GENDER ISSUES

The Kayapo have a patriarchal society in which they believe that the women's place is to have children and prepare body paint for the men. The men's place in this society is to collect and find the food. Men have certain privileges that women do not, such as the right to enter the central hut in the villages where business is conducted. Men also are allowed to take multiple wives - usually 2 or 3 - to increase the number of offspring a male has. 
 
The Kayapo view anything that they dislike as weak, and in turn, feminine. The over consumption of material goods falls under these categories to the Kayapo. The correlation of femininity and weakness reflects the male dominance this society exudes.

Everything a woman does is seen as less than anything a man does. Even the everyday tasks of women are seen as secondary to men's because the men is the provider of the goods to perform these tasks. Most of the women's activities involve having young children nearby for them to take care of; the men do little in raising their very young. Because most of their tasks involve these young, child rearing is seen as a feminine, and therefore, weak task, meaning that having babies is weak. This view further allows men to exert their control over all aspects of a woman's life, including her sexuality.

Acts of sexual violence are common among the Kayapo. Rape is seen as socially acceptable in ritual and spiritual ceremonies. A woman's rite of passage when she reaches puberty is to go into the forest with older men and have sexual intercourse with them all. Collective rape is also used as punishment for women who break ritual rules, such as coming too close to the central hut when a ceremony is taking place.


Sources:
Popvic, M. 2011. Kayapo. Tradtions and Customs From All Over the World.
http://traditionscustoms.com/people/kayapo?page=2

Turner, T. 2003. The Beautiful and the Common: Inequalities of Value and Revolving Hierarchy among the Kayapo.
http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=tipiti

Subsistence

The Kayapo came into permanent contact with Brazilian mainstream society in 1973. It is speculated that until then they lived a nomadic life, subsisting primarily from hunting game animals and gathering forest products. Yet it is possible that they were horticulturalists in the past until being forced to adopt a nomadic lifeway due to pressure from other local indigenous groups that had a numerical advantage over the Kayapo.

Under FUNAI's orientation the Kayapo currently practice shifting cultivation, thus engaging themselves in a subsistence pattern similar to that of their non-indigenous neighbors located outside their reserves. They adapted quickly to this subsistence strategy as it provides them with yet another option in their food spectrum.

Even though there way has changed hunting and gathering have not ceased to be a premier subsistence strategy among the Kayapo as they frequently leave their newly formed villages to visit their hunting camps in the forest. Although the bulk of their diet now comes from farming, hunting occupies most of their time in terms of subsistence activities.

Some crops:

Babaçu serves a multitude of purposes for the Kayapo, and its fruit serves as a hedge against starvation as well as providing an important supplement to their diet, as it is rich in oil and protein. Before permanent contact, it was common for the Kayapo to camp in tracts of forest dominated by babaçu stands to gather it fruits.

In addition to their crops, another item that has increased in the Kayapo diet is fish. Before permanent contact, they were more prone to occupying headwater and interfluvial areas, such that fishing was not a very productive activity. After contact, they now reside near some of the main watercourses of Maranhão state (Pindaré, Caru e Turiaçu), a situation which now permits them to better utilize riverine and lacustrine resources.



Source: http://pib.socioambiental.org/en/povo/kayapo/207

Geographic Location

The Mebêngokrê, more commonly referred to as the  Kayapo, are an indigenous indian tribe that inhabit the plains of Matto Grosso, Brazil. The Kayapo territory is situated on the Central Brazilian plateau, about  300 to 400 meters above sea level.They mainly live along the Xingu River in  Central Brazil, but they can also be found in villages dispersed along the upper edges of the Iriri, Bacaja, and Fresco Rivers. A few villages lie partially within the Xingu National Park, which was created to protect the indigenous people of Brazil and to preserve the Amazon  rainforest's ecosystem. Their environment consists of tropical rainforests and savanna, leading the area to  be referred to as Amazonia.

2003 The Kayapo Indians. Indian-Cultures.com.  Accessed April 16, 2013


A Kayapo tribe's village in the Xingu Reserve 

 

 

Taylor, Leslie. 2001 The Kayapo. Rainforest Database.  Accessed April 16, 2013

A video for your enjoyment!

 

2008 Amazonia: The Last Eden - Conservation International. conservation.org.  Accessed April 16, 2013. 

Folklore

All of the tribe members are painted with natural paints made by the women  .. 

There is an interesting legend among the Kayapos who live along a lagoon. They say that if one rises at dawn and looks across the lagoon, one can see the ghost of a white man on horseback galloping along the shore. This ghostly rider is said to wear a full suit of armor, rather like a European knight, or perhaps a Portuguese conqueror. 

The Kayapos believe their ancestors learned how to live communally from social insects such as bees. This is why mothers and children paint each other's bodies with patterns that look like animal or insect markings, including those of bees.

The flamboyant Kayapo headdress with feathers radiating outward represents the universe. Its shaft is a symbol for the cotton rope by which the first Kayapo, it is said, descended from the sky. Kayapo fields and villages are built in a circle to reflect the Kayapo belief in a round universe

 N.d. 
 2006 Kayapos. Electronic Document. 
      http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Brazil-to-Congo-Republic-of/Kayapos.html

Kinship

The Kayapo's kinship ties are subject to manipulation and dismissal, they can be acquired through adoption or friendship. This is at times done in order for a community member to achieve a desired outcome or treasure, such as a bride wealth or to gain status. They have a very flexible way of naming kin hence the reason why it is difficult to create Kayapo genealogies. While someone who is blood related can be considered unrelated a complete stranger from a different tribe can gain many kin through a social movement. The reason it is difficult to track these changes in related kin is because it largely depends on inner family conflicts. In this way of acquiring kin the Kayapo strengthen and solidify their villages co-existence.

 Important kinship and ceremonial relationships are those between ngêt (mother's father, father's father, and sister's brother) and tabdjuo (daughter's son, son's son, and sister's son) or between kwatui (mother's mother, father's mother, and father's sister) and tabdjuo (daughter's daughter, son's daughter, and brother's daughter). Ngêt and kwatui give their names and ceremonial privileges to their tabdjuo. This institution is one of the most important for the perpetuation of Kayapó society.

Formal friendship relationships are inherited patrilineally but are between nonrelated persons with whom a special relationship of respect and avoidance is maintained. A formal friend plays an important role during certain ceremonies in which he assists his partner, especially during rites of passage.

N.d.
2013 Xikrin-Kinship. Electronic Document. 
    http://www.everyculture.com/South-America/Xikrin-Kinship.html

Kayapo Language.

The Kayapo language is called simply Kayapo, but it also has an alternate name Kokraimoro. This language branch belongs to the Ge linguistic  family which is a branch of the Macro-Ge trunk. The Kayapo take their language very seriously and they find it as a highly valued social practice. They believe so highly in their language that if others don’t speak their language they do not believe them to speak anything quite as beautiful as them. And even though the Kayapo speak this unique language there are only roughly about 7,100 people who actually speak the language, these low numbers make a it a classified 6B endangered language in the world. Which is unfortunate  for the people in the Kayapo tribe. The main reason for this loss of language is the fact that many of the Kayapo people are learning the native language of Brazil which is Portuguese, by learning this new language that is the norm they are beginning to use it more and more which is thus wiping out the original Kayapo language. This all depends though on the depth of isolation each tribe experiences. I.E, if the tribe is set deep within the mountains they will all only speak Kokriamoro, but if they live closer to the cities they will speak more Portuguese which will cause them to lose the language faster.

Here is an example of a bible verse translated into the Kayapo language:

Sample Translation In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The earth was formless and empty, and  darkness covered the deep water. The spirit of God was hovering over the water. Then  God said, "Let there be light!" So there was light. God saw the light was good.So God  separated the light from the darkness. God named the light "day", and the darkness he  named "night". There was evening, then morning, the first day.

Name

The Mebêngôkre tribe is an indigenous group that is more commonly referred to as the Kayapo. Mebêngôkre, meaning "water-hole people" or " the men from the water hole", describes their location along the Xingu River in the Amazon basin. The term 'Kayapo was first coined at the beginning of the 19th Century and means "those who look like monkeys." This term was given to the Mebêngôkre by their enemies and probably  procured from a  ritual in which the men where monkey-like masks and perform short dances. Although society refers to them as the Kayapo, they continue to refer to themselves as Mebêngôkre.

Taylor, Leslie LT   2001 The Kayapo. Rainforest Database.  Accessed April 16, 2013.