TITLE: Indigenous People of Cerrado, Fading Cultures

This work is a tribute to some of indigenous people that live in the State of Minas Gerais. A way to record in images brave and noble people. Cultures that are fading and that may be lost forever.

Since the 16th Century the indigenous people of Brazil have survived the intense contact with the Portuguese settlers and later with cattle ranchers and prospectors.

Originally hunter-gatherer groups, they saw their original productive system become inoperative with the settlement of livestock farms in their territory.

With a long history of Native-White relations, most indigenous people are now considered "acculturated natives". All of them speak Portuguese, but just a few speak their original languages, that are really endangered. Along the years the they adopted the Catholic religion as dominant, but there is still a strong syncretism with their original beliefs.

Against all the odds the Xacriaba, the Xucuru-Cariri, the Pataxo, and other native people are still struggling for a better future. Like the Cerrado the Brazilian savanna biome that surrounds their territory, their strong and deep roots make this noble indigenous people resilient to all these problems. For how long? Nobody knows!

All pictures were made in the Xacriaba Indian Reservation, Sao Joao das Missoes, Minas Gerais, Brazil, during the 7th Indian Games of Minas Gerais in late 2018.

AUTHOR: Eduardo Moreira (Brazil)

Edu Moreira is passionate about photography, especially landscapes.

He began as self-taught in 2003. Since then, he begun to focus seriously on developing his photography skills, seeking to improve his technique and challenging himself to raise the quality of his photos at every opportunity.

His inspiration draws on the great masters of landscape photography, especially Ansel Adams, Eliot Porter and Edward Weston. Among contemporary photographers, Galen Rowell, Michael Frye, Marc Adamus, as well as the Brazilians Sebastião Salgado and Araquém Alcântara, are instruments of studies in search of photos that fascinate by their beauty. Above all they can convey the magic, the beauty and the mystery of images around the world.

Some photographers have a uniform and recognizable style. Edu Moreira is not one of them. His images are not restricted to landscape photography, depicting a wide variety of subjects.

One of his areas of great interest is abstract photography, where his imaginative eyes capture the beauty of lines and geometric forms present in our daily life that a common observer can not perceive.

In 2014 and 2015, he lived in Miami, having the opportunity to improve his technique with some great American photographers like John Batdorff, Kurt Budliger and Robert Chaplin.

He has participated in several individual and collective exhibitions. In January 2017, he received 3 Honorable Mentions at the 2016 Monochrome Awards, competing with 8121 photos from 81 countries.

As a travel lover, Edu had visited more than 50 countries. Recently he photographed in Patagonia, Morocco, Iceland, Tanzania and several other countries. For him, "photography is an excellent excuse to set foot on the road"!