Talk:Índia pega no laço

White supremacist bias
@User:Atrapalhado I am concerned by the way that the article has been edited to lend credence to white supremacist and misogynistic beliefs. The baseless claims that "The phrase incorporates truth" because a minority of white Brazilians supposedly have distant Indigenous DNA and that the mere presence of this DNA indicates an Indigenous female ancestor who was "undoubtedly abducted and raped by European colonizers" is editorializing. That is your opinion. It isn't in the sources. You further editorialize that the racist/misogynistic trope "is accurate as genetic studies have shown that...a third of white Brazilians carry maternal Indigenous DNA", even though the sources don't state that. Please find the sources that support your claims. I have not seen any sources that state that this white supremacist trope in "accurate" or "incorporates truth". Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 03:26, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

@User:Bohemian BaltimoreHi I'm a bit confused by your argument that the sources cited don't support the claim. The cited online article states: " A herança materna, especificamente, é constituída por 33% de linhagens ameríndias." The book by Lopes presents the same data. I agree that this genetic data doesn't directly provide evidence of abduction and rape, but this is widely attested and I'm happy to find a source (though I'm surprised, if you're accusing me of a White supremacist bias that this is the point you want to dispute). Best wishes Atrapalhado (talk) 09:26, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @Atrapalhado You haven't cited anything. You cited the claim that many Brazilians have maternal Indigenous DNA, but kept your unsourced POV-pushing claim that this validates the white supremacist myth. There's nothing that says that in any source. That's your opinion, that you have inserted without citation, to advance your view that the myth is validated by genetics. Find a source that actually says that, otherwise it is baseless. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 08:48, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree 100%. I actually don't see how recognizing indigenous ancestry, even if by claiming your ancestor was abducted, could be characterized as "white supremacy".
 * I inserted that information because the article previously erroneously claimed that very few white Brazilians had indigenous ancestry. That is clearly not the case.
 * However I do agree that the origin story of indigenous women abducted by white men only partially explain that origin, because during colonization there were also alliance marriages. Knoterification (talk) 04:33, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @Knoterification Many white Americans claim a Native ancestor, often Cherokee, and yet still manage to be white supremacist. There's no contradiction in claiming an imagined Native ancestor while also being racist. The story about a Native woman being lassoed by a white man, and the degrading romantic narrative built up around this supposed abduction, is obviously white supremacist and promotes awful ideas about Native women being tamed and civilized by whiteness. The article previously claimed that few Brazilians are Indigenous, which is true. It never claimed that few Brazilians have Indigenous ancestry. Having Indigenous ancestry does not make a person Indigenous. The population of Brazilians with distant Indigenous ancestry is much larger than the population of Indigenous Brazilians. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 14:21, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The subject in question is Brazil, not the USA. Different histories, different cultures, different understandings of "race". The USA is not the universal standard to understand the rest of the world. There is a very large difference between white American population, where the average indigenous ancestry is 0,18% and white Brazilian population, where the average is around 12%. Of course a person who claims indigenous ancestry may be racist, but racism and white supremacy are not synonyms. Every white supremacist is racist, but not every racist person is white supremacist.
 * I honestly don't understand your point. While, as I explained previously, I don't think one third of white Brazilians having indigenous maternal ancestry means their ancestors were abducted, that clearly happened sometimes, and those unions left descendants who were seen as white, no use in hiding it simply because it is degrading to indigenous women. Knoterification (talk) 19:52, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @Knoterification I used the Cherokee ancestry myth as an example, I don't operate under the delusion that American and Brazilian conceptions of race are the same when clearly they are not. No, not every instance of racism is necessarily white supremacist, but the racism of white Brazilians specifically absolutely is white supremacist. I'm not disputing the fact that a minority of white Brazilians have Indigenous DNA on the maternal line. There's no "hiding" here. The sources only attest to the presence of some unspecified degree of maternal Indigenous DNA for a sizable minority of white Brazilians, the sources do not mention the "Índia pega no laço" cliche nor do they say when or how Indigenous DNA was introduced to the white population. When the article declares that the phrase "contains truth", it might falsely suggest to the reader that the scenario the phrase refers to is historically accurate when there is actually no evidence for it whatsoever. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 20:29, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Are you Brazilian? I understand the American social theory about lato sensu white supremacism and I won't debate it, but I still don't see how it relates to the claim that someone had an indigenous maternal ancestor who was abducted.
 * You can erase the word "contain truth" if you want. I don't oppose that. But the information about indigenous ancestry in white Brazilians is relevant. Knoterification (talk) 21:35, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @Knoterification I don't care what the sentence says if it's actually sourced. It isn't. It's an unsourced opinion that was inserted without evidence simply because it was deemed "common sense". It still needs a citation. The citation showing that some white Brazilians have Indigenous DNA is not sufficient, because the phrase is never mentioned. If this DNA is actually relevant as you claim, it should be abundantly easy to find a source - or multiple sources - that state that there is a link between white Brazilians having Indigenous DNA and this phrase. I haven't seen that source yet. Until the source or sources are located, it remains an unsubstantiated point of view. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 02:12, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Most likely you wont find such a connection, simply because, as I have claimed before, that phrase is not at all "commonly used" as the article claim (does any of your sources claim that?). There are simply very few academic analysis about that phrase. Knoterification (talk) 00:06, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Type the phrase into google, there's a lot of academic discussion and social commentary that references the phrase. Atrapalhado (talk) 12:05, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

@User:Bohemian Baltimore Hi I'm genuinely confused. This is an article discussing a phrase that white Brazilians use to claim mternal indigenous ancestry. It is clearly relevant to point out that - for a large proportion of white Brazilians - they do indeed have maternal indigenous ancestry, as shown by the genetic evidence. The two works cited discuss that genetic evidence. That doesn't mean the phrase isn't misogynist or racist. If your discomfort is with the phrasing of "the phrase incorporates truth as...." then I'm very happy to cut that wording. Best wishes Atrapalhado. Atrapalhado (talk) 11:02, 7 October 2022 (UTC)


 * @User:Atrapalhado If it is so relevant, provide a source that explicitly makes a link between this phrase and white Brazilians having maternal Indigenous DNA. Where is this written? Who claims this? Otherwise, you are simply inserting your opinion without evidence. You claim that it is self-evident, but there needs to be something in writing. The works that cite genetics don't mention this phrase at all. Find a source that discusses both, that links the phrase to the DNA science. I think a cited sentence could say something like "According to the Brazilian historian Dr. Blah-Blah, the phrase incorporates truth insofar as" or something to that nature. If you can find a source that links the two, I have no quarrel. Take care. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 13:57, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi

@User:Bohemian Baltimore It's not editorialising or "inserting an opinion" to state a referenced fact. It might or might not be relevant to the article, that is a different question. And in this case the information is relevant because otherwise the material in this article gives the impression that its a myth that white Brazilians who use the phrase have maternal indigenous DNA, when in fact lots of them do. Atrapalhado (talk) 19:51, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @User:Atrapalhado I would further add that there's a distinction between merely having an Indigenous female ancestor and the specific romanticized kidnapping that this narrative depicts. When you say that the trope "incorporates truth", it could suggest to the reader that there is truth to the offensive idea that a "wild" Native woman was lassoed and "tamed" by a "civilized" white man, that she enjoyed it or was bettered by it, and so on. It's important that the article say very clearly that the phrase may hint at the fact that some white Brazilians have distant Indigenous maternal DNA, that this phrase may be an offensive and fictionalized explanation for distant Indigenous ancestry, but that this DNA does not validate the racist ideas the narrative promotes about Indigenous women and that the "lasso" scenario is unsubstantiated. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 14:11, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Where in the article does it claim indigenous women enjoyed being kidnapping? That is your interpretation. Knoterification (talk) 19:53, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @Knoterification The fact that the "Índia pega no laço" phrase is often used in a romantic and/or humorous way contains the implication that the Indigenous woman enjoyed the "romance" of the abduction or came to accept it as her betterment. That said, there is more to this phrase than the article describes, so we do need to gather some more sources. By the way, you previously deleted the sentence "Making the ancestor a long lost "wild" great-grandmother who was "tamed" by colonizers creates a "safe genealogical and gender distance" while authenticating a metonymic bond with the first peoples of the land." You declared this an irrelevant and unsourced claim, even though it was derived from one of the sources. I had to go back and trifle through the sources to find where I got that from. I see that it is from this source that you deleted - "The Predicament of Brazil's Pluralism". I quote: "The man in the street may often say that his Indian grandmother was caught with a lasso, by which he means to authenticate his Brazilianness with a metonymic bond with the proverbial "first inhabitants of the land." But notice that he keeps his personal myth of the three races at a safe geneaological and gender distance: it is never his mother, father, or grandmother." Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 21:05, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The phrase is in itself neutral, and it may be used in many different ways, including codnemnatory. We should be able to find a neutral source about the phrase, and than talk about the different interpretations.
 * The problem with that phrase I erased is that it implies the person is "making up an ancestor", as if the person had a choice to have an indigenous parent or grand-parent and not an earlier ancestor. Since genetic studies prooves that having indigenous maternal ancestry is very common among White Brazilians, it cannot be completely made up. Knoterification (talk) 21:42, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @Knoterification I agree that we need more sources and more discussion of the varying meanings the phrase can convey, but I wouldn't regard the phrase as neutral because the "lasso" scenario is itself fictional. If you question the factuality of the paragraph in that book, the content can be added by saying "According to so-and-so", that way the reader will know that this is a person's opinion. I would make a distinction between a person talking about some unspecified long lost Native ancestry and specifically saying that it was your grandmother, great-grandmother, great-great-grandmother. A person who has been told a family myth about a great-grandmother caught in the lasso might not be consciously lying, they might just believe whatever they were told, but the story about that specific ancestor would still be fictional even if they did have Native DNA. The genetic studies don't say much about when Indigenous DNA was introduced to the white population. It could have been 500 years ago for all we know. There's also the fact that many white Brazilians do not have Indigenous ancestry, and I'm sure at least some of them still repeat the lasso story. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 20:13, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't understand why you are so sure the kidnapping scenario did not happen. Evidence shows miscigenation indeed frequently happened spontaneously, but it seems likely that at least sometimes indigenous women were abducted and forced to marry "white" men, even if it was not in such a schematic way as "lassoing".
 * Actually most white Brazilians have indigenous (and African as matter of fact) heritage (33% is the number of white Brazilians with a direct indigenous ancestor through the female line). The only ones who don't are those descendants exclusively of recent immigrants, which except in the South are not common, and I very much doubt people in the German and Italian colonies claim indigenous heritage.
 * The expression is actually not as common as you think, and seems to be mostly restricted to rural contexts. I can vauch that here in Rio de Janeiro it is virtually uknown. Knoterification (talk) 07:21, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
 * That's interesting. I'm going to do a survey of my Brazilian friends to see who knows it (I'm in London). Looking at some of the materials that Bohemian Baltimore has gathered and cited it looks like it may be used particularly by rural, sertanejo or gaucho men? Atrapalhado (talk) 13:37, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

@User:Bohemian Baltimore In response to your comment starting "I would further add." Yes 100% agree with this: in fact it is what I was attempting to get at with my original wording of the 2nd para which has now got lost, and it would be great to add to this that the specific "lasso" scenario is undocumented: "The phrase incorporates truth as genetic evidence shows a high proportion (one third) of white Brazilians are descended in part from Indigenous women, many of whom were undoubtedly abducted and raped by European colonizers. However, Índia pega no laço is seen as racist and misogynistic because it is usually used by non indigenous Brazilian speakers to romanticise or make a joke of the supposed abduction and rape of an Indigenous ancestor." Atrapalhado (talk) 19:57, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

White Supremacist Bias (Take 2)
@Bohemian BaltimoreHi I would like to remove the systemic bias tag at the top of the article. I have added a lot of content and I think the article is now a lot more substantive, and well balanced - I hope you agree. I really don't think anyone coming to this article could consider that it shows a white supremacist bias. What do you think? Atrapalhado (talk) 12:29, 21 October 2022 (UTC)


 * I didnt hear back from @Bohemian Baltimore on this, so have deleted the systemic bias tag. I'm going to stop working on this article now - I think it's pretty good! Atrapalhado (talk) 09:00, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @Atrapalhado That's fine. Thank you for your work on the article. It looks much better. I would maintain that the claim regarding one-third of Brazilians having maternal Indigenous DNA still needs a better source that actually links that fact to this phrase. Take care. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 15:32, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * It does not link directly to the phrase. But it links to the anthropologist talking about how white Brazilians use their indigenous ancestry to reinforce their connection to the land. Knoterification (talk) 03:46, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * @Knoterification Hi I agree with you but would prefer to reinstate the "relevance?" tag. Bohemian Baltimore feels strongly on this point and they contributed a lot to the article, including creating it in the first place. I think the inclusion of the relevance tag is a good compromise to recognise their concerns.  The three of us have had A LOT of discussion, and I think, for now, lets leave the article as it is, with the "relevance?" tag and wait and see what other, future editors think. Atrapalhado (talk) 11:33, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Looking at the source cited for this DNA claim, there are a number of problems. This is the quote in translation: "The team, coordinated by geneticist Sérgio Danilo Pena, analyzed the genetic makeup of the population based on the DNA of 200 white Brazilians, from different origins and regions of the country." This is too small a sample size to state this as fact in Wikipedia's voice. Additionally, there is no such thing as "Native DNA". See the writings of Tallbear and Tsosie, as cited in the Pretendian article. FWIW, I had to block Knoterification for edit-warring on that article, for repeatedly blanking mention of this article from the See also section. There is a POV push going on here, across multiple articles. - CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 22:09, 3 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi Thanks for this. I dont have any attachment to this particular DNA research but I am worried you are coming at this from a "pretendian" angle. Brazil is not the US (or Canada, Austrlia etc) where there was limited mixing between indigenous inhabitants and colonisers. The phrase "India Pega no Laco" is racist and misogynist but NOT because it is used by white Brazilians to claim an indigenous heritage that is a lie. It is important for English-speaking readers (who will come with ideas shaped by US narratives) to understand that. Hence why I was keen to include the DNA research. However I agree 200 individuals is hardly robust. I'm not a geneticist but can I refer you to Figure 4 of this Nature study (which should be beyond reproach as a source) which as I understand it shows signiifcant indigenous admixture, compared to a US state, even in a part of Brazil which is heavily "white." https://www.nature.com/articles/ejhg2011144#:~:text=In%20general%2C%20Brazilians%20trace%20their,of%20immigration%3A%20Africans%20and%20Europeans.&text=In%20the%20five%20geographical%20regions,ancestry%2C%20with%20some%20African%20ancestry.
 * Atrapalhado (talk) 11:47, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
 * 100% agree. Nothing to do with "Pretendian". Knoterification (talk) 21:48, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I found a better source. A research by FAPESP, which reached the same conclusion. Around one third of white Brazilians have indigenous ancestry in their maternal line (mithocondrial haplogroup).
 * Reading Brazil through an Anglocentric lense confuses any attempt to understand the country. Specially how it historically dealt and still deals with the question of "race".
 * It is good to keep in mind that it has been widely established that race mixing (be it violent or consensual) was always the norm in the country, specially between men of Portuguese descent and indigenous and black women.
 * Also, it is worth mentioning that, a self-described white person in Brazil, would not necesserily be percieved as white in the Anglo-Saxon world. Knoterification (talk) 21:57, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
 * The DNA science is irrelevant. The DNA science would be irrelevant even if 100% of Brazilians had "indigenous ancestry". Either the sources discuss the phrase in relation to genetics, or the sources do not. And they don't. I have asked for one thing. You have had months to come up with a single source and have failed to do this. You could add 500 sources discussing Brazilian genetics and if none of them mentioned the phrase, all 500 would fall flat. This is very simple. Find the sources, or this is just POV-pushing. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 10:03, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
 * You are also pushing POV. Most sources you use do not attempt to claim the phrase is false, some even corroborate to it being something real. What you seem to not realize, is that, as pointed by Atrapalhado, the main criticism of the phrase has nothing to do with "inventing indigenous heritage"
 * For example:
 * “Muito comum nas histórias que compõem o imaginário social do homem branco, a frase ‘Tenho uma tataravó que foi pega no laço’ significa, nada mais, nada menos, que a naturalização de uma cena de sequestro, estupro e subjugação da mulher a um casamento arranjado, no qual foi obrigada a procriar"
 * As you can see, the criticism is about romanticising something that really happened.
 * In Cavignac you completely misrepresented her analysis:
 * "O rapto estaria, então, na origem da mestiçagem da população atual e corresponde em parte à realidade. A história se repete, com a reiteração da fórmula feita: “Minha tataravó foi pega a casco de cavalo e dente de cachorro”. De um modo geral, a imagem da índia selvagem integra-se à representação do mundo natural descrito: o mundo feminino corresponderia a um tempo primordial, fornecendo uma explicação sobre a origem das famílias e a “ascendência indígena”.
 * "The kidnap would be the origin of miscigenation and is partially real."
 * Again
 * "Deparamo-nos com uma rica tradição oral e um ‘passado mestiço’ cuja evocação traduz, num modo narrativo e ficcional, as percepções do processo colonial vivido pelas populações indígenas, atualizando o roteiro de uma história escrita pelas elites dirigentes. Não seria uma forma de resistência cultural? De qualquer modo, esta ‘solução narrativa’ possibilita que a memória não se desagregue totalmente e que elementos possam ser retomados para encenar uma outra história.
 * Mamelucos e homens de sangue mesclado"
 * You are using your Anglocentric POV. Knoterification (talk) 13:57, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
 * "It is important for English-speaking readers (who will come with ideas shaped by US narratives) to understand that."
 * But apparently it is not important for white Brazilians to question their own mythic narratives. Whiteness is not objectivity. Not even Brazilian whiteness. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 09:49, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
 * That is a very anglocentric take. In Brazil the general tendency, as shown by Katu Mirim's quote is to exhort people to learn more about their ancestors who were kindapped, not to claim "you are inventing your indigenous ancestry. Knoterification (talk) 14:10, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
 * @User:CorbieVreccan A POV push is exactly what this is. I have asked the editor for months to provide even a single source discussing the "índia pega no laço" phrase in relation to genetics. They have failed to do this. Given that the sources cannot be located, the POV-pushing sentence about genetics should be removed. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 10:09, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Aside from looking it over prior to my comment above, I haven't dug into this article. came to my attention because they were edit-warring to remove this link over at Pretendian. They wouldn't stop so I blocked them. Now they are doing it again. I think Knoterification needs to WP:DROPTHESTICK. -  CorbieVreccan  ☊ ☼ 18:15, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
 * It is very frustrating that this discussion has reopened. A few months ago there was a lot of work and discusion between User:Bohemian Baltimore, myself and user:Knoterification andI thought we had all arrived at a text that - though nobody was completely happy with it - we could all accept. It is really pointless to start that discussion again until new editors become involved. It's an interesting article, lets just leave it as it is for now. Atrapalhado (talk) 17:32, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

White supremacy, part 3
Previously, I thought I was being reasonable when I requested better sources for the following extremely biased and racist sentence - "A high proportion of white Brazilians, at least one third, are descended from Indigenous women on the maternal line" - but now, I think the entire sentence should be removed. It is blatantly POV-pushing and NONE of the sources reference the phrase that the article is about. The whole POV sentence is inappropriate. The irrelevant content has one purpose and one purpose only: to endorse the idea that the phrase is true in some capacity. That's pushing an agenda. I have asked for one thing and one thing only. Find a better source. Apparently this is difficult. Bohemian Baltimore (talk) 09:14, 8 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Curiously the better source was Cavignac itself. Knoterification (talk) 14:12, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
 * [ I see you and knoterification have re-edited the article so guess we're back into this] When you say the phrase isn't true can i ask what you mean. That many white Brazilians aren't descended from indigineous female ancestors? Or that the racial mixing didn't happen often as a result of male colonisers' sexual violence? (To be clear I think the phrase is racist and misogynist but that is a function of how it is deployed).

By the way for a source that discusses the genetic evidence in the context of "pega no laço", see "Regimes de alteridade na construção de histórias nacionais: a mulher indígena como um duplo Outro" Suelen Siqueira Julio (CPII/Rio de Janeiro), Page 9.

Atrapalhado (talk) 22:17, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Recent Revisions
Hi noting recent controversial proposed changes to this article since the start of May, I have been through and made changes that I hope we can all live with:
 * User:Bohemian Baltimore I have removed the systemic bias flag. This seems excessive given it is one sentence you are concerned about. It seems a real shame to undermine the whole article which we have worked hard on, because of your concerns over one sentence. I have reinstated the "relevance" flag next to that sentence.
 * User:Bohemian Baltimore At a couple of places you have inserted doubt "may" "claim[ed]" when the cited sources do not support that. I have corrected.
 * user:knoterification I can live with your deletion of "cultural appropriation" but I think you are wrong on this - clearly the concept of "wearing the Indian ancestor like jewellery that can be set aside" is very exactly describing a process of cultural appropriation.


 * Update* I have now removed the relevance tag from the genetic evidence as I have found a good source that links the genetic evidence to the phrase (there are lots but this is the best), which is what Bohemian Baltimore was asking for.