Rio Xingu

	Rio Xingu
	Rio Xingu
	Data
location	Brazil
River system	Amazon
Drain over	Amazon → Atlantic
source	from Rio Ronuro and Rio Culuene ; 11 ° 56 ′ 19 ″ S , 53 ° 32 ′ 48 ″ W
Source height	275 m
muzzle	in the lower Amazon coordinates: 1 ° 31 ′ 27 ″ S , 51 ° 52 ′ 2 ″ W 1 ° 31 ′ 27 ″ S , 51 ° 52 ′ 2 ″ W;
length	1980 km
Catchment area	520,292 km²
Left tributaries	Rio Iriri
	Rio Xingu

The Rio Xingu [ˌχiu ʃĩˈɡu] is one of the great right tributaries of the Amazon in the lowlands of Brazil .

River course

Kalapalo Indios with canoe

The Rio Xingu is formed in the northern part of the plateau of Mato Grosso by the union of the rivers Ronuro and Culuene , whereby the lower reaches of the latter from the confluence of the Rio Sete do Setembro is often already regarded as the Xingu. The headwaters of the Xingu are characterized by impenetrable wilderness, extensive swamps and numerous lakes.

From here, the Xingu crosses the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso and Pará in several large arcs in a northerly direction for around 1980 kilometers before it finally flows into the lower Amazon at Porto de Moz .

The Xingu is characterized by rapids and waterfalls formed by the erosion of Paleozoic layers in the south of the Amazon basin.

history

The Rio Xingu was known until the exploration by the doctor , ethnologist and explorer Karl von den Steinen in 1884 and 1887, but little information was available about the course of the river and its inhabitants.

After the Europeans conquered the continent, it was the Spaniard Francisco de Orellana who was the first to explore, explore and develop the lower Amazon in 1541/42 . Until 1666, a map in Jansson's Atlas , which was created around 1630, only showed the course up to the registered "waterfalls". In 1843 Prince Adalbert of Prussia undertook a trip up the Rio Xingu to a settlement called Piranhacoara. The first reliable information about this river that could be used for a map comes from him. The rest of the course of the Rio Xingu was terra incognita until the exploration by Karl von den Steinen .

etymology

In 1637 the Rio Xingu was named Paranahyba ("clear river") by Christoval de Acuna , a companion of Pedro Teixeira , who made Francisco de Orellana's journey in the opposite direction from the confluence to Quito . In a description by Mauricio de Heriarte (1662–67) the river Paranaiba is mentioned. In the maps of Father Samuel Fritz , which reflect the knowledge of the Strohm Maragon around 1700, the Rio Xingu with the name Aoripana is drawn. There is also a village of Xingu on the map, which was later the inspiration for the river's name. Other spellings were Paranyba and Paranatinga .

Karl von den Steinen preferred the phonetic spelling, which he also found in the Chronicle of the Jesuits written by Bettendorf (in the state of Maranhão from 1661 to around 1694).

The Xingu is / was written by the Americans Zingu , French Chingu , English Shingu and Portuguese Xingu .

Dam projects

As early as the late 1980s, the then government of Brazil had plans to damming the Rio Xingu and using it to generate electricity. The protest of the indigenous peoples threatened by displacement in Altamira in February 1989 had led to international protests and ultimately caused the dam project to fail.

During its second term in office, the Brazilian government under President Lula da Silva reactivated the project to build the huge Belo Monte hydropower plant on the Rio Xingu in a modified form. More than 400 square kilometers of rain and riparian forest areas with the people living there are threatened by this world's third largest dam for generating electricity. In May 2008, around a thousand affected indigenous groups and river residents protested against the Belo Monte project in Altamira. In October 2011, a judge stopped the project. The consortium of investors appealed against the ruling and achieved that it was repealed in December 2011.

Other planned Xingu reservoirs are:

Altamira (Babaquara)
Iriri
Ipixuna
Kakraimoro
Jarina

literature

Karl von den Steinen: Through Central Brazil. Expedition to explore the Schingú in 1884 . Brockhaus, Leipzig 1886.
Gerhard Baer: Contributions to the knowledge of the Xingú source area . Diss., University of Basel 1960
Mark Münzel : The ethnological research of the Alto Xingu . In: Theodor Koch-Grünberg : The Xingu Expedition (1898–1900). A research diary . Edited by Michael Kraus. Böhlau, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-412-08204-X , pp. 435–452.

Individual evidence

^ Meyer's continents and seas: Central and South America. Published by the Geographical-Cartographic Institute Meyer

↑ von den Steinen, p. 3

↑ von den Steinen, p. 5

↑ ^a ^b ^c von den Steinen, p. 4

↑ Rettet den Regenwald eV ( Memento of the original from September 4, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2
^ NABU news from October 18, 2011
^ Wirtschaftsblatt : Brazil: Construction freeze for Belo Monte canceled by court ( memento from March 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) , December 17, 2011.
↑ International Rivers, March 2010: Proposed Dams, Xingu Basin . internationalrivers.org. Accessed July 24, 2016 (English)

Web links

Commons : Rio Xingu - collection of images, videos and audio files

[MKUM-1] Meyer's continents and seas: Central and South America. Published by the Geographical-Cartographic Institute Meyer

[2] von den Steinen, p. 3

[3] von den Steinen, p. 5

[von_den_Steinen_4-4] von den Steinen, p. 4