The Matis people (also called Matsë in their own native language) 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 ...

. The Matis are commonly named as the Jaguar people by tourists and filmmakers, but they do not like to be called like this. They live in three separate

communities A community is a Level of analysis, social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place (geography), place, Norm (social), norms, religion, values, Convention (norm), customs, or Identity (social science), identity. Communiti ...

with total population of roughly 340. They live in the far west of

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, in the

Vale do Javari Indigenous Territory Vale do Javari (English language: Javari Valley) is one of the largest indigenous territories in Brazil, encompassing 85,444.82 km 2 (32,990 mi 2) – an area larger than Austria. It is named after the Javari River, the most important ...

, an area covering . They practice hunting, fishing, collecting (also called foraging) and agriculture. Now, they also receive money from their work as teacher, health assistance, surveillance of the territory when working for FUNAI, for example, and the elders receive pension from the government (inscribed as retired farmers, as other traditional communities also have the right for in Brazil).

Language

The

Matis language Matis is a language spoken by the indigenous Matis people in the state of Amazonas in Brazil. History The Fundação Nacional do Índio (Funai) was a key player in establishing first contact with the Matis community. After the construction ...

belongs to the Panoan family from the Amazonian area of Brazil.

Recent history

Before what the government refers to as "contact", the Matis assumed passenger airplanes were ''xokeke'', the spirits of their ancestors. They also assumed bush planes were ''binkeke'', a kind of strange demon-bird. This tribe saw the two kinds of airplanes as distinct phenomena, since passenger planes would appear to be smaller than the bush planes (which fly closer to the ground). The Matis people were contacted by the Brazilian agency

FUNAI is a Japanese consumer electronics company headquartered in Daitō, Osaka. Apart from producing its own branded electronic products, it is also an OEM providing assembled televisions and video players/recorders to major corporations such as Sh ...

during 1976-1978, although it was not until two years later in 1978 that FUNAI employees began visiting the then-five Matis villages, almost 2/3 of their population died from diseases and from the lack of care of Brazilian government that did not have even a backboard engine working to bring people to receive medical care (ARISI 2007). The 1980s represented a moment where the Matis faced genocide (ethnical extermination), with the arrival of Western

disease A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...

killing roughly a third of their population,

devoid Dark Lunacy is an Italian melodic death metal band with symphonic metal influences. From the beginnings (1997) to ''Devoid'' (2000) The band formed in early 1997, when singer Mike and guitarist Enomys first met. Their first self-produced EP, e ...

of natural

immunity Immunity may refer to: Medicine * Immunity (medical), resistance of an organism to infection or disease * ''Immunity'' (journal), a scientific journal published by Cell Press Biology * Immune system Engineering * Radiofrequence immunity desc ...

or any remedies for them. In 1981, over 50 Matis people died of disease, so the survivors moved to the

Ituí River The Ituí River is a river of the upper Amazon Basin. It traverses some 370 km of the Atalaia do Norte municipality in the Amazonas state of north-western Brazil. It drains a very low gradient, dropping hardly 100 m over its whole extent, whi ...

. By 1983, only 87 Matis people survived. The decade also saw the loss of three of their villages which now, completely abandoned, are occasionally visited by the Matis to harvest fruit trees. Time has probably given the Matis a better understanding of events surrounding and following their first contact over 30 years ago. Whereas elder Matis traditionalists are keen to retain and in some cases readopt their old way of life, the younger Matis have been influenced by the modern outside world and want closer ties with modern Brazil, particularly for education. On October 31, 2009, members of the Matis tribe located nine survivors of a plane crash near the

and then contacted the Brazilian Air Force.

References

External links

Matis
BBC
Matís quiver for blowgun darts
National Museum of the American Indian {{DEFAULTSORT:Matis Indigenous peoples in Brazil Indigenous peoples of the Amazon