KALAPALO TRIBE
Social life in the Kalapalo villages – one of the four Karib-speaking groups that inhabit the Upper Xingu region, encompassed by the Xingu Indigenous Park – varies according to the seasons. In the dry season, which lasts from May to September, food is plentiful and it is time for public rituals, which usually feature lots of music and the participation of members from other villages. In the rainy season, food becomes scarce and the village is closed in on the relationships between houses and relatives. In the multi-ethnic context of the Xingu Indigenous Park, the Kalapalo have stood out for their active participation in the surveillance of their boundaries, preventing the invasion of neighboring farmers.
The Kalapalo and three other groups from the Upper Xingu – kuikuro, Matipu e nahukuá – speak dialects of a language that belongs to the South Guyana branch of the Karib language family. Their closest linguistic relatives are the Yecuana (or Makiritare) and os Hixkaryana. The former are found in southern Venezuela and northern Roraima, while the latter are in the Guianas region in northern Pará.
FIRST CONTACTS
Some similarities between Kalapalo and Ye´cuana myths suggest that the ancestors of the Xingu Carib left the Guyana region in recent times, certainly after contacts with Spaniards, which intensified in the region during the second half of the 18th century. However, culturally, there appears to be little in common between the Kalapalo and the northern Carib peoples, making it difficult to distinguish any properly 'Karib' characteristics in aspects of their way of life and worldview.
It remains unclear when the group known as the Kalapalo were first contacted by outsiders. Individuals identified with the village that bore this name were measured by the German anthropologist Hermann Meyer during an anthropometric study of the peoples of the Upper Xingu, carried out at the end of the 19th century. In 1920, Major Ramiro Noronha, from the Rondon Commission, carried out research in the region of the Kuluene River and made the first recorded visit to the villages of the Kalapalo, Kuikuro and Anagaftt (Naravute, in the literature). The latter, in particular, would suffer the consequences of this visit, which gave rise to the first of a series of epidemics that destroyed the integrity of their community.
The name Kalapalo, initially attributed to the group by non-Indians, refers to a village with that name that was probably abandoned less than a hundred years ago. At that time, people moved from Kalapalo to a neighboring site called Kwapïgï, which in turn was succeeded by the Kanugijaft village, abandoned in 1961. All these sites are located about half a days walk east of the Kuluene, to the south. from the confluence with the Tanguro River. The last remnants of an important Karib group called the Anagaft joined the Kanugijaft inhabitants after the flu epidemic in the 1940s and at that time there were Kuikuro, Mehinako, Kamayurá and Waujá living among the Kalapalo.
What we call today 'Kalapalo' is, then, a community made up of people whose ancestors were associated with different communities, with a majority coming from or descending from people who lived in Kanugijaft.
LOCALIZATION
Currently, the Kalapalo live in eight villages Aiha (which means something "finished", "done"), Tanguro, Agata, Caramujo, Kunue, Lago Azul and Kaluane all on the Kuluene River and its tributaries and in the Tupeku village on the southeastern edge of the Park. In addition to these villages, some Kalapalo live in Funai Kuluene Local Technical Coordination (CTL). The CTL Tanguro is located on the banks of the river of the same name, on the edge of the Park, and the PIV Kuluene on the banks of that river, also on the edge.
The ancient Kalapalo villages were located further south, on both banks of the Kuluene River.
The Kalapalo reluctantly moved to their recent location after the boundaries of the Xingu Indigenous Park were formally established in 1961 and other groups were encouraged to move closer to the Leonardo Post in order to control contact. with strangers and to get medical help in case of epidemics. Even so, they constantly return to their traditional territory to gather pequi from the bush formations found around the old villages, or to look for snails to make shell ornaments (a specialty of this group), fishing and cultivating manioc, sweet potato and cotton fields in several places along the course of the Kuluene River.
POPULATION
Due to measles and flu outbreaks throughout the 20th century, the population of the Kalapalo population declined significantly, starting to recover again only in the 1970s. If in 1968 their population was 110 people living in six grown to 185 people living in 13 houses. In 1999, the population of Kalapalos villages was estimated at approximately 362 people and, in 2002, this number reached 417, according to data from Unifesp (Federal University of São Paulo).
The current Kalapalo population includes descendants of an important Karib group called Anagahït, who joined them after an influenza epidemic in the 1940s. Kuikuro, Matipu, Nahukuá, Mehinako, Kamayurá and Waurá ethnic groups also live in the villages. , due to marriages.
Kalapalo social organization is extremely flexible, with considerable variation in the identification of individuals with specific groups. Kalapalo tend to have some options for forming groups, but their choices are more dependent on personal relationships between individuals than on clan membership, religious affiliation, or rights and obligations to ancestors. His system of relationship terminology seems to accommodate this flexibility and provide a means of precisely naming the relationship between individuals in a sense that is both social and emotional.
Both the village and the house serve as a parameter for carrying out economic and ceremonial activities. Thus, the inhabitants of each village clear the land for manioc plantations, harvest sugar cane, collect wild fruits and other vegetables, in addition to exploiting resources in the region's lakes and streams. Members of other ethnicities do not explore the territory, unless they are temporarily living there and have been explicitly invited to do so.
Likewise, members of a domestic group must distribute food among themselves. While every adult is responsible for the ongoing supply of food, a Kalapalo is assured of sharing even when he cannot contribute. However, the obligation to share does not include members of other houses, and it is considered impolite to exploit the goodwill of people from other groups. Despite this corporate form of organization, belonging to villages and houses changes from time to time and there is an occasional movement of some people from one group to another.
ETHICS AND BEHAVIOR
Central to social life is an ideal of behavior called ifutisu, which refers to a set of ethical arguments by which the Kalapalo distinguish the peoples of the Upper Xingu from all other human beings. In a more general sense, ifutisu can be defined as an absence of public aggression – for example, being skilled in public speaking and not provoking situations that cause others discomfort – and by the practice of generosity – such as hospitality and a willingness to give. or share material possessions. The Kalapalo believe that the viability of society depends on the fulfillment of this ideal.
To varying degrees, this concept extends to all areas of social life, being applied to relationships between local, consanguineous, affine groups, men and women, and even between humans and non-humans. The demonstration of ifutisu behavior also confers prestige and is therefore important in the distribution of political power. This ideal is manifest in a unique complex of behaviors and conceptions that the Kalapalo claim is distinct from their traditional neighbors.
Prior to the establishment of the borders and permanent contact with Brazilians, aggressive indigenous peoples surrounded the Xingu basin and occasionally clashed with local groups. Relations between the Kalapalo and some of these groups – especially the Jaguma, who lived east of the Tanguru River (tributary to the Upper Kuluene) – were occasionally friendly, but more often conflictual. The Kalapalo call these peoples and, in general, any Indians who are not part of upper Xingu society, anikogo, fierce people.
This category of human beings is conceived primarily in terms of a type of behavior labeled itotu, which refers to anger and violence. Itotu behavior is usually contrasted explicitly with the peaceful and generous, ifutisu behavior, which is, for the Kalapalo, an important and distinctive feature of people of the Upper Xingu society (kuge, human being).
The second important means by which the Kalapalo distinguish the kuge from other human beings is a set of eating practices that reflect ifutisu behavior. The most significant aspect of this is a system in which living things are classified according to a criterion of edibility. The Kalapalo generally reject furry; land animals, which they call nene, and eat what they call kana, aquatic creatures (especially fish). In addition to this general principle, there are specific restrictions for people in life crisis situations, particularly teenagers. The importance of this food system is reinforced by the Kalapalo idea that physical appearance is a mark of inner feelings; thus, physical beauty, accompanied by obedience to dietary restrictions and medical practices, is a sign of moral beauty. In Kalapalo myths, puberty girls and boys often play roles of moral perfection that contrast with the misbehavior of their adult relationships.
