NIÑO DEL PALO DE FUEGO

The Matís Indians are a people who live happily in the middle of the Javarí Valley, on unexplored banks of the River Amazon, in a place where the rays of the sun can hardly be seen through the luxuriant tree cover and where time is kept by the moon. One day, however, the Matís tribe’s very existence is threatened by so-called "civilised" human beings and they are forced to move to another village. For days on end, they walk from Pebeu to Caranjao, where they will finally be safe from the "white man". Under the joyful gaze of the members of the tribe, a little boy, beaming with pride at having been chosen for the task, carries a blazing torch, as if it were the people’s standard. When the stick that is used for the torch has almost burnt away, the boy has to change it so as not to scorch his hands. Thereupon the whole tribe stops to help him find another stick, despite the delay that this obviously entails. One of the scientists accompanying the tribe, however, loses his patience and grabs the torch out of the boy’s hands, throwing it so far that it falls into a stream and goes out. The boy blows and blows in a vain attempt to re-kindle the flame. The man is unable to comprehend the boy’s sorrow at this event and the child himself has to explain. Even if he lit another branch, the flame that would burn on it would not be the same as the one that he had held in his hands, a flame that had been handed down from generation to generation to his grandfather, who had passed it on to the boy’s father, who in turn had entrusted it to him. But now he would not be able to give the flame to his own children. Once again the white man has affronted the tribe’s traditions, by sullying their way of life, scorning their language and not showing the least bit of respect for the memory of their dead.