The word “Kayapo” means “those who look like monkeys.” The Kayapo are called this by other groups of people because they have a ritual involving a monkey mask. However, the Kayapo prefer to call themselves something different. The Kayapo also call themselves “Mebengokre,” which means “people of the wellspring.”
Full Answer
What is the Kayapo tribe?
The Kayapo ( Portuguese: Caiapó [kɐjɐˈpɔ]) people are indigenous peoples in Brazil who inhabit a vast area spreading across the states of Pará and Mato Grosso, south of the Amazon River and along Xingu River and its tributaries This pattern has given rise to the nickname the Xingu tribe.
What do Kayapos teach their young people?
Most Kayapos have continued to teach their young people the skills necessary to survive in the jungle environment, especially hunting and fishing, as well as the art of trekking, and the making of canoes and the skill to use them.
What does a Kayapo look like?
The birds found in the Amazon are naturally bright-colored; the Kayapo do not dye the feathers. Kayapo children wear cloth or beaded bands with colors representing their tribes. Typically these bands are tied below the waist or crisscrossed around the torso.
What are Kayapo holidays?
Kayapo holidays are also linked to their ceremonies, such as the initiation rites held when a boy reaches puberty or when he receives, as a small boy, his special ancestral name. The important dry-season celebration called Bemp (after a local fish) also includes marriage rites as well as initiation and naming ceremonies.
What does Kayapo mean in English?
Name. The term Kayapo, also spelled Caiapó or Kaiapó, came from neighboring peoples in the early 19th century and means "those who look like monkeys".
What is the history behind the Kayapo tribe?
The Kayapo Indians are one of the main Amerindian (native) groups that remain in the rain forest around the Amazon River in Brazil. The Kayapos resisted assimilation (absorption into the dominant culture) and were known traditionally as fierce warriors. They raided enemy tribes and sometimes fought among themselves.
What do the Kayapo tribe believe in?
The Kayapos believe their ancestors learned how to live communally from social insects, such as bees. This is why mothers and children paint each other's bodies with patterns that look like animal markings, including those of bees. The flamboyant Kayapo headdress with feathers radiating outward represents the universe.
What language do the Kayapo speak?
Northern Jê languageMẽbêngôkre, sometimes referred to as Kayapó (Mẽbêngôkre: Mẽbêngôkre kabẽn [mẽbeŋoˈkɾɛ kaˈbɛ̃n]) is a Northern Jê language (Jê, Macro-Jê) spoken by the Kayapó and the Xikrin people in the north of Mato Grosso and Pará in Brazil. There are around 8,600 native speakers since 2010 based on the 2015 Ethnologue 18th edition.
What country does the Kayapo tribe live in?
BrazilianThe Kayapo are a powerful and well-known Brazilian tribe who inhabit a vast area of the Amazon across the Central Brazilian Plateau.
Where are Kayapo people found?
Located on a plateau in central Brazil, far south of the Amazon River and in the states of Mato Grosso and Pará, Kayapó land is the largest tract of Indigenous territory in Brazil and the largest swath of relatively pristine forest in the Amazon's southeast, a region known as the ”arc of deforestation.” Despite ...
How many Kayapo are there?
The Kayapó maintain legal control over an area of 10.6 million hectares (around 26 million acres) of primary tropical forest and savanna in the southeastern Amazon region of Brazil. They number approximately 7,000 people scattered across 46 villages in five territories.
How do Kayapo people live?
The Kayapo tribe live alongside the Xingu River in several scattered villages ranging in population from one hundred to one thousand people. They have small hills scattered around their land and the area is criss-crossed by river valleys. Their villages are typically made up of about dozen huts.
What tools do the Korubo have for hunting?
Their hunting and war weapon of choice is the club, and aside from poison darts they use no other ranged weapons - their workday is about 4–5 hours long, and often live inside large, communal huts known as malocas.
Is Amazon forest in Africa?
The Amazon rainforest is located in South America. How big is the Amazon rainforest? The Amazon basin is roughly the size of the forty-eight contiguous United States. The forest itself covered roughly 634 million hectares in 2020, of which about 529 million hectares was classified as primary forest.
How long has the Awa tribe been around?
The Awá tribe, also known as the Guajá or Awá-Guajá, lives deep within the Amazon rainforest. But since approximately 1800, around the same time as the arrival of the European colonizers, the tribe learned to adopt a nomadic lifestyle in order to avoid European incursions in the jungle.
Where is the Amazon rainforest?
The Amazon Rainforest Location The Amazon covers a huge area (6.7 million sq km) of South America. Nearly 60% of the rainforest is in Brazil, while the rest is shared among eight other countries—Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, Venezuela and French Guiana, an overseas territory of France.
How does the Kayapo tribe survive?
They use over 650 plants in the rainforest for medicine. Because they rely on the rainforest to survive, they have fought against the Brazilian government when the government wanted to build a dam, cut down trees, and mine for gold in the rainforest. The Kayapo live in villages with their large families.
How do Kayapo people live?
The Kayapo tribe live alongside the Xingu River in several scattered villages ranging in population from one hundred to one thousand people. They have small hills scattered around their land and the area is criss-crossed by river valleys. Their villages are typically made up of about dozen huts.
How does the Kayapo tribe farm?
'Slash and burn ' agriculture is a subsistence farming system practised by the Kayapo Amerindians in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. A small area of land (approx. 1 hectare) is cleared using stone axes and machetes . These clearings are called chagras .
What tools do the Korubo have for hunting?
Their hunting and war weapon of choice is the club, and aside from poison darts they use no other ranged weapons - their workday is about 4–5 hours long, and often live inside large, communal huts known as malocas.
What is the language of the Kayapo?
The language spoken by the Kayapos belongs to the Ge linguistic family and, as a result of diverse splits within Kayapo groups, many dialects have emerged. However, all these particular dialects lead to the recognition of a common root that makes them part of a same culture. The Kayapos, for whom oratory is a highly-valued social practice, define themselves as those who speak well in opposition to all the groups who do not speak their language.
What do the Kayapo believe?
As opposed to the beliefs that some missionaries have brought to the Amazon, including the idea that after death people either descend into Hell or rise up to Heaven, the Kayapos believe that at death a person goes to the village of the dead, where people sleep during the day and hunt at night. There, old people become younger and children become older. In that village in the afterlife, Kayapos believe they have their own traditional assembly building. Kayapo women, it is thought, are permitted only short visits to deliver food to their male relatives.
What is the Kayapos organization?
The Kayapos social organization is unique among South American Amerindians in its complexity . Every village is divided into moieties (dual groupings), clans, and associations according to age, sex, and occupation. These are found in various forms and combinations in different places. Participation between these clans takes place in almost all aspects of life such as games, ceremonies, warfare, settlement patterns, marriage, and handicrafts. What makes so peculiar this organization structure is the fact that every relationship is unique since it is governed by the individual's relationships among clans or tribes.
What do the Kayapos wear?
On occasions body paint will be worn (usually geometric designs in black or red paint), and adornments, such as shell earrings or brightly colored feathers, are worn to decorate the head.
What are the skills of the Kayapo?
Traditionally, the Kayapos did not develop sporting skills separately from skills that were useful for work. Hunting, fishing, and trekking, for example, have now become sporting activities in White society, but in Kayapo society they are vital to the survival of the people, even though aspects of these activities are also enjoyed in their own right by the Kayapos. Some may obtain great pleasure from teaching the younger members of the tribe the early steps necessary to master these skills, while acquiring prowess in any or all of them is a source of pride.
Where are the Kayapos located?
The Ge peoples inhabit the east of Brazil and the north of Paraguay and consist of a wide range of different tribes located in different geographic zones. The Northwestern. Ge tribes include the Timbira, Northern and Southern Kayapo, and Suya. The central Ge peoples divide themselves into Xavante, Xerente, and Akroa, while the Southern Ge, or Kaingang, include the Coroado and others. The Ge community, as whole, probably does not exceed 10,000 human beings.
What is the purpose of storytelling in Kayapo?
Storytelling is a significant aspect of Kayapo life and a means of transmitting Kayapo legends and history, as well as a way of preserving the identity of a people. It is also a form of entertainment. Mostly, however, it forms part of the rituals that give structure and meaning to the life of the Kayapos, interwoven with dance rituals and ceremonies that follow a definite cycle, linked to nature and to the changing seasons, throughout the year.
Introduction
- The Kayapos are part of the SouthAmerican Amerindian peoples who speak languages of the Macro-Ge group. The Ge peoples inhabit the east of Brazil and the north of Paraguay and consist of a wide range of different tribes located in different geographic zones. The Northwestern. Ge tribes include the Timbira, Northern and Southern Kayapo, and Suya. Th...
Location and Homeland
- When the Portuguese conquerors first arrived in Brazil, there were about 5 million Amerindians, but today there are only about 200,000, of which a few thousand are Kayapos, living along the Xingu River in the eastern part of the Amazon rain-forest, in several scattered villages. Their lands consist of tropical rain forest and savanna. The Amazon basin, which includes the Amazon Rive…
Language
- The language spoken by the Kayapos belongs to the Ge linguistic family and, as a result of diverse splits within Kayapo groups, many dialects have emerged. However, all these particular dialects lead to the recognition of a common root that makes them part of a same culture. The Kayapos, for whom oratory is a highly-valued social practice, define themselves as those who speak well i…
Folklore
- There is an interesting legend among the Kayapos who live along a lagoon. They say that if one rises at dawn and looks across the lagoon, one can see the ghost of a White man on horseback galloping along the shore. The strange thing about the description of this ghostly rider is that he is said to wear a full suit of armor, rather like a European knight, or perhaps a Portuguese conquer…
Religion
- As opposed to the beliefs that some missionaries have brought to the Amazon, including the idea that after death people either descend into Hell or rise up to Heaven, the Kayapos believe that at death a person goes to the village of the dead, where people sleep during the day and hunt at night. There, old people become younger and children become older. In that village in the afterlif…
Major Holidays
- Special days for the Kayapos revolve around the seasons, which in the Amazon are the dry season and the rainy season. Kayapo holidays are also linked to their ceremonies, such as the initiation rites held when a boy reaches puberty or when he receives, as a small boy, his special ancestral name. The important dry-season celebration called Bemp(after a local fish) also includes marria…
Rites of Passage
- When children are born, the marriage ties between a husband and wife are formalized. A man may have two or three wives. Young children receive special ancestral names in ceremonies that are regarded as an important means of helping the child develop social ties and his or her identity as a Kayapo. The naming ceremonies are held in each dry or rainy season, along with other rites th…
Interpersonal Relations
- The Kayapos have a traditionally hospitable way of greeting visitors to their homes. Food will be prepared by the women, and a bed made of bamboo will be laid out for a guest. On occasions body paint will be worn (usually geometric designs in black or red paint), and adornments, such as shell earrings or brightly colored feathers, are worn to decorate the head. Ceremonial life is very …
Living Conditions
- The Kayapos live in thatched-roof huts that have an open plan without room divisions inside. The thatch for the roofs is made of palm leaves. The huts are quite roomy and large enough for an entire family. Instead of using mattresses, the bedding usually consists of hammocks, which are much cooler and more comfortable in a jungle environment. Health protection in the jungle area…
Family Life
- The Kayapos social organization is unique among South American Amerindians in its complexity. Every village is divided into moieties (dual groupings), clans, and associations according to age, sex, and occupation. These are found in various forms and combinations in different places. Participation between these clans takes place in almost all aspects of life such as games, cere…