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Oreretama - "our home", was the name given by the inhabitants who lived in
this vast tropical territory and were free to live the daily life with with
their rites and legends, hierachy and arts, production and work before the
arrival of the Portuguese.
Mutual curiosity marked the encounter of Pedro Álvares Cabral and his men
with the inhabitants of the "Land of Vera Cruz". Avid for the richnesses
of the Indies, the europeans soon baptised them as "indians" These, in
return, saw emerging from the sea, fantastic personages that would end by
interfering profoundly with their lives.
After five centuries of that first contact, studies and researches have
made it possible to better understand and evaluate the facts, as well as
the historic trajectory common to Portugal and Brazil.
The exhibition "Oreretama - the Land of the Indian" tries to reveal
something about our first inhabitants, how they understood the world around
them and lived with the changes that resulted from living together with the
europeans. To curators, professors Carlos Araújo Moreira Neto and Maria
Beltrão were invited to make this exhibition that presents from the
prehistory up to the first contact between europeans and the indians that
lived by the Brazilian coast. The colonial domination involved
catechesis, war, slavery and several epidemical irruptions that brought to
extintion the group of Tupis that lived at the coast.
Among the few survivals of the Tupi native tongue, it is still possible
nowadays to find the roots of these ancestors. After presenting this
exhibition in Rio de Janeiro and Portugal, the National Historical Museum
is promoting its itinerancy with the purpose to transmit to a larger
audience information that will permit the reflection about our roots,
helping understand our present and contributing to form a better future.
The itinerant exhibition is composed of photographic panels and for more
details call (5521) 550-9259.
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