Supressed images: the magazine O Cruzeiro and the Gavião Parkatêjê indigenous people (1951)

Abstract

This article analyzes the report “Índios em pé de guerra,” published by Arlindo Silva and José Medeiros in the magazine O Cruzeiro in 1951. The report addresses the conflicts between the inhabitants of villages in southeastern Pará and the Gavião Parkatêjê Indigenous people. These conflicts occurred in the context of the March to the West in Brazil, when the Brazilian state and society promoted a process of developmental expansion over territories that comprised the so-called Central Brazil, with profound impacts on Indigenous peoples. The magazine O Cruzeiro played a fundamental role at that time, covering Indigenous issues in several photojournalistic reports and contributing to the perpetuation of prevailing imaginaries about these peoples. The focus of this research is on the photographs of José Medeiros, in the magazine or in institutional archives, analyzed using methodologies from visual culture studies and cross-referenced with anthropological and indigenist sources. The article examines the discursive strategies (selection, framing, and montage) used by the report to construct a stereotypical representation of the Gavião Parkatêjê as savage and hostile people, and as obstacles to progress. It also emphasizes how the magazine suppressed photographs that revealed an epidemic that affected the group. Finally, the article compares the approach of O Cruzeiro with texts published in the regional magazine Itatocan, revealing internal divergences within Brazilian society regarding the treatment of Indigenous issues in that developmentalist context.