"One for you, many for us"

Since the first colonial contacts, the northeast of Brazil has been marked by intense processes of genocide and epistemicide of its indigenous population. These processes, opposed to non-European otherness, generated a context of strong denial of the indigenous presence in the region. Throughout the 20th century, against this backdrop, various ethnic-territorial retaking movements began, forcing the existence and rights of the indigenous peoples of the northeast to be recognised. In order to contribute to understanding this context, I analyse the political situation of the Kiriri people - located in the middle Itapicuru basin, Bahia - focusing on their intra-ethnic distinctiveness and internal divisions. To this end, I present the configuration of indigenous schools, as well as describing processes of intra-ethnic division in the light of the links between territory, school education and Kiriri emic representations of their indigenous language. I conclude that the same diacritics used to affirm ethnic unity vis-à-vis non-Indians are also used to mark the people's internal distinctions, revealing a multiplicity of Kiriri "ways of being": "one for you, many for us".