Aritana Yawalapiti (15 July 1949 – 5 August 2020) was a Brazilian cacique of the

Yawalapiti The Yawalapiti (also Jaulapiti, Yaulapiti, or Yawalapití) are an indigenous tribe in the Amazonian Basin of Brazil. The name is also spelled Iaualapiti in Portuguese. The current village Yawalapiti is situated more to the south, between the Tu ...

indigenous tribe of

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

inside the

Xingu Indigenous Park The Xingu Indigenous Park (, pronounced ) is an indigenous territory of Brazil, first created in 1961 as a national park in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Its official purposes are to protect the environment and the several tribes of Xingu in ...

. He served as President of the Instituto de Pesquisa Etno Ambiental Xingu.

Biography

He was the son of indigenous chief Paru Yawalapiti and his wife, Tepori Kamaiurá. During his childhood, he was mentored by the

Villas-Bôas brothers Orlando (1914–2002) and his brothers Cláudio (1916–1998) and Leonardo Villas-Bôas (1918–1961) were Brazilian brothers who worked in indigenous activism. In 1961 they succeeded in getting the entire upper Xingu legally protected, making i ...

, who taught him the importance of maintaining a natural habitat. Prepared from a young age, Yawalapiti ascended to the rank of cacique in the 1980s, devoting himself to the rights of indigenous people in

. In particular, he focused on the environment, demarcation of land, health, and education. His action earned him the representation of other indigenous groups in the Xingu Indigenous Park. He was interviewed in the documentary ''Despertar das Amazonas'' in 2009. Aritana Yawalapiti died from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

Goiânia Goiânia (; ) is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Goiás. With a population of 1,536,097, it is the second-largest city in the Central-West Region and the 10th-largest in the country. Its metropolitan area has a population ...

on 5 August 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil.

References

1949 births 2020 deaths Brazilian people of indigenous peoples descent People from Mato Grosso Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Goiás {{Brazil-bio-stub