Last elder of the Juma indigenous people dies because of Covid-19

Due to complications after being infected with Covid-19, Aruká, recognized as the last man of the Juma people, died on the 17th of February in Rondônia. The elder left three daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. According to the BBC, as his successors married men from the Uru-eu-wau-wau people, the descendants of Aruká carry the blood of both ethnic groups, but, according to the patrilineal system, they are not Juma, hence the title of the last representative. “The government didn’t take care, and now we have to maintain my grandfather’s legacy,” Bitaté Uru-eu-wau-wau, one of his grandsons, said.

The indigenous man was one of the seven survivors of the 1964 massacre on the Assuã river, in southern Amazonas, which killed more than 60 people in an attack by traders from Tapauá interested in the sorghum and Brazil nuts of the Juma territory. In a note on his death, which was received with consternation by indigenous entities, the Socio-environmental Institute (ISA) recalled his history of struggle, decisive for the guarantee of the rights of his people.

Because of their extreme vulnerability and risk of disappearance, they should have been protected by health barriers against the advance of the Covid-19 pandemic, as determined by the Supreme Court, something that did not happen, according to a complaint by the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB).

The Bolsonaro government’s negligence towards the indigenous people during the pandemic has left irreparable marks on the population, and the neglect is still rampant even with the arrival of the Covid-19 vaccine. In theory, indigenous people who live in indigenous settlements are in the priority group of the national vaccination plan, however, recent data point out that immunization has been happening at a slow pace and the process is being targeted by fake news and religious denialist speeches. According to the website G1, 71% of the indigenous people in the Amazon have not yet received the vaccine. The story heard reports from representatives of Yanomami, Kayapós and other Amazonian communities about the misinformation about the vaccination. “The lies come in the social networks. In the Yanomami [Roraima] the same thing happened and they even denounced these people who were sending [fake news via] audio. It is also happening to the Munduruku [Pará state],” said the chief Mobu odo Arara, of the Cachoeira Seca Indigenous Land in Pará.