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26-410: The Upper Xingu region was heavily populated prior to European and African contact. Densely populated settlements developed from 1200 to 1600 CE. Ancient roads and bridges linked communities that were often surrounded by ditches or moats. The villages were pre-planned and featured circular plazas. Archaeologists have unearthed 19 villages so far. Kuikuro oral history says Portuguese slavers arrived in

52-909: A large number of texts, some used in local schools. Linguist Bruna Franchetto collected audio recordings of stories told in Kuikuro with transcriptions, which are permanently archived at the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America . According to archaeological research, the history of the ancestors of the Kuikuros began around a thousand years ago. According to studies done in the Xingu region, by AD 1400 indigenous villages had reached great proportions, with buildings, palisades , bridges, and entry gates, with bridges and roads having congruent angles to each other. It

78-850: A means of letting people release the anger they have towards one another, and defending themselves from invasions from other tribes. The Xingu classify people into three different categories that they believe exist because the Sun gave people different personal traits; these categories are the Xingu people, the other indigenous people, and the white people. In a Wauja myth, the Xingu are seen as peaceful whereas these other two groups are seen as violent. The Xingu people maintain peace within their own tribes through trade, intermarriage, and ceremonies. Tribes specialize in specific items, such as pottery (Wauja tribe), wooden bowls (Kamayurá tribes), accessories (Kalapalo and Kuikuru tribes) and decorations (Yawalapití tribe) made from shells, and salt (Trumaí and Mehinaku tribes). For

104-518: A state of seclusion during these initiations. They can then diagnose diseases and causes of natural disasters and theft in the village. Genipa americana Genipa americana ( / ˈ dʒ ɛ n ɪ p ə / ) is a species of trees in the family Rubiaceae . It is native to the tropical forests of North and South America , as well as the Caribbean . Genipa americana trees are up to 30 m tall and up to 60 cm dbh . Their bark

130-513: A women’s conference with around 200 attendees on the Ilha Grande where they discussed issues concerning climate change, deforestation, concerns about President Jair Bolsonaro ’s treatment of indigenous peoples, and the distribution between gender, occupations, and leadership. In some families, the men carried out household tasks while the women participated in the conference. Between July and August 2019, 147 square kilometers or 57.8 square miles of

156-576: Is estimated that nearly 10,000 natives lived in the region at the time. One of the first contact of the Kuikuros with Europeans was with the German Karl von den Steinen’s 1884 expedition. Steinen is known in Kuikuro narratives as Kalusi, "the first white man to come in peace." The Kuikuro’s oral history extends back to even before Steinen, to the first European man to visit the Xingu, though these people were not like Steinen, and captured and killed natives, and were known as bandeirantes. During contact with

182-657: Is known as the genip tree / ˈ dʒ ɛ n ɪ p / and the fruit as genipap / ˈ dʒ ɛ n ɪ p æ p / . Colombia : jagua, caruto, huito ; Brazil : jenipapo , formerly genipapo ; Costa Rica : guaitil, tapaculo ; Nicaragua : tapaculo, yigualtí ; Mexico : shagua, xagua, maluco ; Perú : huito, vito, jagua ; Argentina : ñandipá ; Puerto Rico : jagua ; Bolivia : bí Its name has been reconstructed as we'e (*weʔe) in Proto - Tucanoan . The following compounds have been isolated from G. americana : genipic acid, genipinic acid, genipin (all three from

208-473: Is smooth with little fissures. The leaves are opposite, obovate, or obovate oblong, 10–35 cm long, 6–13 cm wide, and glossy dark green, with entire margin, acute or acuminate apex, and attenuated base. The inflorescences are cymes up to 10 cm long. The flowers are white to yellowish, slightly fragrant, calyx bell-shaped, corolla at 2–4.5 cm long, trumpet-shaped, and five- or six-lobed. The five short stamens are inserted on top of

234-469: The Aweti , Kalapalo , Kamaiurá , Kayapó , Kuikuro , Matipu , Mehinako , Nahukuá , Suyá , Trumai , Wauja and Yawalapiti . The different tribes comprising the Xingu have not been reported to battle each other in war. The only violence seen between the groups are murdering for witchcraft and wrestling matches that take place either between people of the same tribe or between people of different tribes as

260-663: The Mato Grosso region of Brazil . Their language, Kuikuro , is a part of the Cariban language family. The Kuikuro have many similarities with other Xingu tribes. They have a population of 592 in 2010, up from 450 in 2002. The Kuikuro are likely the descendants of the people who built the settlements known to archaeologists as Kuhikugu , located at the headwaters of the Xingu River . The settlements were probably inhabited from around 1,500 years ago to about 400 years ago; after this point

286-421: The jenipapo tree and the red paint came from urucum seeds. Xingu people have historically used fire as a landscaping tool. For centuries, they have understood and utilized the environment based on oral traditions. Xingu tribes from the twenty-first century are noticing changes in the level of fire in the rainforest as well as hotter temperatures, changing rain patterns, and higher river levels. For generations,

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312-457: The Alto Xingu, where their current political status has kept them protected against foreign intruders. By the mid-twentieth century this number had been reduced by foreign epidemic diseases such as flu, measles, smallpox and malaria to less than 1,000. Only an estimated 500 Xingu peoples were alive in the 1950s. The Brazilian Villas-Bôas brothers visited the area beginning in 1946, and pushed for

338-487: The Europeans, many deadly diseases were distributed to the natives and their numbers dropped dramatically. It is estimated that the population dropped from 3,000 natives in 1900 to little over 700 by the end of 1940. The Kuikuro’s religion is a mixture of Shamanist and healing beliefs. Their beliefs are based on traditional narratives that explain how and why things exist. They believe that Giti (Sun) and Alukuma (Moon) created

364-650: The Kuikuru and Mehinaku tribes, the percentages of marriages that occur between members of these tribes and other tribes are 30% and 35% respectively. Members of the Yawalapití tribe try to marry people from the Kamayurá, Kuikuru, Kalapalo, and Mehinaku tribes. One religious practice that the Xingu engage in involves fishing, as many people within the Xingu communities depend on eating fish to provide them with protein. Specifically, shamans expel smoke from herbs in an attempt to prevent

390-559: The Xingu and other tribes in the South American lowlands have been using the emergence of the Pleiades to predict the start of the rainy season, but now this method is not able to be used as consistently. Evidence of the rising river is seen in a meeting of Waurá elders about the year 2005, when turtles failed to hatch because the river rose at an earlier point in the year than what was observed in previous years. In May 2019, Xingu women held

416-514: The Xingu participated in a funeral ceremony called the Kuarup, where ritual dances and combat are performed to honor the cycle of life. The combat ritual consists of a competition in which warriors from various tribes perform a dance followed by a wrestling match. The Kuarup also consists of a feast. Men honored the life of Aritana by holding a parade where they blew bamboo trumpets and by painting their bodies black and red. The black paint came from fruit of

442-462: The Xingu region around 1750. Xinuguano population was estimated in the tens of thousands but was dramatically reduced by diseases and slavery by the Portuguese. In the centuries since the penetration of the Europeans into South America, the Xingu fled from different regions to avoid the spread of deadly disease and enslavement by the Portuguese. By the end of the 19th century, about 3,000 natives lived at

468-632: The Xingu’s land was destroyed, which was a 172% increase from the July to August period in 2018. Factors that contribute to the loss of land include invasions, illegal activity, and forest fires . The recent changes in Xingu land have caused the loss of plants used in medicine. In August 2019, Xingu women joined the First Brazilian Indigenous Women’s March in Brasilia . The purpose of the march

494-403: The age of 71. The members of the Xingu community commemorated the victims of COVID-19 by putting four painted tree trunks at the center of the village. The spirits are believed to be contained within the tree trunks and are believed to move to the underworld to be with their ancestors. The death of Aritana and three Xingu elders caused women to cry for multiple days. To commemorate Aritana’s death,

520-503: The corolla tube. The fruit is a thick-skinned edible greyish berry 10–12 cm long, 5–9 cm in diameter. Genipa americana is native to the tropical forests of the Americas , from the Caribbean south to Argentina . It is present from sea level up to 1200 m of elevation, although some argue the original native range as being northern South America . In English, the tree

546-463: The creation of the Parque Indígena do Xingu , eventually established in 1961. Their story is told in a film, Xingu . The number of Xingu living there in 32 settlements has risen again to over 3000 inhabitants, half of them younger than 15 years. The Xingu living in this region have similar habits and social systems, despite different languages. Specifically, they consist of the following peoples:

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572-553: The fishermen from being harmed by alligators. The community participates in the preparation of the fish, in which many fish are cooked on an open fire. Women prepare beiju , which are pancakes that are made of cassava . All of the Xingu tribes attend ceremonies to inaugurate new tribal chiefs and honor deceased chiefs. Yawalapiti Chief Aritana and eleven other Xingu people died from the COVID-19 virus. Aritana passed away in August 2020 at

598-689: The other three being the Kalapalo , Nahukuá and Matipu languages . The Kuikuro language is still used in all aspects of life of the Kuikuros, except with communicating with other tribes. Intermarriage and Increased access to television and trading with the outside world has increased the need for the use of Portuguese . Tribal leaders and men most often know Portuguese, and it is rarer for women to know it, but this has been changing in recent years. An orthography has been developed for Kuikuro and other Upper Xingu languages for training native teachers and creating educational materials. These teachers have now written

624-520: The population may have been reduced by diseases introduced by Europeans or, indirectly, by other native tribes who had traded with Europeans. Stories of Kuhikugu may have inspired the British explorer Percy Fawcett on his ill-fated expedition looking for the " Lost City of Z " in the 1920s. The Kuikuro language is a language of the Karib language family, one of four dialects from the southern Karib language,

650-492: The world, but they also believe in the ancestors of the sun and moon and how they were created. They also believe in Itseke, beings that live in the waters and in the forest that bring illness and death. The Kuikuro follow shamans , who serve as religious leaders and healers. The shamans can also connect with the Itseke, while ordinary people can not. The shamans go through many rituals and initiations to become shamans, and must be in

676-424: Was to promote the defense of indigenous lands and allow indigenous women to be seen in and participate in places outside of their tribes. Stenzel, Kris & Bruna Franchetto (eds.) (2017). On This and Other Worlds: Voices from Amazonia . Berlin: Language Science Press. ISBN   978-3-96110-018-7 . doi : 10.5281/zenodo.892102 . Open access. Kuikuro The Kuikuro are an indigenous people from

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