Mr Ropni Metyktire (Brazil, Meso and South America)
Ropni Metyktire, better known as Cacique Raoni, is the largest Mebengokre (Kayapó) leader - an indigenous group belonging to the Macro-Jê linguistic branch - and one of the most important indigenous leaders in Brazil and the world. Ropni is part of the Kayapó subgroup called Metyktire, which split and differed from its ancestral group in the region between the Araguaia and Tocantins rivers, in central-western Brazil, probably in the late 19th century. However, with the invasion of their territories, from the eighteenth century, the Kayapó went through a gradual process of migration in the northwest direction, entering the Xingu River basin.
Ropni was born in the state of Mato Grosso, probably in the mid-1930s, in a region called Kapot nhinore, on the right bank of the Xingu River, near the border with the state of Pará… Read more