Kayapo
The Kayapó , also Kaiapó or Portuguese Caiapó , are an indigenous people of the Amazon region in the Brazilian Mato Grosso and Pará . They speak a language of the same name that belongs to the Gê language family and live on the Rio Xingu , a tributary of the Amazon . The villages are also distributed along the Irirí , Bacajá and Fresco rivers . The areas of the Kayapo are located in dense tropical rainforest, in which only a few open grassland areas occur.
The tribe had 9,000 members in 2013. These are divided into 13 groups, each with around 30-100 members, who are in contact with the Brazilian majority society, as well as three to four previously completely isolated groups . Subgroups here are, for example: Xikrin , Gorotire , Menkragnoti and Metyktire .
The term Kayapo appears from the 19th century. This name, which probably means "similarity to monkeys" and which refers to a ritual in which the men perform dances with monkey masks, was given to the Kayapo from neighboring tribes. They call themselves me bê ngôkre , which means “people of the space between the waters”.
Your reserve consists of five contiguous areas with defined borders, as large as the five new federal states in Germany.
history
The oldest information about the Kayapo comes from the end of the 19th century. At that time they were divided into three main groups. These were the Ira'amranhre (those who walk on the plain), Goroti-re (the people of the large group) and Porekry (the people of the small bamboo). The total population at that time was about 7,000 people.
The first contacts between the Kayapo and whites took place between 1805 and 1810 and had catastrophic consequences for the Kayapo: the colonialists devastated the fields, women and children were abducted and sold as slaves.
Kayapo villages
A Kayapo village is a politically and economically independent entity. It is laid out in the traditional circular shape, with the residential buildings surrounding a large open village square. The village square is a popular meeting place and the place where speeches are given. On the village square there is also the men's house , which serves as a workshop and sleeping place for unmarried men.
The village is divided into residential units assigned to specific families. If a Kayapo man marries, he moves in with his wife. If the number of residents in a house becomes too large, the residents split up and build another house in the immediate vicinity of the first one.
Each residential unit is associated with certain privileges. The residents of the respective units may, for example, perform certain dances, take on ritual functions, wear certain jewelry or keep and breed certain animal species.
The forest area around the village as well as the nearest river section and the corn fields also belong to the village. The area outside is considered an anti-social area. There people can be turned into wild animals or ghosts, get sick or kill relatives for no reason. The further away from the village, the more anti-social the forest is, and the dangers also increase.
economy
The Kayapo operate subsistence farming . This consists of hunting, slash-and- burn farming , collecting wild fruits and fishing. The women, in particular, are busy growing food. Each family has their own fields in which they grow yams, corn, sugar cane, bananas, cassava, tropical fruits, cotton and tobacco. The fields are 2–6 km from the village.
The men have no domestic duties, they go hunting and fishing, make tools and have conversations in the men's house. The men usually hunt alone, rifles are used instead of the traditional weapons. Bows, arrows, clubs and spears can only be found in ceremonies these days. Above all, large game such as tapirs , peccaries , deer, monkeys, wild chickens, turtles and pakas are hunted . Jaguars, pumas and ocelots are also killed, but not specifically hunted.
The women are responsible for working in the fields, preparing food and raising the children.
The Kayapo also earn money by selling handicrafts and nuts, and they allow loggers and gold prospectors to work in their area for money.
Rituals
Naming
The Kayapo distinguish between two different names: the common name, and the beautiful or big name. The usual one refers to appearance, environment or life experience, for example, today Brazilian names are also adopted. The beautiful name is made up of two parts: the ceremonial prefix and a suffix , with eight different prefixes, each related to a specific naming ceremony . The names are given by relatives, for the boys by the grandfathers and uncles on the maternal side, for the girls by the grandmothers and aunts on the paternal side. The beautiful names must also be confirmed by the respective ceremony.
Initiation rite
The initiation rite is a complicated process, including ritual marriage. The rite lasts one to four months and always takes place together with the naming ceremony or the fishing ritual. It is only held every 5–10 years, although only 5–8 boys between the ages of 12 and 14 take part, so that not all boys can be honored in the ceremony.
Ages
From birth to death, the Kayapo are divided into different ages. Each level has a different name and special behavioral norms, pieces of jewelry, body paints and haircuts. The transition is always based on socially determined or timed events.
From birth to the time the child learns to walk, both genders are referred to as “the little ones”. The mother takes them everywhere in a sling. The piercing of the girls' earlobes and the piercing of the lower lip of the boys take place a few days after the birth. This hole is gradually enlarged until a lip washer is inserted at puberty , symbolizing the ability to speak beautifully and intelligently. The children are also extensively painted and decorated.
From early childhood to puberty, boys are referred to as “the one who begins to enter the men's house”. At this age, they become more independent from their parents.
Before the onset of puberty, the rite of passage is performed. A person not related to the boy leads him to the men's house and removes all of his jewelry. Instead, the boy's entire body is painted black. The boy is then a member of the “painted”. The person not related to him becomes the surrogate father. The boy then lives in the men's house from the beginning of the ceremony until the conception of the first legitimate child. He will then no longer be considered a member of his birth household. At this age, the boys also learn manual skills and ceremonially handed down knowledge.
Two short important ceremonies are performed at the onset of puberty. In the first the boy is painted for the last time by his surrogate father, in the second he receives his penis sleeve, which makes him one of the “those who sleep in a new way”. After these two ceremonies, the young men are considered fit for marriage, but the wedding is usually delayed as much as possible. The men are still sleeping in the men's house, but often sneak out at night to visit girls in their houses. The marriage is only considered consummate when the woman has a child, before that it can easily be dissolved.
From the birth of the first child, the father belongs to those “who have children”, which is divided into the younger fathers “those with new children” and the older “those with many (four or more) children”.
If the man becomes a grandfather, he belongs to the "old people" who take on a more passive role in society.
The Me Rax
The Kayapo call the Me Rax or "great people" men who have acquired a special status and fame due to a leadership role, a ritual function or the possession of a certain knowledge. There are six categories in which you can become a Me Rax: shamans , connoisseurs of medicinal plants, speakers, ritual experts, scouts and leaders. Except for rhetoric and shamanism, which are reserved for the "old people", they are practiced by men of all ages. The functions are not passed on, but are given based on character traits such as bravery, eloquence, ambition and exemplary behavior.
Handicrafts
Handicraft objects are almost exclusively made by men, women only make crochet work. A single man is not allowed to produce all works of art, as a distinction is made between categories of specialized craftsmen.
The Kayapo are particularly known for their feather headdress . In order to get the feathers they need, groups of men hunt certain bird species for about a month or more. Blunt arrows are used to shoot the birds from the tree, but not kill them. The shot birds are then taken away and kept as pets, but the right to keep birds is reserved for women. The right is passed on within the shared apartment. The problem here is that people who have the right to process certain feathers often do not have the right to keep the associated birds, which is why an exchange system has been developed.
The Kayapo have been selling their feather headdresses in the cities since the 1970s. After realizing that tourists prefer newly made goods, objects were made specifically for sale, with the Kayapo distinguishing between feather headdresses for their own use and those for sale. For the feather headdress intended for sale, they only use types of feathers that they do not use for their own feather headdress. This led to the development of a new art form that can be assigned to Airport Art .
Land rights and environmental issues
A few years ago the Kayapo were able to prevent a project by the local mining companies and thus avert the destruction of their livelihoods. The Kayapo tribe became widely known for taking advantage of satellite television while its members protested the construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric power station . This was to prevent the upper reaches of the Rio Xingu from being flooded. They kept in touch via Facebook, posted videos of their ceremonies and meetings on the Internet, and found prominent comrades-in-arms like Sting . The protest was initially successful because in 1989 the credit for the construction of the dam was refused until further notice. However, there was more later. In a new plan, the area of the planned reservoir has been reduced to a quarter. The first building permit for this was granted on January 26, 2011. Construction work began shortly thereafter. When fully expanded, the power plant should achieve a gross nominal output of 11,233.1 megawatts. It should go online in 2015 as the third largest hydropower plant in the world. In fact, the first water turbines with a nominal output of 649.9 megawatts were officially commissioned on May 5, 2016. The power plant should be completed by 2019. [outdated]
literature
- Verswijer, Gustaaf: Kaiapo - Material Culture - Spiritual World, Museum of Ethnology, Frankfurt am Main, Collection 9: America, 1995.
Web links
- Kayapó - The Guardians of the Amazon . National Geographic, January 2014
Individual evidence
- ↑ Chip Brown: Kayapó: The Guardians of the Amazon . Spiegel Online , December 22, 2013
- ↑ everyculture.com
- ^ The New Brazil vs anti-modern celebs | spiked
- ↑ Brazil puts controversial mega power plant into operation . Spiegel Online, May 6, 2016.