"Terra indígena": Aspectos históricos da construção e aplicação de um conceito jurídico

Abstract

From the analysis of several Brazilian Constitutions of the Republican period, and the Indian Statute, the article discusses the anthropological and the historical legal concept of indigenous land, as well as their applicability and difficulties caused by misunderstood. The paper also analyzes the effects on the indigenous lands demarcation in Brazil after the trial of Petition number 3388 RR by Supreme Court of Brazil, which breaks the Brazilian legal tradition abandoning indigenato theory for the theory of indigenous fact. As a result there is the adoption of the time frame for the determination of traditional indigenous occupation of the land. The text also look after the political and administrative questions that makes possible and impossible the realization of indigenous land rights in Brazil.