The Kayapó's Impact On Indigenous Culture

Kayapó’s media use is particularly extensive, has pointed out, and possessed a deep understanding of the performative function of representation. As a result, the scope and impact of the Altamira media event was stunning by almost any measure. Not only were the Kayapó organizers able to mobilize broad indigenous participation (more than 600, with additional support from NGOs, politicians, celebrities and citizen protestors) that lasted several days, but media reports of the protest were filled with traditionally adorned native Amazonians—an “indigenous” presentation of indigenous resistance made possible by the fact that the Kayapó evidently “urged other tribes to remove their western attire and decorate their bodies following their own customs”

However, it must also be understood that this moment within the region’s history was “created and maintained primarily through the circulation of media images and contacts with a small number of indigenous cultural mediators” (Conklin & Graham. 1995, p. 703). Undoubtedly during this period the Kayapó, the Yanomami and a few other tribes achieved a sort of special cultural currency within media networks and went on to develop strong media production trajectories.[i] But Amazonian indigenous groups that did not enjoy international media coverage, garner the attention of celebrities or profit from fair trade deals during this period had to find different avenues to confront forces that were putting pressure on their survival. This divide is where the availability of networked communication technologies and mobile media devices began to come into play, as access to these tools in the late 1990s and beyond opened up pathways for a broader network of Amazonian communities to seek recognition, build partnerships and register their cultures in the public sphere. Most noteworthy has been the place of computers, the Internet and global positioning systems (GPS) for Amazonian indigenous groups to establish greater

Judging from these media frames, achieving proficiency with communication technology, not through partnerships with the state or even NGOs, is the path that indigenous communities need to follow to not only protect their interests, but ‘master the modern world.’ If there is any doubt about this, images that accompanied the reports generally relied on the predicable juxtaposition of key codes: a community member dressed in indigenous garb holding a laptop or some other high tech communication device framed by a backdrop of lush forest. The Ecologically Noble Savage resuscitated and now merged with and empowered by modern, portable communication