Jaider Esbell

Born in the region currently demarcated as Raposa Serra do Sol Indigenous Land, Jaider Esbell (1979, Roraima, Brazil – 2021, São Sebastião, SP, Brazil) was a Macuxi artist and writer. Since 2013, when he organized the I Encounter of All the Peoples, Esbell played a central role in the movement for consolidating contemporary indigenous art in the Brazilian context, acting in a multiple and interdisciplinary way, combining the roles of artist, curator, writer, educator, activist, promoter, and cultural catalyzer. In his first literary work, Terreiro de Makunaima – mitos, lendas e histórias em vivências [Terreiro de Makunaima – Myths, Legends and Stories in Experiences] (2010), Esbell identifies himself as the grandson of Macunaíma, and espouses the re-appropriation of this figure by the indigenous people, considering that in the Macuxi culture, Makunaima is one of the “children of the Sun,” responsible for the mythical creation of all the edible plants existing in the forest, and therefore very different from the “characterless hero” in the eponymous novel by Mário de Andrade (1928).