MEXICAN-INDIAN-L Archives

From: Dani Brown <>
Subject: Karaja Indians
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 20:25:19 -0800 (PST)

Karaja Indians


Other Names: Iny

Area: Goiás, Mato Grosso, Pará and Tocantins, Brazil
(Map). The group’s territory is defined by an
extensive stretch of the Araguaia river valley,
including the world’s largest fluvial island, the Ilha
do Bananal, which measures approximately two million
hectares. Their 29 villages are located by preference
close to the lakes and affluents of the Araguaia and
Javaés rivers, as well as inland on the Ilha do
Bananal. Each village establishes a specific territory
for fishing, hunting and ritual practices, internally
demarcating cultural spaces recognized by the whole
group.

Population: approximately 2,500 (1999)

First Contact: 1673

Language Root: Macro-je, Javae, and Xambioa

Economy: Agriculture and Artisan

Today: Self sustaining in part



There is a high degree of mobility among the Karajá,
one of whose cultural traits is exploration of the
food resources along the Araguaia river. Today, they
still follow the custom of camping with their families
in search of the best spots for catching fish and
turtles, in lakes and on the river’s tributaries and
beaches, where in the past they built temporary
villages. These were often the scene for festival
performances during the dry season period when the
Araguaia fell to its lowest. With the arrival of the
rains, they moved to villages built on the higher
cliffs, safe from the rising water level. Some of
these sites are still used for their domestic and
collective swiddens, dwellings and cemeteries.

Men are responsible for defending the territory,
clearing swiddens, domestic and collective fishing
trips, the construction of dwellings, formalized
political discussions in the Aruanã House or the men's
plaza, negotiations with non-indigenous Brazilian
society and the performance of the principal ritual
activities, since they are equated symbolically with
the important category of the dead. Women are
responsible for the education of children until the
age of initiation for boys and in a permanent way for
girls, focusing here on domestic tasks such as
cooking, collecting swidden products, arranging the
marriage of children (normally managed by
grandmothers), the painting and decoration of
children, girls and men during the group's rituals,
and the manufacture of ceramic dolls, which became an
important source of family income in the aftermath of
contact. On the ritual plane, women are responsible
for the preparation of foods for the main festivals
and for the affective memory of the village, which is
expressed through ritual wailing of a special form
when someone becomes ill or dies. Body painting is
symbolically important to the group. Body painting is
undertaken by women. Men are painted with different
designs, depending on their age grades, using genipap
juice, charcoal soot and annatto dye. Some of the more
common patterns are black stripes and bands on the
arms and legs. The hands, feet and face are painted
with a small number of designs representing natural
species, especially fauna.

The village is the basic unit of social and political
organization. Decision making is made by male members
of the extended families, who discuss their positions
in the Aruanã House. Factional rivalry between groups
of men disputing political power in the village is
common. As a result of contact, one of the village's
men is elected 'chief' and is held responsible for
tackling political issues with external agents, such
as FUNAI, universities, NGOs, state governments and so
on. The community's staple food sources are the fish
populations found in the Araguaia river and the lakes.
A few mammals are prized as game, while the Karajá
display a special predilection for capturing macaw
parrots, jabiru storks and spoonbills to make feather
decorations. Swiddens are cleared in gallery forest
using a slash-burn technique. The ethnographic and
historical records cite the cultivation of maize,
manioc, potato, banana, watermelon, yam, peanuts and
beans.

Karajá material culture includes house building
techniques, cotton weaving, feather decorations, and
artefacts made from straw, wood, minerals, shell,
gourds, tree bark and pottery. Baskets are made by
both men and women. They feature woven motifs
reminiscent of Greek designs and inspired by fauna
with animal body parts (Taveira, 1982). Ceramic art is
exclusive to the women, displaying a highly diverse
range of kinds and motifs, from domestic utensils such
as pots and plates, to dolls with mythological,
ritual, quotidian and zoomorphic themes. The ceramic
dolls made by the Karajá are the focus of intense
interest from tourists who visit the villages,
especially during the season when beaches are exposed
along the Araguaia river (July, August and September):
as a result, the dolls have become another means of
subsistence for the group. Currently only the Karajá
sub-group manufactures the dolls. An activity unique
to women, these ceramic figures function now as in the
past as children's toys.

Feather decorations are very elaborate and possess a
direct relationship to rituals. Now that macaw parrots
- highly prized birds for the Karajá - are more
difficult to capture, the variations previously seen
in this art form have decreased, leaving only a few
decorations such as the lori lori and aheto designs,
widely used in the boys' initiation ritual.

Text from © Instituto Socioambiental. You can find
their web site here: http://www.socioambiental.org/e/

----------------------------------------





The Karaja Indians reside in the vast lowlands of the
Matto Grosso of Brazil. They are a very artistically
talented tribe making ceramic dolls and animal figures
called litjocos, masks, baskets, and beautiful
feathered caps. With the very first contact of the
Karaja, these special dolls and animal figures
(litjocos) were noted by the chronicler. In the past
this was exclusively women's work. They were
originally made as children's toys. They were also
used as a cultural teaching tool. They portray every
day life in the community, animals of the forests and
fish of the rivers. One of the most famous figures of
the Karaja is a set of male and female dolls. The
female figures reveal their notions of feminine beauty
in heavy thighs and voluptuous lower bodies. Karaja
sculptures also portray the magical side of the Karaja
with figures such as; Arena, Adjoromani, and Kboi,
special heroes of the mystical world of the Karaja.





__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

This thread:

• Karaja Indians by Dani Brown <>