Wayapi

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Wayapi , also Oyampi or Wajãpi , are a people of South American lowland Indians of the Tupí-Guaraní language group .

First contacts were probably made around 250 years ago. With around 10,000 people, the Wayapi represented one of the most important indigenous peoples in northeastern Brazil in the 18th and 19th centuries. Other indigenous peoples feared the Wayapi, who were considered to be militantly organized, cruel warriors and cannibals.

Terra Indígena Waiãpi

Today's settlement areas are in the state of Amapá , here in the 6070 km² Terra Indígena Waiãpi reserve , in Pará in the south and in French Guiana in the north . As of 2010, the number was given as 956 people living in Amapá and Pará, as well as 950 indigenous people in French Guiana in 2009. The population appears to have doubled since 1999. 300 were able to maintain their previous isolation. Their villages are located in the headwaters of the Oyapock . This jungle region has been declared a restricted area by the government. Access to strangers is strictly forbidden.

Kusiwa

Kusiwa is the name for a visual language that is attached to the body and objects. It was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008.

Trivia

In 1979 the Austrian Elfie Stejskal lived with the Wayapi Indians for eleven months. She published her memories in a book.

Web link

Individual evidence

  1. Povos indígenas no Brasil. 2006/2010. Instituto Socioambiental, 2011, p. 15 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  2. ^ Oral and graphic expressions of the Wajapi. In: unesco.org. UNESCO, accessed on May 28, 2019 .