The Nahukuá are members of a small, indigenous ethnic group in the upper
Xingu River
The Xingu River ( ; ; ) 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.
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Description and history
The fir ...
area of
Brazil
Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
. Their population was 146, as of 2010, making them the smallest group in the region.
History
When the Nahukuá people were first encountered by
German explorers in the late 19th century, they were initially grouped with two other tribes living in the region (the
Kalapalo and
Kuikuro
The Kuikuro are an Indigenous peoples in Brazil, indigenous people from the Mato Grosso region of Brazil. Their language, Kuikuro language, Kuikuro, is a part of the Cariban language family. The Kuikuro have many similarities with other Xingu (peo ...
, rather than recognized as their own unique group. Another group of later explorers only mentioned the Nahukuá in passing, speculating about the origins of the Nahukuá people. These explorers, led by a man named Max Schmidt, believed that, because of the
Cariban ancestry of the Nahukuá, they were probably immigrants to the region, hailing originally from southwestern
Guiana.
Early explorers noted that the Nahukuá had several villages along the Kurisevo and Kuluene rivers. By the 1940s, however, the population of the Nahukuá people had been reduced to only 28. Although the population did rise slightly in the ensuing years, a measles epidemic decimated populations again in the 1950s. By 1954, some believed that the Nahukuá may already have been extinct. At some point after 1948, low Nahukuá populations caused the ethnic group to disband its last existing village at the time. In the 1960s, at the encouragement of the
Villas-Bôas brothers, the Nahukuá created a new village to a spot closer to the Kalapalo people. This village was eventually abandoned, due to superstition regarding a murder, which the Nahukuá attributed to
sorcery.
In 1977, a new Nahukuá village was set up on the shore of Kuluene river. Nahukuá populations, which had been increasing since the introduction of proper modern healthcare to the upper Xingu River area in the 1960s, continued to increase after the foundation of this new village.
References
External links
Nahukua ''Instituto Socioambiental''
Nahukuá material culture 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 ...
Xingu peoples
Indigenous peoples in Brazil
Indigenous peoples of the Amazon
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