Wari '
The Wari ' or Waricaca' are an indigenous people in the Brazilian jungle of the Amazon basin .
Their original settlement area was on the banks of the Mamoré and Madeira rivers in the Brazilian state of Rondônia . Like many of the ethnic groups resident there, the Wari 'also belong to the Txapakura language family . Despite their first encounter with white settlers in 1798, who gave them the name "Pakaa Nova" , they lived largely in isolation for a long time and were able to preserve their traditions until 1960.
Today they live in eight settlements in five reserves in Rondônia. In 1998, 1,930 Wari 'were counted.
Due to their cannibalistic tradition, the Wari 'were the subject of ethnological research. The ethnologist Beth Conklin of Vanderbilt University in Texas described the traditions of the wari in her book Consuming Grief . They practiced exocannibalism by bringing defeated enemies into their villages to be consumed there. But also their own tribesmen were ritually eaten after their death in a funeral ceremony (endocannibalism).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Beth Conklin (2001): Consuming Grief Compassionate Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society . Austin, Texas, University of Texas Press.
- ↑ Wari ': Funerary cannibalism . English article on the Povos Indígenas no Brasil (Indigenous Peoples of Brazil) website .