The paper analyzes the access to indigenous health in Pernambuco after the creation of the Indigenous Health Subsystem, today managed by the Indigenous Health Special Secretariat of Ministry of Health, focusing on the Xukuru indigenous people of Ororubá. From the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, a case study trying to characterize the “power relations" as a dynamic factor associated with access, using interviews, focus groups, direct observation and document analysis was conducted. It was found that these relationships at the micro and macro fields of indigenous health were important elements in ensuring access to health. The position occupied by the Indians in this field, the result of long years of conflicting relations with society and the State, alternates between the subalternity and the search for autonomy, constituent aspects of Xukuru habitus that guides them front the needs to access health. The exercise of power in access to health was associated with different types of capital assets in the field of indigenous health. The ethnic cultural capital emerged either as a facilitator, or complicating issue to the access, depending on dynamic factors and on the space relationships that have required it.
health services accessibility; health systems; health of indigenous peoples; power