Taking part of a group exhibition at Palácio do Pombal, one of the buildings once built, and one of the residences, of Marquês de Pombal in Lisbon, the audiovisual installation was developed in many parts. The central one is the floor installation at the main room. The inevitable passage for visitors was covered with tiles containing transferred pictures form Brazilian official public school books in the last 5 years. Selected from History of Brazil chapters, the tiles containing the historical images should be stepped on by the public during the three months show. An audio loop of 15’, where an indigenous told orally his land’s history for children, a collaborative researcher text explaining the actual situation for indigenous in Brazil (and some aspects of the life history of the man who speaks too), two recent (at the time) newspapers covers about privileges and the violent treatment still given to black people in Brazil today were available at the Institution Library (Le Monde Diplomatique Brazil, August 2015, and O Extra, July 8th, 2015), plus the (cut) school books collection originals where the images in the floor came from, completed the installation. Portuguese tiles told history of slavery, colonial life, indigenous massacre, portraits, Jesuits missions, maps, etc. under the audio in loop of an ethnical language no occidental could understand, in an urge to updating and relocating to contemporary times colonial questions.

"My homeland is the Portuguese language," said Fernando Pessoa. The homeland of Carlos Doetyro Tukano, whose voice we hear here, is, therefore, the Tukano language - name also of its ethnic group.

Probably, this mother tongue would have been listened to by most visitors for the first time. And maybe it just will not be the last thanks to recordings like this that can make immortal voices, languages and stories.

Immortals yes. Lively, not necessarily. In Brazil there are just under one million Indians, belonging to 243 peoples and speaking 150 different languages. Today almost a third of this indigenous population lives in urban centers. And cities, as defined by the researcher José Ribamar Bessa Freire, are cemeteries of indigenous languages.

It is necessary to remember that, for people of oral tradition, without system of writing, the loss of the language is equivalent to the loss of the own memory of the towns. Language is the force that goes through time transmitting the set of beliefs and values of each people, from generation to generation, reporting on founding myths and assigning meanings - and where they do not matter precise dates or individual deeds, as stated in the History of the "white man ".

Carlos tells us that the Tukano are one of the 27 ethnic groups that, for centuries, populate the Upper Rio Negro basin, extreme northwestern Brazil, in the state of Amazonas, almost bordering Colombia - the Tukano nation, in fact, was split in two with The establishment of borders: those on the Brazilian side are Eastern Tukanos, the Colombians, the West.

The region, which is difficult to reach, became more interested in Portuguese colonization from the first half of the 18th century, when colonizers began to climb the forest in search of slave labor. The contact with the white man accelerated from the late nineteenth century, with the arrival of Franciscan missionaries. These fought the activities of the shamans (spiritual leaders), disrespected and ridiculed the traditions. Because they were few, they were easily expelled by the Indians.

However, from the 1920s, the Salesians settled there and remained for decades, fulfilling a kind of renewed Jesuit mission, almost half a century after the "discovery" of Brazil by the Portuguese. The Salesians went through different governments, which financed the construction of schools, encouraging an ambitious "civilizing" project. Italian, German, Spanish and Ukrainian missionaries prayed Masses in Latin and despised and repressed customs, belief systems and local languages.

It is in 1971 that Carlos Tukano goes to the school of the Salesians, in the village of Pari-cachoeira. He was 11 years old. He learned to read and write Portuguese. And discovered what was Indian. "The image of the First Mass in Brazil (Victor Meirelles canvas) will never leave my head: the Indians in the trees and around Pedro Alvares Cabral and other Portuguese. Until then, I did not know that I was an Indian. It was Tukano. "

Like all boys and girls, Carlos Tukano began to wear clothes, learned to be ashamed to go naked and to feel guilty of participating in the rituals of his people: "devil thing" - who was also presented at school.

In addition to physical punishment, the environment was one of extreme symbolic violence. Since it was only allowed to speak Portuguese, the new arrivals had to remain silent. The school should erase those languages considered barbaric. Every time we went home on vacation, communication broke down: the children no longer wanted to speak their mother tongue and their parents did not understand Portuguese. Carlos Tukano recalls finding the customs of his parents strange: eating on the floor, walking naked, no bathroom.

In 1979, fortunately, the oil crisis stalled Brazilian government funds, and the Salesians began to deactivate boarding schools. The following year, the Congregation was denounced for the crime of ethnocide at the Russell Tribunal, meeting in Amsterdam. Today, schools in indigenous lands in Brazil are bilingual. 

Carlos Tukano, who lives in Rio de Janeiro since 1997, is married and father of two daughters, and is leader of the Indigenous Association (Aldeia Maracanã), says he knows how to pray a Latin mass "di cuore" and resents being a member of Last generation that had the intrusion of religiosity and white culture after still some years living in isolation in the village. It can be said that what the Portuguese called the Indian is nowadays an outdated concept, gradually being killed by the dominant culture. Today, it seems to us, these cultures seem to us, in full historical fragility.