Museu do Índio, Indigenous museum in Botafogo, Brazil.
The Museu do Índio is an ethnographic museum in the Botafogo neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, dedicated to the indigenous peoples of Brazil. Its holdings cover objects, photographs, audio recordings, and documents drawn from communities across the country.
The museum was founded in 1953 by the anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro, making it the first public institution in Brazil devoted entirely to indigenous cultures. It later moved to a late 19th-century mansion in Botafogo, where it has been housed ever since.
The museum occupies a 19th-century mansion whose garden feels as much a part of the visit as the indoor rooms. Traditional dwelling structures built by indigenous groups stand on the grounds, giving visitors a direct sense of how spaces were shaped for everyday life.
The museum is easy to reach on foot from the Botafogo metro station, which is nearby. The collection covers both indoor galleries and outdoor structures, so it helps to plan for enough time to see both properly.
The museum's digital ethnographic collection, launched on 28 November 2018, gathers 20,000 items from 150 indigenous peoples and can be searched online by material type or people. It uses the free software Tainacan, and many objects carry about 25 individual pieces of information, such as maker, date and raw material.
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