The slow occupation of the westermost Brazil is registered in a series of archeological and historical vestiges along the side of that which was the natural way of human penetration in the region: the Paraguay River. Along its axle it is possible to find, still today, "saladeiros" ruines or "charqueadas", which were the biggest economical project in the Pantanal until the middle of the 20th century. Big houses were seats of important farms from where the pioneers of the occupation of the rural plains left, archeological sites that register various periods of the native occupancy in the region, among other signs of the human presence in the Pantanal. The survey of this inheritance and the analyses of its potential role on the cultural literacy and identity mobilization of the Pantanal population, having the tourism activity as support are the aims of this study.
cultural literacy; identity; Pantanal; tourism