No longer. Ever since she started strutting for Ford Models late last year, this reedy youngster from a drowsy village in northeastern Brazil has refashioned her attitude. Moreira, who turns 19 in September, has posed for Italian Vogue and the British fashion bible ID and will soon debut on catwalks at New York and London. She knows it’s a steep climb to that glamorous aerie where Brazilian ubermodel Gisele reigns. But when Moreira consults the looking glass these days, she sees what was there all along: a striking young woman whose burnished skin and angular features tell of deep indigenous roots. “I am proud to be Indian,” she told NEWSWEEK recently. “I like the way I look.”
In Brazil’s complicated social taxonomy, Moreira is a cafuza–the progeny of African and Indian ancestors. Her late father, a nightclub singer, was black. Her mother is a descendant of full-blooded native Brazilians–which native Brazilians isn’t clear. The genealogy died with Moreira’s great-grandmother, who–family legend has it–was stolen from the cradle by white hunters on the Serra do Cariri, a scarp named after a bygone Indian nation.
Native Brazilians have always inflamed the national imagination, either as menaces or mascots. For nearly 300 years, when they outnumbered the European colonists, they were seen either as barbarians at the gate or as Christians in the rough. Many massacres later, when they were no longer a threat, they could be safely resurrected as cultural icons and even heroes.
Does Moreira’s rise represent ethnic pride or opportunism? Has the fashion industry struck a blow for tolerance or found a pretty new product for the ethnic market? There’s room for skepticism, but mar-keting “Indianness” is itself proof of changing attitudes. Moreira is not about to shed her heels to return to the reservation, but she no longer fancies becoming a Brazilian Barbie. “I have a dream,” she confesses. “I’d love to spend some days with an Indian tribe, learning their dances and eating their food.” Which tribe? “I’m not sure,” she says, flicking her jet hair and flashing a camera-ready grin. There won’t be any lack of invitations.
