- Cinta Larga people
-
The Cinta Larga are a people indigenous to the western Amazon Rainforest of Brazil, numbering around 1300. Their name means "broad belt" in Portuguese, referring to large bark sashes the tribe once wore. The tribe is famous for shadowing Theodore Roosevelt's Roosevelt–Rondon Scientific Expedition, making no contact.
Since the 1920s, the tribe has often come into violent conflict with prospectors entering the region to harvest rubber, timber, gold or diamonds. In the 1960s, this culminated in the "Massacre at Parallel 11" in which rubber prospectors killed many of the Cinta Larga.
Contents
Diamond mine controversy
In 2004 the tribe was responsible for the murders of 29 miners illegally unearthing diamonds in the area.
In exchange for an $810,000 community grant from the Brazilian government, the tribe agreed to shut down the mine and refrain from killing intruders. The grant is set to expire in 2007 and the tribe has implied it may reopen the mine.[1]
See also
Notes
References
- The River of Doubt by Candice Millard (Doubleday 2005)
This article related to an ethnic group is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
