Languages, books and laws: The erasure of indigenous culture and resistance

Abstract

This study proposes a review on the formation of the Brazilian State, from the perspective of colonialism and coloniality, guided by the theory of decoloniality, starting from the history of languages and books to the law and the erasure of indigenous cultures. The features of the Brazilian colonization, its differences compared to Latin American neighbors, and the echoes of this process in contemporary Brazil permeate the four points in which this work is structured, namely (1) the linguistic diversity of the early Brazil and changes due to European conquest process; (2) the never completed independence process (political, economic, and cultural) and the overlap of dominations, which made the hierarchies more complex, creating dominant people who dominate other dominant people and dominated people who subjugate other dominated people; (3) the way ruling colonial powers have remained (to themselves and to the nation) on the scope of modernity and rationality ideals, from the enlightenment perspective; and, finally, (4) colonialism and coloniality echoes in contemporary Brazil on indigenous cultures, especially in their languages, and the resistance of the indigenous peoples. For this purpose, the deductive method is employed always and when the place of speech of referenced authors can be associated with the Brazilian reality, although sometimes inferences are made from historical and statistics data in a qualitative approach. The conclusion is that the recognition of multilingualism and the participation of indigenous peoples in State decision-making can allow the rights of these peoples to be enforced.