Museu do Índio

O Museu do Índio (English: The Museum of the Indian) is a cultural and scientific agency of the Fundação Nacional do Índio (English: National Foundation of the Indian) or FUNAI. It was created by Darcy Ribeiro, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1953. As the only official institution in Brazil exclusively dedicated to indigenous cultures (the people known as povos indígenas in Portuguese), the museum has the objective of promoting an accurate and updated image for the indigenous cause, while avoiding common misconceptions and prejudice of these societies.

In 1978, the museum was moved to an old mansion built in the era of the 1880s, in the Botafogo district. It had been originally constructed by João Rodrigues Teixeira, an entrepreneur involved in the food industry of Rio de Janeiro. Constructed by Teixeita as his family residence, the mansion house is registered by the Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional or IPHAN (English: National Institute of Historic and Artistic Sites). The architectural style of its construction is quite representative of this period of urban growth.

The rich collection of the museum, which includes most of the present-day indigenous societies, is composed of 14,000 ethnography parts. In the Marechal Rondon Library, 16,000 national and foreign publications specialized in ethnology and other related areas, plus 50,000 images in diverse environments, including 3,000 digital photographs on CD-ROM, about 200 films, videos, and sound recordings, as well as 500,000 documents of historical value relating to various indigenous groups and their political situation in Brazil from the end of 19th century to the present.

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