By Shiva & Brandon

Kayapo Tribe

MAP

• MAP

• Tribe details

• Land & Location

• Plants & Animals

• Climate & Seasons

• Water

• Culture

• Artifacts

Overview

• Kayapo Tribe: Indigenous people of Brazil

• Kayapo (meaning): “those who look like monkeys”

• Sub-groups: Xikrin, Gorotire, Mekranoti, Metyktire

• Population: 8638 as of 2010

• Location: Amazon Jungle

• Language: Kayapo

Tribe Details

• When the Portuguese first came to Brazil, there were about five million native Brazilian Indians.

• Today in the world, there are only 200,000 Brazilian Indians, of which a few thousand are Kayapos

• They live next to the Xingu River in the eastern part of the Amazon rain forest, in several villages

• Their land consists of rain forest and savanna (grassland)

Land & Location

• The land in Kayapo is mostly forest

• Fish is a main source of protein in the Kayapos' diet

• Wild fruits and Brazilian nuts are eaten mostly like a snack

• Vegetables are harvested, and animals such as monkey and turtle are hunted, so they could eat

• Kayapos are skilled hunters. They use darts dipped in a poison called curare,which instantly paralyzes an animal

• They purchase their basic necessities like milk and sugar from other village stores.

• Kayapo people get medicine from 650 different local plants

Plants & Animals

• The climate is moist because they live in the rain forest. It is warm most of the time. Over 100 degrees or more, annual rainfall is 1” to 5”

• The seasons in the Kayapo are two seasons. The dry season, and the wet season

• The huts they live in are very big. It is enough to fit a whole family. Instead of using mattresses like we do for our beds, the Kayapos usually use hammocks. The hammocks are much cooler and more comfortable in a jungle environment.

Climate & Seasons

• In the Amazon Jungle there is a river called “ The Xingu River.”

• Brazil is going to make the third largest dam in the world and it will be on the Xingu river. It is a major tributary of the Amazon. This dam will pose many problems to the Kayapo tribe:

• It will harm about more than 3,000 people that live along the Xingu river.

• It will flood more than 1,600 square kilometers, 85% of indigenous land

• It would be the world’s largest man made river!

• Kayapo tribe gets the water from the Xingu river for drinking and washing

Water

• The big differences of Brazilian Indian languages are from the distances of other tribes

• Because of their relationship with other tribes, they make stories, customs, languages and many more

• Even really small tribes like the Kayapos are divided into smaller tribes with their own chiefs, although they all speak the Kayapo language

• The language has the same meaning as the tribe’s name," those who look like monkeys.”

•The dialect is the same for all the other smaller tribe even though it is named after this one tribe

Culture 1 of 4Language:

Folklore:“There is an interesting legend among the Kayapos who live along a lagoon. They say that if one rises at dawn and looks across the lagoon, one can see the ghost of a white man on a horseback galloping along the shore. This ghostly rider is said to wear a full suit of armor, rather like a European knight, or perhaps a Portuguese conqueror.”

From www.everyculture.com

Culture 2 of 4

Culture 2 of 4 continued

“The Kayapos believe their ancestors learned how to live happily from social insects like bees. This is why mothers and children paint each other's bodies with patterns that look like animal or insect markings, including those of bees.The beautiful Kayapo headdress with feathers coming outward represents the universe. Its shaft is a symbol for the cotton rope by which the first Kayapo, it is said, descended from the sky. Kayapo fields and villages are built in a circle to reflect the Kayapo belief in a round universe.”

From everyculture.com

Religion:“The Kayapos believe that at death a person goes to the village of the dead, where people sleep during the day and hunt at night. There, old people become younger and children become older. In that village in the afterlife, Kayapos believe they have their own traditional assembly building. Kayapo women, it is thought, are permitted only short visits to deliver food to their male relatives.”

From everyculture.com

Culture 3 of 4

•Special days like ceremonies for the Kayapos revolve around the seasons

• In the Amazon, the seasons are the dry season and the wet season and so the holidays revolve around that

• Kayapo ceremonies are also connected to their holidays like rite of passage is held when a boy reaches puberty

• Also when a small boy gets his special ancestral name

• The important dry-season celebration called Bemp (after a local fish) also includes marriage rites as well as initiation and naming

Culture 4 of 4Major Holidays

Elements of CultureLanguage: Kayapo

Diet of Food: Mostly meat but also vegetable sometimes

Religion: The Kayapo people believe in spirits like gods sort of. They believe that all the people, after they die, they are still alive in spirit form some where.

Recreation: Playing outside with wooden toys or hunt with older men but also storytelling is a huge, fun thing to do.

Respect: Most of all the respect goes to the chief since he makes all the big decisions.

Attitude toward Animals: “ Hey, they are just animals. Lets eat them.”

Education: Education is not a big thing in a Kayapo person’s life. Their education is knowing how to hunt, cook, etc.

Currency/Money: They earn money by mining for gold and that’s how they get the necessities they need. They also bargain

Now, we will start talking about artifacts and how it shapes their culture

Intermission…

Most of the body paint is shaped by insects because they think that the insects live happily together and so they want to live like that. They usually try to copy bee’s body paint. The body paint is usually wore by women and also men.

Mouth discs are made out of wood. They are circular and they wear them in their mouths. The mouth discs are usually worn by people that are really important in the tribe like the chief. They eat, drink, and sleep with it in their mouth all day.

Body paint and Mouth Discs

•Hunting is mostly done by the men while the women cook the food. The men usually use daggers, bow and arrows, and spears. The bow and arrows are usually used for flying animals like birds. The spears are used for hunting wildlife animals like rabbits. The daggers are used for hunting fish. They would poke the dagger in the fish and cook them. Hunting is a really great activity in the Kayapo tribe. The young adults really like to hunt with the men.

Hunting

•The cooking is usually made by the women. The cooking is cooked in pots or cookers. They mainly cook fish as I said. They usually cook a huge amount of food on ceremonies or festivals. Usually on rites of passages or marriages. The cooking is a big thing in a Kayapo’s life because it is connected to hunting and that’s a big thing in the Kayapo.

Cooking

Toys

The Kayapo kids love to play with toys. They make their own toys like miniature bow and arrows. The wood they usually use is Croatian wood. The toys are a big thing in the Kayapo’s children life. They do not have iPods, Legos, video games like we do. They like to be active and not sit in the hut all day and do nothing.

Cargo Basket

This is a cargo basket. It is used when hunting animals. They put all the food that they hunt in this basket so it is safe in there. This basket can hold many parts of many different animals such as fish, tortoise, monkeys, bird and much more. It also holds berries, other fruits and vegetables.

Kayapo Headdress

The Kayapo Headdress is sort of like a crown and worn on women on cultural ceremonies or festivals. This headdress is supposed to imitate the universe and the feathers coming outward represent the sun. This headdress is a very important artifact in the Kayapo tribe.

The Village of the Dead

This place is located in the Kayapo village, but nobody knows it. They believe that the dead live here. They say that the Kayapo people are scared to go outside in the night because they think that the dead come out at night and hide in the day.

Threats to Kayapo• The Kayapo people had threats way back in

history when some mining companies were about to mine in the Kayapo land, but the tribe fought hard and used economic force and banished the mining company from their land

• Another threat to the Kayapo tribe is the Hydro-electric dam. The Kayapo are still working on stopping this dam like I said before. The Kayapo tribe always work together in any situation. Everybody in the Kayapo is trustworthy and are nice to each other

THE END but wait……..Overall,• Kayapo was a great tribe to study. This was an excellent project to take on to study culture. We really loved doing this project

• After doing this project we actually felt like we were there because we studied so hard on it and now it feels like we know so much about it

But Wait…………………….

Movie creditsScript: Shiva Byroju

Camera: Aditya Byroju

Actor: Shiva Byroju

Monologue: Shiva Byroju

Casting: Aditya Byroju

Director: Venkat Byroju.

Producer: Rajani Byroju.