The Yudjá or Juruna 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 ...

. They were formerly the major tribe along the

Xingu River The Xingu River ( ; pt, Rio Xingu, ; Mẽbêngôkre: ''Byti'', ) is a river in north Brazil. It is a southeast tributary of the Amazon River and one of the largest clearwater rivers in the Amazon basin, accounting for about 5% of its water. ...

, but are now divided into two groups, a westernized northern group near Altamira, Para near the big bend of the Xingu and a more conservative group in the

Xingu Indigenous Park The Xingu Indigenous Park (, pronounced ) is an indigenous territory of Brazil, first created in 1961 as a national park in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Its official purposes are to protect the environment and the several tribes of Xingu in ...

at the headwaters of the Xingu in Mato Grosso. The southern group lives in two villages located near the mouth of the Maritsauá-Mitau River. They fish and raise crops, such as

manioc ''Manihot esculenta'', commonly called cassava (), manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America. Although a perennial plant, cassava is extensively cultivated ...

Name

"Yudjá" is what they call themselves and now the standard name. "Juruna" is an exonym, apparently from Lingua Geral meaning ‘black mouth’ from a kind of face paint or tattoo they formerly used. “Juruna” (

Yuruna languages The Yuruna languages (or Jurúna languages) of Brazil form a branch of the Tupian The Tupi or Tupian language family comprises some 70 languages spoken in South America, of which the best known are Tupi proper and Guarani. Homeland and ''u ...

) is also the name of a language group. Other spellings are Iuruna, Jaruna, Yudya, Yurúna, Juruna, Yuruna, Juruhuna, Jurûna, and Geruna.

Culture

Yudjá makes carinated pots with zoomorphic figures on the rims. The pots are similar to the cambuchi caguaba of the Tupi people.

Population and history

Population estimates are: 1500: 7,000; 1842: 2,000; 1884: 200; 1896: 150; 1916: 52; 1950: 37; 2001: 278 1500 from Hemming, Red Gold,1995, p516, others from Os Povos web site. Later figures may exclude the Altamira group and there has been mixture with other tribes. They were once the major tribe along the Xingu. They encountered the Portuguese some time after 1615 and by about 1750 they had abandoned the lower Xingu. In 1686 they defeated the Portuguese and their Kuruaya allies During the rubber boom a group fled from near the town of

São Félix do Xingu São Félix do Xingu is a municipality in the state of Pará in the Northern region of Brazil. The city is served by São Félix do Xingu Airport. With an area of , it is the third largest municipality in Pará and the sixth large ...

south to Mato Grosso. Later they worked for another rubber baron, crewing boats downriver to Altamira. When, in 1916, 22 of these men died they fled further south to what is now the

. Here they fought the Kamayurá and Suyá and were conquered by the Suya until the Suya were themselves defeated by a Portuguese rubber baron from downstream. In 1989 only one member of the northern group was able to communicate in Juruna.

Language

The Yudjá or

Jurúna language The Juruna language, also known as Yudjá, is spoken in Brazil. It is spoken in the Xingu Indigenous Park of Mato Grosso Mato Grosso ( – lit. "Thick Bush") is one of the states of Brazil, the third largest by area, located in the Central ...

belongs to the Yurúna language family, one of the

Tupian languages The Tupi or Tupian language family comprises some 70 languages spoken in South America, of which the best known are Tupi proper and Guarani. Homeland and ''urheimat'' Rodrigues (2007) considers the Proto-Tupian urheimat to be somewhere betwee ...

References

External links

Jurúna artwork

National Museum of the American Indian The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum in the United States devoted to the culture of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers. The museum has three ...