Latunde

The land where they live was demarcated in the 1970s, initially in favor of the Aikanã. Soon afterward the Aikanã came across the Latundê, and Funai began contact with them between 1976 and 1977.

Not long after, a measles epidemic struck the community and killed most of its members, a loss that deeply marked the path of the people. The survivors went to live in the Barroso village, and the land was officially ratified in 1991 as territory of the Aikanã, the Latundê and other Indigenous groups.

Today the Latundê live alongside the Aikanã and the Kwazá, in close daily coexistence. Because they are so few, they have formed families with people from these neighboring peoples, and their identities are intertwined within the same villages.

They keep alive a language of their own, spoken by part of the community, and the memory of those who survived the losses of the past. Sharing the same territory with other peoples also means sharing the care of the land and of the future of the younger generations, who grow up between more than one language and more than one culture. Every child who grows up hearing the language of their grandparents is a living hope for the people.

Little has been published about the spiritual life of the Latundê, so generalizations must be avoided. As among many Indigenous peoples of the region, the relationship with ancestors, with the land and with the world around them usually holds a central place in the way life is understood.

Because the community is very small and deeply intertwined with neighboring peoples, the way each person lives out faith tends to reflect ties of family and village. Those who wish to walk alongside them do well to listen with humility before speaking, recognizing the dignity of each family’s story.

The greatest difficulty is not hostility but fragility. With so few people and so few speakers of the language, the people risk being absorbed among their neighbors, and with them the words through which the heart expresses itself best may disappear. Reaching a community like this requires attention, patience and respect for its history of loss, without haste and without pressure.

The Latundê need their language and memory to be preserved and passed on to the younger generations, and their territory to remain protected. After a tragedy that nearly wiped them out, they also need health care, support and dignity, with care that respects their reality and their history.

In the spiritual realm, they need faithful companionship and discipleship within their own cultural reality, where the gospel can be understood and lived as something their own, without this meaning giving up their identity. In short, they need people willing to listen to them, to learn from them and to stay.