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VIDEO IN THE VILLAGES: THE WAIPI EXPERIENCE Dominique T.

Gallois* Vincen Carelli** "It was hard when we didn't have TV. We had to go a long way to meet others. Today it's easy, because television brings the person and his way of speaking ... It is good to get to know others through TV." "Show them our pictures! In the city they'll ask where we live and then say, "Oh! They're the Indians who don't want trespassers on their land, they're the ones who take care of their area. If you don't show these images, they'll never get to know us!" (Waiwai, February 1990) Over the past several years, the Video in the Villages Project, sponsored by the Centro de Trabalho Indigenista (CTI) has been visiting various indigenous groups. This encounter of Indians with images of themselves and others has rendered extremely entertaining, informative, thoughtful and creative moments in which they can observe the image others have of them and use that documentation for their own cultural projects (1). It is clear that each group's unique culture and particular historical experiences produce different reactions and interests in relation to video. In this article, we will attempt to illustrate how the Waipi Indians of the Brazilian state of Amap have interpreted the information they have received through video, as well as what they have taken from these experiences. I. A WAIPI VIDEO CENTER

Due to frustrating experiences with film and video -- commercial and ethnographic shootings produced in their villages which they were never shown -- the Waipi formulated a demand in relation to the use of video, initially focused on the issue of recording aspects of their traditional way of life, jane reko (our way of being) to be shown in other areas as a means of asserting their unique cultural identity within the sphere of inter-ethnic relations. At this stage, the Waipi idealized their self-representation through this type of documentation in ways resembling their construction of speeches and demands for the demarcation of their lands. The CTI Video in the Villages Project began its activities among the Waipi in January 1990. We had arranged to take the video equipment and to return with video recordings made during the previous year when Captain Waiwai, chief of the village of Mariry, asked us to show footage of his recent trip to Braslia during a visit he was going to make to several villages in the area (2). The idea of documenting how Captain Waiwai intended to use the video for his political campaign and the Indians' responses to it surfaced during this trip (3). During the presentations, videos and unedited footage from numerous other groups (Nambiquara, Xavante, Kaiap, Gavio, Guarani, Enaun - Naue, Krah, Parakan, Zor) selected from the CTI video archive were shown, as well as television news broadcasts about the Yanomami and the Tupi Indians of Cuminapanema.

Following this initial experience, the video unit (generator, recorder, television and a number of video tapes) was left under the Indians' care. It is now installed in Mariry, in a house Captain Waiwai had built in his courtyard. The CTI continues to supply materials to be shown in the village. The desire to be near the "TV house" was one of the principal reasons practically all of Mariry's residential groups constructed new lodgings around that courtyard. There, public screenings regularly take place, especially when members of the community receive visits by relatives from other villages or when new video materials arrive. More recently, opportunities have been established for more isolated individuals and families to watch the video programs when they have free time. II. ETHNIC AFFIRMATION: IMPACTS ON POLITICAL STRATEGIES The Waipi's current historical phase has stimulated them to appropriate from their experience with the Video in the Villages Project. For example, the threat of reducing the land they now occupy in order to create a National forest has been followed by increased invasions of the area by garimpeiros (gold and mineral prospectors). In this context, more and more Waipi representatives have traveled to Brazilian cities such as Macap, Belm and Braslia. It has likewise intensified the need for collective discussions concerning land rights and other types of assistance. The introduction of the Video in the Villages Project, particularly during its first phase, has created a new space for reflections and joint decisionmaking. It has also greatly increased the Waipi's initial expectation of using the video as a conduit for messages to the whiteman. The project has led to the creation of novel forms of discussion in relation to traditional patterns of decision-making and disseminating information. Within these formats, the restrictive forms of dialogue in which hierarchical positions are well defined, and in which members of the audience do not participate directly -- though they may indirectly pass on information obtained in these situations in other dialogues --, has remained intact. Simultaneously, the video sessions promote a form of collective reflection which is distinct from occasions when Waipi representatives meet to discuss questions of collective interest. For example, at indigenous assemblies in Macap or Oiapoque, or meetings at the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) post, the format and time are determined by whites. On these occasions, Indians are forced to adopt the whiteman's rhetorical format, a form of argument very different from that used in meetings among themselves during which they can plan their strategies on their own terms and, therefore, create rhetorical strategies for dealing with "the whiteman". During successive meetings with authorities from the state of Amap in 1990 and 1991, Waipi leaders linked their appearance with the dynamic power of their speech. Using elaborate ornamentation and body-paint, they affirmed their cultural identity while brandishing borduna clubs to reinforce their arguments before offering these clubs as presents. Older leaders made no effort to present their demands in Portuguese. Instead, one after another, they made long speeches in their native language, commencing by blaming the whiteman for the Indians' tragic situation before launching into a series of threats designed to emphasize their strength and autonomy. The task of translating these speeches inevitably fell to members of the younger generation who, in the process, tended to dilute the elders' demands by returning to a previous form of argument that asserts the rights of indigenous peoples. By means of these performances, largely inspired by images of the Kaiap, the Waipi are succeeding in their attempts to attract the attention of
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authorities and journalists who consider them representatives of the Indians of the state of Amap, as, for example, has been the case in news broadcasts. Due to their high profile, the Waipi have been given preferential treatment, compared to other Indians in the area, receiving a truck, increased fuel allotments and assistance from governmental agencies. The effect of their speeches and the posture they have assumed has also led the Waipi to assume a position as representatives of other indigenous groups in the area (Karipuna, Galibi and Palikur, Wayana, Aparai and Tiriyo) whose own representatives generally participate in collective gatherings in a much more discrete manner, principally because they do not assert their cultural distinctiveness. As a result of the Waipi's success, other groups have requested them to intervene before authorities on their behalf, as well as asking for their help in other matters. The collective debate that has taken place as a result of their interaction with the video has significantly enriched their political discourse and has led them to develop a new rhetoric for dealing with the whiteman (4). This style incorporates elements of fierceness the Waipi have seen other indigenous groups use, particularly the Kaiap, in their dealings with outsiders. But this is not the only style that the Waipi use today. A recent episode in the expulsion of garimpeiros who invaded the eastern limits of their area confirmed, in the Indians' eyes, their interventions' broadening impact on control over their lands, specifically because more information has been brought by the videos. When two garimpeiros were captured and forced to explain their presence in the Indian area and to identify who they worked for, the Waipi discovered that they were part of a group, recently arrived, which had worked among the Yanomami. The first impulse of the Waipi who had prepared the ambush was to kill the trespassers, but the chief who was present preferred to use another strategy, forcing the garimpeiros to talk for hours. During this period, all of the arguments they presented -- for example, that they had "helped" the Yanomami and that they had not cut down much of the forest -- were refuted with detailed explanations of the tragedy that prospecting activities had caused the Yanomami. They used, with tremendous impact, the images they had seen in the videos. According to the Indians who participated in this episode, it was much better than "wasting them", as they had customarily done when they encountered garimpeiros. According to them, these garimpeiros will not be back because they understood that they can no longer fool the Waipi. The garimpeiros have perceived that the Waipi now know the artifices they use to enter Indian lands. These two manifestations of how the Waipi have appropriated the possibilities offered by video as a means of political strategy demonstrate the catalyzing effect of the reflections produced during and after the Project's beginning (5). Beyond contributing to a new position in inter-ethnic relations, video produces reflections at various other levels. In the following, we will analyze the cultural conditionings that sustain this appropriation by the Waipi. III. THE SPIRIT OF THE TV In some of the villages in which the TV circulated, everyone painted themselves with annatto before watching the programs. In another, a woman in seclusion because of mourning was unable to resist her curiosity and approached the TV house. In the following weeks, she suffered successive attacks of anguish and great pain that her parents and the village shaman attributed to the spirits of distant people that had "passed" through the TV.

The experience of inter-personal approximation the television provided was immediately perceived by the Waipi as a truly physical contact. When they state that TV "brings the person", they are not only referring to the non-material manifestations present in the portrait (ra'anga) and in the discourse retransmitted by the TV, but to the substantial part of the life principle (a) contained "within" everyone's image. The Waipi, furthermore, establish a clear difference between the two forms of presentation: the copy (drawing, symbol, etc....) that does not bear life elements of the being represented, and the likeness itself, which represents the person in his totality. Photography and video images are complete reproductions, making physical approximation possible. For the Waipi, as for the majority of South American indigenous societies, contact with alterity always represents a danger that must be mediated by protective practices -- specifically involving body painting -- and rules of behavior. Thus, the fact that TV transports the "spirit" of the people portrayed to the village courtyard made individuals place themselves so as to avoid the physical aggressions which could result from the screenings. This became particularly evident in the successive showings of scenes of Guarani shamanism in Mariry. The first time they saw these images, the Waipi immediately related the execution of the ritual -- with songs and shaking rattles that signify the arrival of auxiliary spirits -- with those spirits' "passage" through the TV screen. The sparkling and flickering colors on the screen (when the TV is turned on or off) were interpreted as substances that the shamans manipulated in their rituals -- substances which, when striking unprepared people, definitely kill. For instance, in his dreams the following night, a man felt the presence of aggressor agents against whom he could not struggle, except by staying awake, in a state of readiness. In subsequent screenings, due to commentaries resulting from the first screening, women continued identifying the presence of these aggressive substances and were protected by a young shaman who stood in front of the screen and declared that he would be a shield. The emotion that physical approximation via TV provides is, undoubtedly, a momentary impact. But, even after several months of the routine in the Mariry "TV house", we observed that people in liminar states continued staying away from the set, watching the screenings from afar. This fact did not pass unperceived by the Waipi from French Guiana who were visiting the villages of Amapari. Accustomed to dealing with Western forms of reproducing images and having desacralized their significance, they thought their relatives reactions were strange and made fun of the "fear" they still demonstrated. In comments made among themselves, some Waipi once again took up the discussion that had surfaced, months earlier, with the first showing of Guarani shamanism and concluded that they would "get used to" the presence of TV. At that moment, they made an interesting association with the change in behavior in relation to photography and to proper names. If today they still feel ashamed of seeing their own image on TV -- several times we observed that the people portrayed lowered their eyes in order "not to be seen" -, it corresponds to the same affront that they had previously perceived upon hearing their names spoken. Just as desacralization of the use of proper names and reducing the restrictions about the circulation of photographs came about, this experience allowed us to document that the incorporation of TV and video is taking place in accordance to traditional interpretations about images.

IV.

THE WAIPI AND THEIR IMAGE The Register for Themselves

Access, even though limited, to their image confirmed the Waipi's expectations in relation to documentation on video. According to them, it should be extended to "all" of the villages, "all" of their festivals, the speechimages of "all" the elderly, etc. This demand means not only guaranteeing the memory of the ethnic group's current situation for future generations, but also being able to appreciate a panorama of the totality they represent, in a wholly new way. The approximation among villages, individuals and repertories suggested by video has been greatly commented upon, especially in the educational aspects it represents. Considering the different local groups' dispersion in the Waipi area, everyone would be able to know the distant villages, where most youth, and even some adults, have never been; or they would be able to see determined festivals that are only performed by specialists and are, therefore, not accessible to everyone. But, while watching them, the Waipi demonstrate more interest in seeing films about other indigenous peoples than seeing unedited material with scenes recorded in their villages. Among these, they prefer the chiefs' speeches. Those scenes proportioned developments at the internal political level, both in the act of filming and, later, as a consequence of the images' return. Captain Waiwai's preeminence has already been mentioned. He is considered one of the only leaders having broad knowledge of his people's history and concerns about their future -- so much so that, in order to maintain his role, he has gone so far as to state that "TV alone does not help" and that a good leader must be permanently involved in passing those traditions on. This is because, during the documentation stage, in which we basically presented images of the village and Waiwai's speeches, the villages' other chiefs insisted on speaking for TV, recording long speeches; when these were reproduced, they were comparatively evaluated on the force of their arguments and their posture during the filmings. As takes place with other indigenous groups, the appropriation of video among the Waipi has intensified tensions that make up part of traditional inter-community relations. By the same logic, images of the Waipi leaders' visit to Braslia are judged from two different perspectives. Firstly, by women, child and young people's curiosity -- they rarely go to the city -- upon seeing airplanes, cars and streets full of people. Secondly, on the part of the chiefs, there was interest in hearing and commenting upon their speeches in Braslia, emphasizing the educational aspects that reproducing these speeches allows, as well as the competitive effects among leaders. In recent months, these leaders have demanded that whenever they make speeches to the whites -- whether in their villages or elsewhere -- that some documentation, at least a tape recording, be made. The Image for Whites The Waipi manifest their principal expectations in relation to the use of the image at the external political level. Their initial demand, pointed out above, was that of having a "film" in which a whiteman presented them to other whites. They only gauged the implications of that presentation when, for example, they saw images in which everyone, being drunk, sang in a caxiri (a
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fermented manioc drink) festival in Mariry. This image was immediately vetoed by Captain Waiwai: according to him, it should not be shown to garimpeiros, because they would see an opportunity to attack the village while the Waipi are inebriated. In discussions about "what" to show, the difference in positions between the tribe's older and younger members becomes clear. Less committed to traditional parameters of opposing whites, younger people do not always abide by the elders' suggestions. For the elders, any form of weakness represents an opening for aggression from outside. However, many younger individuals believe the drinking festivals should be shown, because they are "pretty" and show the Waipi's cultural specificity. In the material filmed during the Project's first stage, it is clear that the camera's presence encouraged the directioning of Waipi attitudes and speeches to spokespersons that had been favored for some time, but which were not always defined at the time of the documentation. For the Indians, it is obvious that these images would be shown to authorities and to the FUNAI. Watching the tapes, they selected specific targets, detailing the destination of the arguments contained in the speech-images taking place during the process; this argument is for the garimpeiros, that one for the FUNAI, and the other for the government in Braslia. The Waipi, furthermore, remain very interested in knowing the reactions to these messages; they want to know who, among the categories of "whites" to whom their speeches-images are destined effectively have seen them and how they responded to them. At this time there is a certain agreement about the image's content that should be presented, preferably to the whites; scenes and speeches that show their strength (jane pojy -- we are dangerous) and demonstrate that the Waipi are numerous (jane ate -- there are many of us). The weight given to this argument grows out of its historic and political significance in that it represents the people's vitality (showing many children), the characteristics of the Waipi's social and political organization (showing many villages) and that they still have a determining weight in the political question of demarking their land. The impact of videos about other tribes, particularly the images that associate numerous groups and warrior strength, as in Kaiap and Zor tapes -- always appreciated and commented upon -- weigh heavily in these choices. Image for Other Indigenous Peoples: As for presentations of their images to other indigenous groups, restrictions were also made that affect which groups they will be shown to, rather than the images' contents. They basically have proposed an "exchange"; the Waipi's image must be shown to the groups they "met" through video. In these restriction, the concepts -- already mentioned -- about the danger of reproducing images also bore weight. Thus, when we asked them to which groups they wanted their images shown, some Waipi -- including Captain Waiwai -- excluded the Aparai, to whom the Waipi of Amapari attribute the majority of diseases and deaths diagnosed by the shamans. Several alternatives were proposed during the discussion: the Aparai could see the videos about the Waipi only after the Waipi had seen images of them. As the result of other images, they decided to allow the presentation of the videos, which could be shown but not be left in Aparai villages. At that point, they compared the risks involved in the presentation of video images or photographs: because they consist of a material support that

can be effectively controlled, the former are much more dangerous, as they can be manipulated for aggressive ends. The ideal occasion for showing their image to the Aparai occurred in April 1990, during the Week of the Indian in Macap. The leaders Waiwai and Kumai, who had just received tapes of the Tur festival filmed two months earlier, used the presentation they made of this material as a political resource of affirmation that is being developed in these inter-tribal encounters. It was used as an argument to show their culture's vitality and to refute the Aparai's position, which frequently claims they have "lost the things of the elders". VI. VIDEOS OF THE OTHER INDIANS

The Waipi's reaction to the videos of other indigenous groups was extremely interesting at the various levels of understanding and interpretation in which this totally new experience of inter-tribal approximation has been studied. As was expected, the tapes the Waipi most appreciated were those making direct identification possible -- through comparison or opposition -- be it through the image, the discourse or in revealing combinations of the appropriation of information provided by the video. The Guarani tapes were successful principally because the language, which demonstrated similarities to Waipi cosmological concepts -- especially in the discourse about whites and the end of the world --, could be understood. Identification at this level led them to revise their image of the Guarani, whose evident marks of acculturation had led the Waipi to disqualify this tribe as "quasi-white"; likewise, the Guarani's position as possible aggressors -- suggested by the intensity of the shamanistic rituals -- was also revised, being evaluated in comparative terms and as a technique in the struggle against whites. Of the various tribes portrayed in the Xingu documentary, the Waur were immediately identified as "relatives", through the mythical association their image suggested. The portrayal of daily life, nudity and, above all, women's dancing in the Jamarikum ritual were viewed in Waipi traditions as a "visual" version of the myth about the destiny of the first women taken down the Amazon river by the mythical armadillo. Contrary to this, videos in which neither the images nor speech (or manner of speaking) could be understood, because they were totally distant from Waipi reality (for example, the Krah, Xavante and Parakan tapes), did not arouse the interest that we would have hoped for, considering the material's expressiveness from the point of view of image. But, as a whole, the elements of identification present in these videos resulted in the construction of a panoramic vision of the others, reinforcing associations contemplated in the mythical traditions which account for inter-ethnic differences and the central place the Waipi occupy in the universe, as representatives of "true humanity". Those elements continue being carefully evaluated and discussed in the Waipi villages. Linguistic or technological aspects, features of physical appearance and the content of rites and speeches reinforce the traditional interpretation according to which the Waipi are situated as "creators" of the other tribes, which arose from the transformations that their creator-heroes provoked. For example, the Nambiquara, due to their use of nose ornaments, were identified as originating in the transformation of the trumpeter. The Waur women, who still dance as in the time of genesis, represent the first humans. The Kaiap were identified as enemies due to the reading that the video provided of the almost complete conjunction of the signs of aggressiveness seen in Waipi traditions: initiation by marimbondo wasp stings, the apparently daily use of borduna clubs, deformation of the ears, etc.
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It was clear that appreciation of the image of others was filtered through elements of the Waipi world view. The interpretations to which they gave rise matched this retrospective plan with a more prospective plan, turned toward a re-reading of different indigenous groups' experiences of inter-ethnic contact -- which is why reaction to the videos of other indigenous peoples cannot be analyzed apart from a new reading that these documents provided about inter-ethnic contact. Likewise, the knowledge about themselves that the video made possible for the Waipi fundamentally grows out of comparisons with the situation of other indigenous groups. VI. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

The reconstruction of the very image that the Video in the Villages Project suggested or motivated among diverse indigenous peoples is occurring among the Waipi. The revision and affirmation of a new self-representation involves cognitive aspects specific to the appropriation that Indians make of the video and that should be analyzed. In the following, we will indicate some elements of this process. The specific nature of the experience of the Video in the Villages Project is found in the irreversible change in the form of knowledge that many varied and repetitive screenings provide, corresponding to an effective transformation in the logic of knowing. This occurs not only because the video provides associations that greatly increase information about indigenous peoples, but because it provides a change in the form and in the content of the association involved in the production of self-representation. The video image presents indigenous peoples in situations that associate all aspects of the cultural reality that oral traditions normally separate: technological, linguistic and physical traits, the position of each tribe in relation to others, mythical discourses imbedded in speeches about the whiteman. A second aspect refers to the manner how, by means also motivated by the appropriation of the image, the new construction that the video makes possible leads to new forms of action. The conflicts and invasions portrayed in the videos, the damage provoked by machinery in prospecting areas, highways and deforestation had a great impact among the Waipi. It is the case, for example, of the concomitant interpretation of the Yanomami's situation, whose land is being destroyed, and the Guarani, on whose lands trees and hunting no longer exist. In one and the other, these examples form a scale that permits reflection about the "Indians'" lack of preparation for confronting whites at the beginning of contact: the Guarani did not know, the Yanomami still do not know, thus they will lose everything. The same type of interpretation was given in the reading of the "theft" demonstrated by the videos about the Gavio, Nambiquara, Kaiap and others, from which the Waipi discussed the lack of experience "Indians" customarily demonstrate in their negotiations -- a reflection that, obviously, led the Waipi to plan more efficient ways of negotiating than those they had been using in recent years. And it is in this sense that, in an absolutely new and specific manner, the experience of the Video in the Villages Project provided the Waipi with the opportunity for a change in the course of their relations with the whiteman, to the extent that, in their most recent interventions, they emphasized confrontation and difference, aside from the recourse to techniques and knowledge that contact with "Indians" brought them.

The video permit the construction of a new image of themselves, articulated with that of the whites and of Indians, more "detailed" than the previous image, which was defined by the Waipi's mythical criteria and specific historical experiences. This "detailing" was possible through the incorporation other tribes experiences which gave the Waipi not only more information about the effects of contact, but furnished new keys for understanding the alteration that contact with whites provoked in their life and in that of other indigenous groups. The video provided, in a unique manner, the consciousness of change, indispensable for creating ways to control social interaction among diverse ethnic groups. NOTES * Anthropologist, Department of Anthropology, University of So Paulo. ** Coordinator, Video in the Villages Project, Centro de Trabalho Indigenista 1) 2) "Vido dans les villages: un instrument de rafirmation ethnique", Vincent Carelli, CVA Newsletter, October 1988. Geoffrey O'Connor, of Realis Picture Inc., supported by the authors, filmed in villages in the northern part of the Waipi Indian Area in 1989. At that time, he offered the community of Mariry the recorder and television that comprise the unit currently installed in that village. That same year, he documented a visit by Waipi representatives to Braslia. These were the first images returned to the villages and permitted the initiation of the work described in this article. The summary of this work is found in the video "O Esprito da TV" (18', 1990), produced by the authors. The following phase of the experience was observed by the anthropologist D.T. Gallois, during her visits to the indigenous area and to Macap. The content of this argument is described in the article "Imagens do contato no discurso poltico dos Waipi do Amapari", D.T. Gallois, 1991 (UNB/ORSTOM). It is important to point out that, up until this time, a single unit consisting of a TV and video library is kept in Mariry, where Waiwai, the Waipi's most prestigious leader, lives. That limitation did not impede impact on the other villages (11, at this time) described in this article. This also does not exclude the possibility of the Waipi becoming interested in other developments anticipated by the Project.

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