Villas-Bôas brothers

Pioneers

The explorer John Hemming wrote that the Villas-Bôas were pioneers in many ways. They were almost the first non-missionaries to live permanently with the natives; and they treated them as their equals and friends. They persuaded tribes to end internecine feuds and unite to confront the encroaching settlement frontier. The Villas-Bôas were the first to appreciate the value of politics and the media in furthering the indigenous cause. They also devised a policy of "change, but only at the speed the Indians want".

In the 1950s, Brazilian explorer and defender of indigenous people, Cândido Rondon, supported the Villas-Bôas brothers' campaign, which faced strong opposition from the government and the ranchers of Mato Grosso and led to the establishment of the first Brazilian National Park for indigenous people along the Xingu River in 1961.

Robin Hanbury-Tenison, from Survival International, wrote in 1971 that "The Xingu is the only closed park in Brazil, which means that it is the only area in which Indians are safe from deliberate or accidental contact with undesirable representatives of Western civilization. This is due entirely to the Villas-Bôas brothers and the total dedication of their lives to this work over the last 25 years." Since 1971, more indigenous parks and reserves have been created, such as the Tumucumaque National Park (38,800 km²) in northern Pará state, but the Xingu park (26,400 km²) remains the most important of them.

The anthropologist Shelton Davis wrote that "The Villas-Bôas brothers further argued that it was the responsibility of the federal government to provide a secure protective buffer, in the form of closed Indian parks and reserves, between Indians and the frontiers of national society. In time, the three brothers believed, Indians would integrate into Brazilian national society. This process of integration, however, should be a gradual one and should guarantee the Indians’s survival, ethnic identities and ways of life."

In the foreword of the book Xingu: the Indians, Their Myths the anthropologist Kenneth S. Brecher wrote that

It is now almost 30 years since the Villas-Bôas brothers (...) led the expedition known as 'Brazil's march to the West' which was intended to open up the heart of the interior for colonization. They were overwhelmed by the beauty and cultural richness of the network of Xingu tribes which they discovered, and when the expedition disbanded they remained in the jungle to protect the Xinguanos from the land speculators, state senators, diamond prospectors, skin hunters, and rubber gatherers who had followed in their wake. (...) That the Xingu tribes continue to exist, in fact to thrive, is due largely to the extreme dedication, intelligence, cunning, and physical strength of these brothers.