BRAZIL. 2019. The Xavante tribe is known to be aggressive and a warrior society. They call themselves “the invisibles”. Fire plays an important role in their traditions. They use if for hunting and also to keep the forrest free of uncontrolled fires by cleaning the dry leaves when the rainy season comes.
The Caçique Paolo Cesar, the chief of Belem village, complains that with the increase of temperatures fire has become more difficult to control. Their village is surrounded by fazendas and they are always blamed for starting fires to a point that the Dilma government banned the fire for 5 years. This, according to the chief, caused the accumulation of dry vegetation in the forrest that fuels the uncontrolled fires now.
In the picture, the chief Paolo Cesar, poses in one of the pieces of land that they burn to regenerate the vegetation. He affirms some species just take 48 hours to grow again if teh burning happens at the right time. many of the traditional remedies against flu and diabetes are found in teh surroundings of teh village and are starting to disappear with the uncontrolled burning that comes from the fazendas.