1. Raoni Metuktire is a chief of the Kayapo people, a Brazilian Indigenous group from the plain lands of the Mato Grosso and Para in Brazil, south of the Amazon River and along Xingu River and its tributaries.
18 Facts About Raoni Metuktire
1. 2.
Raoni Metuktire is internationally famous as a living symbol of the fight for the preservation of the Amazon rainforest and indigenous culture.
3.
Cacique Raoni Metuktire was born in the state of Mato Grosso in 1932, in the heart of the Brazilian part of the Amazon rainforest, in a village called Krajmopyjakare.
4.
Raoni and other members of the Metuktire tribe encountered the outside world for the first time in 1954.
5.
Young Raoni Metuktire wore trousers for the first time and initiated into the Portuguese language by Orlando Villas-Boas, the eldest of the Villas-Boas brothers and a famous indigenous anthropologist in Brazil, the young Raoni Metuktire was ready for the Kuben's invasion.
6.
Raoni Metuktire gained international attention thanks to musician Sting, who came to meet him in the Xingu in November 1987.
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In February 1989, Raoni Metuktire became one of the fiercest opponents to the Belo Monte Dam project.
8.
Raoni Metuktire visited 17 countries with Sting from April to June 1989.
9.
Raoni Metuktire's dream was to unite the five demarcated indigenous territories with then undemarcated Mekragnotire lands.
10.
French president Jacques Chirac declared Raoni Metuktire a living symbol of the fight for the protection of the environment.
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Raoni Metuktire's messages were particularly well received in European countries such as France, which he visited in 2000,2001 and 2003.
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Raoni Metuktire found ways to connect these cultures with the world, while keeping appropriate stoicism, distance and dignity.
13.
Raoni Metuktire is easily recognizable with his lip plate that stretches his lower lip.
14.
Subsequent generations have not kept this tradition; Raoni Metuktire is one of the last men to wear a lower lip plate.
15.
In September 2011, Chief Raoni Metuktire was made an honorary citizen of Paris by Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe, and received the medal of the French National Assembly from Nicolas Perruchot of France's National Assembly.
16.
In September 2011, Chief Raoni Metuktire went to the United Nations Human Right Council in Geneva and participated to Rio+20 in June 2012.
17.
At January 1,2023, Raoni Metuktire participated in the inauguration ceremony of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as president of Brazil.
18.
Raoni Metuktire climbed the ramp to the presidential palace along Lula and 7 other individuals representing several social groups, and participated in the delivery of the presidential sash to the newly sworn in Chief of State, after his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, having travelled to Orlando two days before the transfer of office.