Archaeologist Raoni Valle, defender of indigenous interests in Brazil, is fired at by attackers in the Amazon
Raoni Bernardo Maranhão Valle, 41, Ph.D. in Archeology, worked as a researcher in the State of Paraíba, Brazil in the beginning of his career in the 1990s. Had he continued to investigate the rock records of the Northeast, his life would probably not be in danger as it is today.
Had he stayed there, perhaps Valle would not have been the target of the attack he suffered on the eve of March 9th on the balcony of his house in Alter do Chão, in the state of Pará. Two men – perhaps three -fired at the archaeologist. Faces covered, they carried garruchas, shotguns adapted from sawed barrels.
Immediately, upon noticing the invasion, the researcher threw himself at the two men. The first of the assailants fired towards Valle’s face, but the cartridge exploded inside the gun. The second tried to focus his aim on the archaeologist, but Raoni plunged under his office desk and turned the table over the would-be assassins pushing them out of the house and screaming for help. The commotion alerted residents and the pair fled. A third element in the house had been cornered by his wife and by his dog and escaped after being threatened. The researcher did not even see the third man.
All of this would not have come to pass had Raoni Valle stayed in Paraíba but no, his work and ambition took him to regions of conflict in the Amazion and led him to befriend indigenous and extractivist peoples of the forest. Since 2005, the archaeologist carries out photographic surveys of rock sites in the Rio Negro, Branco, Jaú, Jauaperi, Tapajós and Erepecuru basins.
