The Kwazá (or Coaiá, Koaiá, Koaya, Kwaza, and Quaiá) are an

indigenous people of Brazil Indigenous peoples in Brazil ( pt, povos indígenas no Brasil) or Indigenous Brazilians ( pt, indígenas brasileiros, links=no) once comprised an estimated 2000 tribes and nations inhabiting what is now the country of Brazil, before European con ...

. Most Kwazá live with the Aikanã and

Latundê The Latundê, also known as the Leitodu, are an indigenous peoples of Brazil. They live in the Aikaná-Latundê Indigenous Reserve in the southern Rondônia in the southwestern Amazon. They share the indigenous territory with the Kwaza and Aik ...

in the Tubarão-Latundê Indigenous Reserve in the province of

Rondônia Rondônia () is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the northern subdivision of the country (central-western part). To the west is a short border with the state of Acre, to the north is the state of Amazonas, in the east is Mato Grosso, ...

; however, some Kwazá live in the

Terra Indígena Kwazá do Rio São Pedro Terra may often refer to: * Terra (mythology), primeval Roman goddess * An alternate name for planet Earth, as well as the Latin name for the planet Terra may also refer to: Geography Astronomy * Terra (satellite), a multi-national NASA scienti ...

. In 2008 their population was 40, up from 25 in 1998."Kwazá."
''Encyclopedia: Indigenous Peoples of Brazil.'' Retrieved 12 Feb 2012.

Language

As of 2005, 25 Kwazá people spoke the

Kwazá language Kwaza (also written as Kwazá or Koaiá) is an endangered language, endangered Amazonian language spoken by the Kwaza people of Brazil. Kwaza is an unclassified language. It has grammatical similarities with neighboring Aikanã language, Aikanã ...

, an

unclassified language An unclassified language is a language whose genetic affiliation to other languages has not been established. Languages can be unclassified for a variety of reasons, mostly due to a lack of reliable data but sometimes due to the confounding inf ...

History

Kwazá people historically lived with the Aikanã,

Kanoê The Kanoê (also as the Canoe, Kapixaná and Kapixanã) are an indigenous people of southern Rondônia, Brazil, near the Bolivian border. There are two major groups of Kanoê: one residing in the region of the Guaporé River and another in the Ri ...

, Tuparí, Sakurabiat, Salamãi, and other groups, that were culturally similar, even though their languages were not all mutually intelligible. These groups intermarried, battled with each other, and joined in festivals. The Kwazá were forced off their traditional homelands by ranchers after the construction of

BR-364 BR-364 is an inter-state highway in Brazil connecting the southeast state of São Paulo to the western state of Acre. The highway was opened in the 1960s and paved in the 1980s. It has brought economic development and population growth in the Amaz ...

in the 1960s.

Notes

Indigenous peoples in Brazil Indigenous peoples of the Amazon {{Brazil-ethno-group-stub