Tremembe

Before the arrival of Europeans, the Tremembé occupied an extensive stretch of coastline from Maranhão to Ceará, living by fishing and hunting. During the eighteenth century, they were brought together by Jesuit missions, including the mission at Almofala, which would become the main center of their later identity.

With the expulsion of the Jesuits and the encroachment of farmers on their land, the Tremembé gradually lost official recognition, even being declared extinct by a state government in the nineteenth century. It was only in the 1980s and 1990s that the Tremembé reaffirmed their Indigenous identity and gained official recognition, resuming community organization around their historic villages.

Fishing, especially for lobster, and farming, particularly coconut cultivation, sustain the daily lives of Tremembé families in villages scattered along the coast of Ceará. Shell crafts, weaving and the production of mocororó, a fermented cashew drink, complete a way of life connected to the sea and the land.

Community leadership centers on the chief, and social life revolves around the village and the extended family. Images of cashews, doves, fish and crabs decorating houses and objects reveal how deeply this relationship with nature is embedded in Tremembé culture.

The predominant faith among the Tremembé is a form of folk Catholicism interwoven with Indigenous elements: Catholic saints coexist with encantados and caboclo spirits in a shared symbolic world, expressed especially in the songs and rituals of torém, where invocations to Mary and expressions of gratitude to God mingle with words and melodies of Indigenous origin.

This spirituality is deeply connected to ethnic identity: for many Tremembé, celebrating torém and honoring the ancestors are as much a part of being Indigenous as the struggle for land. The encantados are seen as protectors of the people and nature, present in the daily life of the villages as much as the Catholic saints. The boundary between religious practice and cultural affirmation is almost nonexistent: for the Tremembé, faith is also a form of resistance.

The Tremembé no longer speak their original language and use Portuguese in everyday life, although ancient words still appear in torém songs. This means that the Bible in Portuguese is already available for those with access to a copy to read, but oral tradition, passed down from generation to generation through dance and song, remains the main way this people receives and preserves any spiritual message.

Tremembé identity is historically intertwined with folk Catholicism, in which saints and encantados mingle in a shared spiritual world: changing faith may seem to many like abandoning their own Indigenous origins. The constant struggle for land and the isolation of the villages on the coast of Ceará also leave little room in daily life for contact with a Christian message different from the one they already know.

The Tremembé’s main need remains full and lasting security for their land, now threatened by agricultural and tourism developments expanding along the coast of Ceará. Alongside this, there is a lack of health and education services that respect their culture, and of economic opportunities that do not depend on actors beyond the communities’ own control.

Spiritually, the Tremembé people need a deeper encounter with the gospel of Christ, presented in a way that engages with their Indigenous identity rather than requiring them to abandon it.