could freely and confidently converse with everybody. The whole power structure was changed! And it was to change even more, because all the children were to be taught the same skills. The five lady teachers out of the first group of 22 did all as well as their men counterparts.

Today in 1999 the old patterns of hopelessness are no longer visible. The Kaingang, who now number around 25,000, have taken on new life. The chiefs are literate, the government officials have lost their position of power and have become helpers instead. The first teachers, now grandparents, have officially retired. Although the "Clara Camarão" school only trained three groups of teachers before being closed, new teachers are being trained by other means. The schools on the reservations no longer resemble the discouraging experience of old but have become real learning institutions. A growing number of Kaingang children continue their education in the regular Brazilian schools. The government also organizes a series of special complementary courses for bilingual school teachers over and above their training received in the Brazilian school system. In that way the new primary school teachers are becoming accredited both within the national system and also as special literacy teachers for their own people.

On several occasions the orthography was called into question. Brazil has a long tradition of slowly introducing a series of small orthography changes in Portuguese so that today they actually write their language quite differently from the way it is in Portugal. The Kaingang language uses the Portuguese letters, but the pronunciation does not always correspond. Could a better way of solving such conflicts be found?

The first teachers got together in the seventies to discuss the question but eventually rejected all the possible changes that came up as being no improvement on the existing situation. In 1995 some of the old and a few new proposals were put forth by some younger teachers. A possible strategy for raising the issue among the teachers of all the four states was developed, to be implemented the following year. All this by the teachers themselves. I was there and discussed the subject with them, but they were the drivers. That was when they also decided to surprise me with the plaque!

The final big decision meeting could not be held till two years later, in 1997. In the mean time the question had initiated hot discussions on many Kaingang Indian reservations. Representatives from the various areas spent one whole night and many daylight hours weighing the pros and cons. In the end the decision was unanimous: "We want no change for the next 200 years." Twelve months later even the young teachers had learned to write the language well, something they had had trouble with before. In the next special course organized by the government the teachers from 8 reservations presented their near faultless "home written" stories. I had my rewards just seeing their faces light up when they heard of the good results. On one reservation I joined a group of Bible readers and was surprised when each one read his or her verse perfectly without hesitation—something I had not experienced before the unanimous decision that this is the real way to write the language.

One other major change is still going on. The groups speak at least four different dialects between them. One of the four is respected by all for being more correct than the others, but it contains parts that cannot be understood and therefore need to be adapted. The teachers early rejected separate written materials in favor of one written norm for all the dialects. This was used in the translation of the Bible. In the mean time the language is changing in all the areas so that a common form is becoming established even in speaking. The new dictionary (to be published in 2000) spells out some of the changes going on, the older teachers were involved in spelling out the rules. It is fascinating to watch the process.

How can you prove that you are a Kaingang Indian?" you might ask teacher Luis. His answer will be: "I have my Kaingang name, and I speak the Kaingang language, in fact I read and write it. We have books in our language, it is not like noises animals make. No, it is a real language now. In fact it is the prettiest language in the world." You'll love the twinkle in his eyes.