Friends, family and Brazilian indigenous groups have gathered to mourn Bruno Pereira who was killed with British journalist Dom Phillips during a trip to the Amazon rainforest.
The expert on indigenous peoples was to be cremated following the ceremony.
Members of Xukuru indigenous group sang mourning songs close to Pereira’s sealed casket during the ceremony in Recife.
Mr Pereira and Mr Phillips disappeared on June 5 in the Javari Valley region, close to Brazil’s border with Peru and Colombia.
Police investigators said last week the bodies of the two men were found deep into the forest.
Police have arrested three people in connection with the crime.
Mr Pereira had been trying to help Indigenous groups of the Javari Valley create a 350-kilometre (220-mile) trail marking the southwestern border of their territory to help protect it from encroachment by ranchers and other outsiders.
He was helping Mr Phillips during a reporting trip to the region when they were attacked.
The journalist was writing a book on Amazon preservation.
His funeral has been scheduled for Sunday in Rio de Janeiro.