| Summary: | This collection of 7 documents is about the Bakairi, a Carib-speaking group living on Upper Xingu River in the state of Mato Grosso in south central Brazil. The German explorer Steinen wrote the earliest accounts of the Bakairi based on his one-month stay with them during his 1884 trip down the Xingu river and his travels among the tribes located along the Kulisehu River, in the Upper Xingu area in 1887. Abreu wrote an early account of Bakairi language, mythology, and religion based on 1892 Portuguese texts. Schmidt includes the history of the Bakairi subsequent to Steinen's expedition and up to the year 1927. During this period of time, numerous socio-political and cultural changes took place among the Bacairi. He describes three different Bacairi groups: the Eastern, Western, and Xinguanos. Altenfelder Silva describes the culture of the Bakairi Indians of Mato Grosso circa 1940 including their technology, kinship terminology, pantheon, ceremonies, shamanism, and the series of ritualistic seclusions, or uanki, that occur at intervals during the life cycle. Oberg's account is based on his fieldwork among the people living on the Government Indian Post on the Rio Paranatinga during June 1947. It should be noted that the information presented in this source, obtained primarily from informants, relates to an earlier period in Bacairi history (ca. 1907) when they lived on the Rio Kuliseu. Data presented pertain to settlement patterns, subsistence activities, house types, furniture, language, culture history and early European contacts, population, dress and personal ornaments, organization of labor, social organization, the life cycle, puberty rites, marriage, burial, shamanism, games, ceremonialism and mythology.
|
|---|
