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More Than One-Third of Brazilian Indians Live in Cities
Just over 36 percent of the 896,917 Brazilians who declared themselves indigenous people in the 2010 Census live in cities, and only 37.4 percent of them speak an Amerindian language, according to a study released Friday by the government.
The “Indigenous Brazil” study, published by the IBGE statistics office to coincide with the National Day of the Indian, shows that native peoples are increasingly moving away from their reservations and forgetting their languages.
A total of 379,534, or 42.3 percent of the people who identify as indigenous, were living away from their native territories. Of that group, 78.7 percent lived in cities.
To the 298,871 Indians living in cities far from their reservations are added 25,963 whose reservations are located in urban areas, which adds up to 324,834 Indians – the 36.2 percent living in cities, the IBGE said.
A high percentage of the Indians living in their native lands are minors, something attributed to high birthrates among women on reservations.
Two years ago Brazil had 305 indigenous ethnicities that spoke 274 languages, the 2010 census found.
The IBGE analysis also showed that many Indians quit speaking their ancestral languages and are literate only in Portuguese.
Of all Indians over 5 years old, only 37.4 percent spoke the language of their ethnicity.
Conversely, 17.5 percent of Brazil’s indigenous people do not speak Portuguese.
While 32.3 percent of Indians over age 15 who live on reservations can read and write, the proportion of literate people among the general population reaches 90.4 percent.
Published in Latino Daily News
2013-04-19 17:47:25
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