Following the 2018 fire that ravaged Brazil’s National Museum, the British Museum now holds one of the oldest collections of the Iny-Karajá people. These objects had never been studied —until now.

This project seeks to document these important collections in collaboration with specialists from Brazilian institutions, Iny-Karajá leaders and interested members of the Santa Isabel do Morro Hawaló community, located on Bananal Island (State of Tocantins) in Amazonia. Thanks to a partnership with the National Museum (MN/UFRJ) and the Anthropological Museum of the Federal University of Goiás (MA/UFG), this shared museology project will promote the reinterpretation and digitisation of this important collection of around fifty objects, which were collected over more than a century and acquired by the British Museum between the 1860s and 1980s.

In this way, the project aims to document the collections and their different trajectories to the British Museum, representing the historicities, worldviews, and traditional knowledge of the Iny-Karajá. It also aims to shed light on materials of uncertain provenance collected in their ancestral territories and surrounding areas in the Araguaia and Tocantins river valleys. This participatory documentation took place through visits to the collections by project collaborators and through field-based interpretation and co-curation workshops, the objective being to select objects for the existing Amazonian showcase (Wellcome Trust Gallery) and future displays, fostering self-representation and collectively reconstructing narratives. This project aims to produce materials for the Hawaló village, to be used for educational purposes in the local Indigenous school. In addition, all the updated images and data in the British Museum’s collection will be shared with the project’s partner institutions, particularly the National Museum in Brazil, the intention being to contribute to the digital refounding of the Iny-Karajá collection lost in the devastating fire of 2018.

The Iny-Karajá and the Araguaia River 

The Iny-Karajá are immemorial inhabitants of the banks of the Araguaia River, which flows through the states of Goiás, Mato Grosso, Tocantins and Pará, in Central Brazil. The great Araguaia River is part of the Amazon basin and lies in a transitional region between the cerrado (Brazilian savannah) and the rainforest. Berakuhyky is the name of the Araguaia River in women’s speech in the Inyrybè language (Macro-Jê linguistic family), while in men’s speech it is called Berohoky. In Inyrybè, there is a linguistic variation between male and female forms. According to Iny linguist Sinvaldo Wahuá, women’s speech is more linguistically complex than men’s, maintaining a more formal and erudite form of the language.

For a long time, ethnology classified the Karajá as a large indigenous group that was divided into three Inyrybè-speaking subgroups that inhabit the same region of the middle Araguaia River and share similar forms of social and cultural organisation: the Karajá themselves, the Xambioá and the Javaé. However, indigenous leaders now affirm that, despite the significant similarities, these are three distinct peoples. One of the main movements in recent years, especially among the Iny-Karajá, has advocated for the use of the self-designation Iny to refer to those previously known as the Karajá. As a result, more recent research has adopted the name Iny-Karajá to reflect the transition towards the self-identification claimed by the Indigenous people.

The Iny-Karajá collections at the British Museum 

The Iny-Karajá collection at the British Museum consists of around 60 objects, collected over more than a century between the late 1860s and the late 1980s by different individuals. Robert Marsham’s collection, donated to the British Museum along with 500 other objects from South America and other parts of the world, is perhaps the oldest, including at least 13 artefacts exchanged personally with the Karajá in the 19^th century. Christy’s correspondence, available in the British Museum’s Pictorial Archive of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, provides information on the Amazonia collection donated by Marsham in 1871: ”The bows and arrows, bowstrings, trumpets, feather ornaments and earrings were obtained by me through barter in 1858 with the Caranje and Apinaje Indian tribes, who inhabit the banks of the Tocantins, a large river that flows northwards from Central Brazil and joins the Amazon at its mouth near Belém. The Caranje and Apinajé tribes live upriver, around latitude 7 degrees south”.

The Karajá collections at the British Museum, Photo: Santiago Valencia Parra, September 2024

Another set of objects dating from the mid-19^th century was donated by British engineer William Bragge in 1869. Bragge donated to the British Museum a bow and three arrows associated with two peoples from the Araguaia River: the Karajá and those he erroneously referred to as “Botocudos”, a generic, colonial term once used to describe certain Indigenous groups who wore botoques, or lip plugs, as adornments. This information places these objects among the oldest Iny-Karajá ethnographic collections after the fire at Brazil’s National Museum.

Record of the Karajá collection acquired by the British Museum in 1932.

Another relevant collection was gathered by Roger Gamelyn Pettiward, a cartoonist who travelled to the Mato Grosso region in 1932 on an expedition led by Peter Fleming. The aim was to search for Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett, who became known after disappearing on an expedition to Central Amazonia in 1925, and who was never found. Most of the materials collected by Pettiward during this search expedition are associated with the ‘Karajá’, with at least 29 objects, as well as some items related to the Kayapó and Tapirapé along the Araguaia River valley. 

Read more about the search expedition for Colonel Percy Fawcett organised by Peter Fleming in the newspaper clipping published in 1932 here (EthDoc 1359, British Museum Documentary Archive @Trustees of the British Museum).

Particularly noteworthy are three clay dolls donated by Warren Royal Dawson in 1938. These beautiful examples of the Iny-Karajá ritxoko dolls shed light on Western collecting practices and the value systems attributed to indigenous material culture, having been mistakenly associated with prehistoric fertility idols, such as the goddess Venus, and misclassified as markers of primitivism. The Iny are among the only indigenous peoples of the lowlands of South America to produce artistic representations of the human figure. Made exclusively by women, ritxoko dolls (or ritxoo in men’s parlance) were originally made as educational playthings for Iny children. By representing Iny ritual, social, everyday and cosmological life, the dolls are a way of teaching and passing on knowledge about Iny traditions and ways of life to children, both boys and girls. In recent decades, these dolls have become an important source of income for potters’ families and are now highly sought after by non-indigenous people. They have even been recognised as part of Brazil’s national intangible heritage.

Am1938,0705.4, Photo: Rafael Andrade, May 2024. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Towards a shared museology: The Iny-Karajá’s relationship with museums 

The Iny-Karajá have maintained a longstanding relationship with museums. Since the 19^th century, major expeditions to the Araguaia River have collected items for museums in different parts of the Americas and Europe. The National Museum’s Iny-Karajá collection originates from the founding of the museum itself, starting in the 19^th century and extending until 1908. During this initial period of collecting, there were 15 entries and a total of approximately 500 Iny-Karajá pieces. A second phase of collecting clearly reflects the period of exponential growth in the National Museum’s ethnographic holdings, during which 23 Iny-Karajá acquisitions added approximately 800 objects to the collection between 1914 and 1948. Finally, between 1951 and 1996, there were 11 entries comprising around 400 objects, bringing the total number of Iny-Karajá items in the National Museum’s collection to approximately 1,700 by the time of the fire in September 2018.

The Iny-Karajá collections are therefore a key part of the National Museum’s history, which spans more than two hundred years. These collections reflect its internal shifts, debates, and the redefinition of research strategies and areas of interest within Brazil’s longest-standing scientific institution. At the same time, the involvement of families from the village of Santa Isabel do Morro in discussions about heritage, museums and collections may also be traced back to the village’s origins in the 1920s. Many of the collections found in ethnographic museums today were largely formed in this village, and museums are consequently an important relational network for Iny-Karajá indigenous leaders (see Andrade, 2023). 

Considering the most recent work on Iny-Karajá material culture and collections, there has been ongoing collaboration in this field since at least 2010, involving leaders from Santa Isabel do Morro, the Anthropological Museum (MA) of the Federal University of Goiás (UFG), and the National Museum (MN) of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). One of the first projects was the process of patrimonialisation of the Iny-Karajá ceramic dolls by the Brazilian government, the result of a collective effort involving Iny-Karajá potters from different villages and researchers from MA-UFG. The project was approved by the Brazilian government, which in 2012 recognised the Iny-Karajá doll-making tradition as intangible cultural heritage of Brazil (Lima et al., 2011).

An exhibition entitled ‘The Karajá: Plumage and Ethnography’ followed at the MN-UFRJ in 2012. It was curated by Prof Dr João Pacheco de Oliveira, with the involvement of Iny-Karajá leaders who participated with the support and mediation of Prof Dr Manuel Ferreira Lima Filho from MA-UFG. The exhibition’s opening in Rio de Janeiro was a significant event, attended by some representatives of Iny-Karajá families who had taken part in the process. 

A series of projects have been carried out since 2014 under the coordination of Prof Dr Manuel Ferreira Lima Filho of UFG, involving the study of the Iny-Karajá collections at the National Museum and field research in the villages along the Araguaia. The work has focused on sharing and developing joint reflections with the Iny-Karajá families who expressed interest in the collections. This broad, collective effort brought together Iny-Karajá villages and researchers from different institutions, especially MA-UFG and MN-UFRJ. The main results of this work may be found in the collection ‘Iny-Karajá Treasures’, organised by Manuel Ferreira Lima Filho.

Visit to the Anthropological Museum by the Federal University of Goiás, March 2025.

The fire at the National Museum

On the 2^nd of September 2018, the National Museum was struck by a devastating fire that affected practically its entire collection, estimated at more than 20 million items. The ethnographic collections, which were the largest in the country, were destroyed almost in their entirety, including the Indigenous Languages Documentation Centre. After a month of genuine mourning, while the rescue efforts would confirm some hope (Cardoso de Mello, 2020), the Ethnology and Ethnography Section experienced irreparable loss.

Fire at the National Museum. Foto: ALLIANCE/ALAMY LIVE NEWS.

The robust relationships of trust and respect developed between the Santa Isabel do Morro village and the National Museum/UFRJ over the years led to an Iny-Karajá initiative. This initiative sparked a wave of donations from various communities and Indigenous peoples across the country, marking a significant milestone in the refounding of the National Museum and its collections. In an act of both solidarity and political significance, this first gesture came in the form of the donation of an Iny-Karajá ceramic doll made by Kaimote Kamaiura at the end of 2018. Then came the donation of a ceremonial set to the MN-UFRJ by Sokrowé Karajá, who is Kaimote’s son-in-law and the current traditional chief of Santa Isabel do Morro. Known as wèdu aõna (‘the chief’s things’), the collection donated by Sokrowé for the reconstruction of the National Museum’s ethnographic holdings is, in the words of Andrade (2023, pp. 271 and 292), “deeply related to the specificities of the institution of the traditional Iny-Karajá chiefdom” and affirms, in the rebuilding of the museum, “the importance of the Araguaia and the Iny-Karajá people as protagonists of historical, social and political processes that involve local, regional and national history [in Brazil].” (Andrade, 2023, pp. 271 and 292). 

Kaimote Kamaiurá with a ritxoko doll made by herself, Photo: Louise de Mello, March 2025.

Collaborative documentation and the Iny’s reunion with ancestral Karajá objects at the British Museum

Between May and June 2024, Rafael Andrade, the project’s lead researcher, conducted the first phase of participatory documentation of the Iny-Karajá collections at the British Museum’s storage facility. He worked in collaboration with Manuel Lima Filho and Lucas Yabagata from the UFG Museum of Anthropology, as well as archaeologist Diego Teixeira. In addition to photographing the entire collection at the British Museum, Rafael also analysed the Karajá collection at the University of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum, a small but significant collection due to its early provenance.

The second phase of the participatory documentation was conducted in September, during the visit of Karajá leaders Sokrowé and Ixysé to the Ethnological Museum of Berlin and the British Museum, accompanied by Rafael and Manuel. It was the first time Iny-Karajá representatives had visited the collections in London in almost 170 years. The documentation and reinterpretation work carried out by Sokrowé and Ixysé was accompanied by the co-curation of a selection of pieces for the rotation of the Amazonia case at the British Museum’s Wellcome Trust Gallery, scheduled for the end of 2025. It also meant the start of a new relationship of collaboration and partnership between the Iny Karajá of Hawaló and the UK’s largest museum.

Collection engagement by Sokrowé and Ixysé, including co-curated objects for the Amazonia case rotation. Photos: Louise de Mello, Diego Atehortúa and Santiago Valencia Parra.

Fieldwork in Aldeia Santa Isabel do Morro (Hawaló), Bananal Island

Workshops around the British Museum’s Iny-Karajá collection were organised as part of the fieldwork carried out by Rafael Andrade in the village of Hawaló in November 2024. The purpose of the fieldwork was to raise awareness of the collection, making it possible to undertake joint work on the classification and interpretation of the British Museum’s Iny-Karajá collection. It also aimed to foster dialogue about the possible uses and applications of the knowledge surrounding collections and collecting practices in the village’s everyday activities, such as those of the Iny-Karajá cultural associations and the indigenous school.

The workshop with the Iny-Karajá children was led by Sokrowé Karajá, traditional chief of the Hawalò village and collaborator in the project to rehabilitate the British Museum’s Iny-Karajá collections. Sokrowé gathered the children of the village in a space in his own home. In a circle, he explained the purpose of the workshop and told them that he had travelled to London, in England, with his wife, Ixysé Karajá, to see the collection he was about to present to them in person. The chief spoke of his long journey, his experience of being in a foreign country, and explained how the objects made by the Iny-Karajá ancestors were being stored. 

Drawings inspired by the collections at the British Museum.

The children were led by Sokrowé to a large table where he presented the photographic cards from the Iny-Karajá collection. One card at a time, he explained each piece in the collection. Then, he handed out the cards for the children to circulate freely. At the end of the presentation, everyone was free to handle the cards and express their first impressions through drawings. The workshop was a moment of exchange, dialogue and transmission of knowledge in which Sokrowé was able to share his experience of the project with the younger generations of the village.

The fieldwork also sought to organise strategies and guide the research based on specific demands and proposals of the Maluá indigenous school, which is coordinated and run by indigenous teachers from Santa Isabel do Morro. These educators are interested in the subject of collections and museums as a means of fostering dialogue and discussions about Iny-Karajá culture, knowledge and traditional practices in the education of village students. Printed and laminated photographs of all the objects in the British Museum’s Iny-Karajá collection were given to Kaimote Kamaiurá’s family and to the Maluá school, so that the collection might support educational and cultural activities in Santa Isabel do Morro.

Sokrowé Karajá talks about the selection of objects from the British Museum collection in an interview conducted in the village of Santa Isabel do Morro Hawaló by Idjaruma Kamaiurá Karajá in December 2024.

The Hetohoky ritual: from the Museum to the Iny-Karajá Big House 

The final stage of the project took place during Hetohoky, the Iny-Karajá male initiation rite held each year in March, which on this occasion was attended by the director of the SDCELAR project. Hetohoky is one of the main rituals of the Iny-Karajá people. The ritual marks the passage of boys into adulthood, making them eligible to enter the men’s space, which is known as ijoina in the Iny-Karajá language. The ritual begins with authorisation by the traditional chief in September or October and continues until its peak, around March, when the Araguaia River reaches its highest level. Over the months following authorisation, a series of collective activities are organised by the families involved. Only during the week of the ritual’s climax is the ceremonial space built, with the hetoriore (small house), hererawo (ritual corridor), and hetohoky (big house) forming the structures required to dramatise the boys’ passage into the world of men.

Hetohoky Ritual, March 2025. Photos: Louise de Mello.

The culmination of the ritual, when the village, its leaders and institutions organise to receive supporters and partners of the Iny-Karajá people, is an ideal moment for the results of the work carried out over the course of a year to be formally handed over and shared. Digitised images of selected pieces from the co-curated collection were shared with Sokrowé and other interested members of Hawaló, including the potter Dibexia Karajá. This prompted new conversations and reflections on the ritxoko dolls and the continuity of this ancestral practice. Some dolls, as well as a maraca and a buriti straw bag, were among the handicrafts bought from the village to form part of the sensory table in gallery 24 of the British Museum, next to the Amazonia case, making the living Iny-Karajá culture more visible, bringing it to the general public.

Dibexia Karajá, Louise de Mello, Sokrowé Karajá e Idjaruma Karajá. Foto Rafael Andrade, Março 2025. 

Finally, this project hopes to contribute to the strengthening of a community cultural association that will formalise the relationship the Iny-Karajá of Hawaló have been building with museums in Brazil over past decades, and now, around the world for many more to come. An initial contribution in this direction was the donation of audiovisual equipment for use by the future association. This equipment was used by filmmaker Idjaruma Kamaiurá Karajá to document the final week of the 2025 Hetohoky, including the closing activities, which are usually not open to non-indigenous participants. For SDCELAR, the opportunity to take part in Hetohoky added another layer to the rich symbolic repertoire of this annual rite, sealing a lasting relationship between the Iny and the British Museum, as well as more than one friendship that is also expected to endure over time.

Idjaruma Karajá. Photo: Louise de Mello, Março 2025.

Continue reading 

ANDRADE, Rafael S. G. de. Wèdu aõna, as coisas do chefe: protagonismo indígena e experiência nas coleções Iny-Karajá do Museu Nacional. Tese (Doutorado em Antropologia Social). Programa de Pós-graduação em Antropologia Social, Museu Nacional, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 2023.  

CARDOSO DE MELLO, Louise. Arqueologia da destruição: o resgate do material arqueológico do Forte Príncipe da Beira após o incêndio do Museu Nacional. Vestígios, v. 14, n. 2, p. 5-26, 2020. (Edição especial: Conservação em Arqueologia Histórica). https://periodicos.ufmg.br/index.php

LIMA FILHO, Manuel F. (org.). Tesouros Iny – Karajá. Goiânia: Cegraf UFG, 2021: https://portaldelivros.ufg.br/index.php

LIMA, N. C. de; LIMA FILHO, Manuel F.; Leitão, R. M.; Silva, T. C. da. Bonecas karajá: arte, memória e identidade indígena no Araguaia. Dossiê descritivo do modo de fazer Ritxoko. Goiânia: Museu Antropológico da Universidade Federal de Goiás, 2011: http://portal.iphan.gov.br/uploads

MENDES, Diego T.; KARAJÁ, KAMAIURA KARAJÁ, Idjaruma. 2022. “Arqueologia Colaborativa com os Iny-Karajá: Ijyy (Narrativas) e Materialidades na Ilha do Bananal”.  Revista Habitus – Revista Do Instituto Goiano De Pré-História E Antropologia, 20 (2). Goiânia: 425-55. https://doi.org/10.18224/hab.v20i2.12724 

PACHECO de Oliveira, João. Prefácio: perda e superação. In: Santos, R. de C. M. No coração do Brasil: a expedição de Edgard Roquette-Pinto à Serra do Norte (1912). Rio de Janeiro: Museu Nacional, Setor de Etnologia e Etnografia, 2020.: https://jpoantropologia.com.br/producao

Collaborators

	Rafael Andrade  Anthropologist and collaborating researcher at the Ethnology and Ethnography Section of the National Museum (SEE/MN), Rafael Andrade was an associate researcher at SDCELAR from 2024 to 2025. He holds a PhD in Social Anthropology (MN-UFRJ) and completed postdoctoral research at the Anthropological Museum of the Federal University of Goiás (MA-UFG). He also served as a consultant for the new temporary exhibition at the National Museum/UFRJ. His work focuses on Sociology and Anthropology, with particular attention to ethnology, political anthropology, ethnicity, material culture, ethnographic collections, and museums.
	Sokrowé Karajá Ixydinodu (traditional chief) of Santa Isabel do Morro, one of the main Iny-Karajá villages. He is married to Ixysé Karajá and is the son-in-law of Kaimote Kamaiurá. Sokrowé is responsible for the village’s rituals and leads hetohoky, the main Iny-Karajá male initiation rite. He has a longstanding interest in collections and, since becoming chief of Santa Isabel do Morro, has served as an interlocutor for various projects involving ethnographic and ethnological museums.
	Ixysé Karajá Craftswoman and specialist in feather ornaments. She is married to Sokrowé Karajá and is the daughter of Kaimote Kamaiurá and Maluaré Karajá, an important Iny-Karajá leader from Santa Isabel do Morro. Together with Sokrowé, she is part of the family responsible for the institution of the traditional chief in Santa Isabel do Morro, working on the production of the material culture essential to the performance of village rituals. She has a long history of collaboration and dialogue with ethnographic and ethnological museums in Brazil and, more recently, abroad. Her work involves themes such as featherwork, ceramics, weaving, and other traditional practices.
	Manuel Lima Filho Director of the Anthropological Museum of the Federal University of Goiás and associate professor at UFG. Manuel is a CNPq researcher and senior collaborator at the University of Brasilia, as well as a professor of the Master’s and Doctorate in Human Rights at UFG, where he has coordinated other postgraduate programmes. A representative of the Brazilian Anthropology Association (ABA) on the Museum Management Committee of the Brazilian Institute of Museums (IBRAM), Manuel has carried out post-doctoral and research internships at the National Museum/UFRJ (FAPERJ), Washington University in Saint Louis, USA (Fulbright-CAPES), the College of William and Mary, USA, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, the Smithsonian Institution and the Rockefeller Library/Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (USA).
	Idjaruma Karajá Of Karajá and Kamayurá descent, Idjaruma Karajá lives in Aldeia Santa Isabel do Morro, on Bananal Island, in the municipality of Lagoa da Confusão. He is a filmmaker and photographer, with degrees from the Federal University of Goiás and the Federal University of Western Pará. He has worked for over a decade as an Indigenous filmmaker for the Karajá people and also works as a nursing technician.
	Lucas Veloso Yabagata Collaborating researcher in the Museology Coordination Department at the Anthropological Museum of the Federal University of Goiás (MA/UFG). He holds a master’s degree in Social Anthropology from UFG’s Graduate Programme in Social Anthropology, with a focus on Indigenous ethnology, feather art and digital collections.