For Brazil's Guarani people, land ownership is complicated issue

Published: 2007-08-09

PASSO PIRAJU, Brazil (CNS) -- On a crisp morning, sunny but with a chilly wind that bit through the wooden walls of their fragile homes, a small group of men, women and children gathered outside a simple, one-room grade school. A short walk away, past a tiny plot of cassava plants and banana trees, was the shallow river crossing that gave their community its name. Passo Piraju means "golden ford" in the Guarani language. This is their land. They have built their tiny, wooden dwellings on it, set up the school and constructed the still-unthatched frame of a larger communal building for religious rituals. And yet, the land is not theirs. "Our situation is complicated," said community member Arnaldo Goncalvo. "In olden times, our grandparents lived here." But in the middle of the last century, farmers moved in, staking out large landholdings for cattle, corn and soy. The Guarani Indians who had inhabited the area for centuries were forced off their ancestral lands. Six years ago, their descendents tried to return. "When we came back, we couldn't get onto the land again," Goncalvo said.

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