ABSTRACT
The recent history of interethnic contact between the Waimiri-Atroari indigenous people and segments of the national society which have invaded their territory clearly shows how Western economic exploitation of land and natural resources leads to redefi nitions of indigenous concepts of space and the imposition of new defi nitions by the dominant invading populations on the dominated Indian people. These redefi nitions of indigenous concepts of space occur within the context of, and as part of, violent changes in the Indian way of life brought about by interethnic contact. Although the indigenous ways of apprehending the new imposed defi nitions pass through a cultural fi lter, and are often interpreted very differently from what the mentors had imagined, the social relations of domination/subjection which characterise interethnic contact in Brazil (Cardoso de Oliveira 1976: 9, 56-57; 1978: 83-98; 1996 [1964]) subordinate and devalue indigenous concepts.
