Dow (people)
The Dow are an indigenous people in the Amazon basin in northwestern Brazil who belong to the Maku ethnic group . They live on the right side of the Rio Negro in an area commonly known as the Alto Rio Negro . Indigenous peoples from three major language families live in this area : the Maku , which also includes the Dow, Arawak and Tukano tribes.
The word Dow is its own name and means people . In literature and in their habitat they are often referred to as Kamã , but this has a disparaging meaning.
In the 1980s, the Dow were on the verge of extinction due to an imbalance in the number of men and women. There were few women left, and many of them were old and unable to bear children. In 1984 there were only 56 Dow left. Since then, the situation has improved significantly and the Dow are no longer threatened with extinction despite their small population. In addition to their own language , which is spoken by all Dow as their mother tongue , many can also speak nheengatu and Portuguese .
Today the Dow have permanent contact with non-indigenous people, mostly in the nearby city of São Gabriel da Cachoeira . They have become victims of alcoholism and suffer from constant malnutrition as a result of the decline in the forest areas around São Gabriel. They are easy victims of Amazon traders in boats who pay for the local production of lianas, latex, hemp fibers, etc. with goods. The traders hold them in perpetual debt and give them schnapps to guarantee their domination and exploitation.
Web links
- Silvana Andrade Martins: Fonologia e Gramática Dâw ( Memento of April 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- Valteir Martins: Reconstrução Fonológica do Protomaku Oriental ( Memento of October 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ^ Martins, Silvana Andrade: Fonologia e Gramática Dâw . Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics, Utrecht, Netherlands 2004, p. 1 .
- ^ Martins, Silvana Andrade: Fonologia e Gramática Dâw . Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics, Utrecht, Netherlands 2004, p. 2 .
- ↑ Martins, Valteir: Reconstrução Fonológica do Protomaku Oriental . Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics, Utrecht, Netherlands 2005, p. 21 .
- ^ Martins, Silvana Andrade: Fonologia e Gramática Dâw . Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics, Utrecht, Netherlands 2004, p. 4 .
- ↑ a b Martins, Valteir: Reconstrução Fonológica do Protomaku Oriental . Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics, Utrecht, Netherlands 2005, p. 22 .
- ↑ Epps, Patricia: A Grammar of Hup . Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin 2008, p. 4 .
- ^ Jorge Pozzobon: Maku - Aspectos contemporâneos. (No longer available online.) In: Instituto Socioambiental. January 1999, archived from the original on December 18, 2009 ; Retrieved September 26, 2010 (Portuguese).