Photograph by João Castellano for The New York Timesuse of wide-angle lenses and drones. To simpli-
fy history, the Altamira Gathering became an
exercise less in Indigenous pride than in Indig-
enous power and, unexpectedly, in assimilation.
Through stage-managed displays of tradition,
during those fi ve days the Kayapó joined the
modern world.
and enjoying his visits to the Zo’é station. He
knew of road-construction projects some-
where far away in the Amazon, but nothing of
the Belo Monte dam, the Altamira Gathering
or the gathering strength of Indigenous rights
movements worldwide. For him the 1990s
slid by in the immediacy of childhood and
the certainties of his parents’ faith. In 1998 he
turned 19. His mother wanted him to become
a medical missionary. Instead, he went off to
the University of Brasília, where he discovered
the fi eld of cultural anthropology. In the eve-
nings he attended a Baptist seminary, where
he dutifully pursued a parallel degree. But he
began to change. To me, he said: ‘‘When I found
anthropology, I found myself. It was a science
I was so curious about: the Indians, how they
live, what they believe.’’ I asked him if he had
lost his religion. He said: ‘‘I don’t know if you
know someone who really believes. Believes in
Christ. Believes in heaven and all the prophets.
My father is just like that. I did not choose to
be born in a missionary house. But I had to live
with my parents’ religion.’’
He fi nished with the seminary in 2003, gradu-
ated from the university the same year and pro-
ceeded into graduate studies in anthropology.
He became an all-in academic. He frequented
symposia. He wore T-shirts emblazoned with
Che Guevara. He did not mention his mission-
ary background. He said to me: ‘‘I recommend-
ed to my dad not to work with isolated tribes.
Not to reach out to them. Because it is too much
responsibility. Heaven can wait, OK?’’For his master’s thesis, Luz went to Tocan-
tins in 2004 to study the Xerénte, a group that
spoke Portuguese widely and had long been in
contact with the outside world. The Xerénte
had previously been studied by a Harvard
anthropologist named David Maybury-Lewis,
who founded the Cambridge-based advocacy
group called Cultural Survival, which empha-
sizes Indigenous peoples’ economic empow-
erment and self-determination, and who was
responsible for persuading Terence Turner to
work among the Kayapó. Maybury-Lewis was
an activist, as both Turner and Luz were to
become — all three of them insisting on the
inherent modernity of Indigenous groups,
though ultimately for opposite political ends.
Having settled on studying one of the more
assimilated groups in Brazil, Luz concentrat-
ed his research on the small number of tradi-
tionalists among them who clung to aspects
of their foundation myths, albeit modifi ed to
accommodate the arrival of Europeans. He saw
his role as helping the Xerénte shore up their
defenses against the onslaughts of big com-
mercial farmers who were steadily approaching
with their huge tractor-tilled fi elds. To me, heMining for gold in the Volta Grande area of the Xingu River.42 3.20.22
Edward Luz was
9 at the time