Aparai people

The Aparai, also called Apalai belong to Brazil's indigenous peoples who live in the Brazilian states of Amapá and Pará, as well as in the neighboring countries.

Life

The Aparai live in small village communities. Your life today is heavily influenced by the outside world and of missionaries and the traditions decrease. Life takes place in several dedicated huts from, which are organized according to demand, ie to sleep, to Maniokfladenherstellung, cooking, basket craft and More.

The Aparai are a very egalitarian society. Everyone has equal value, even if women and men about their specific areas of activity. But if a man is no longer able to hunt, he is an artist, and if he can not this, he cares about the children or find a different kind of determination. Today, the nation is threatened. Gold Miners a penetrate and pollute the rivers with mercury and loggers destroy more and more their habitat.

Language

" The Aparai Wajana ( Wayana ) in the north of Amazonia include the language according to the ( North ) Caribs, who counted once one of the most common peoples of the New World. "

Demographics

The population of the Aparai has fallen sharply in the last 200 years. In 1993 the population of the Aparai in Brazil was reported to be 450 and 2010 with 398.

"During the botanist Jean Baptiste Le Blond 1788 the population of the Aparai Wajana still estimated to be 4000, the geographer and explorer Henri South America Coudreau end of the 19th century only came to 1500 inhabitants spread over 35 villages in which the 25 to 30 inhabitants lived. Beginning of the 20th century, the population had reduced even further. The cartographer and anthropologist Claudius Henricus De Goeje estimated the population of the Aparai Wajana to a maximum of 1000; 600 of them were living in Brazil, 300 in Surinam, and 100 in French Guiana. [ ... ] It is estimated that today around 1400-1600 Aparai Wajana three borders live across scattered in smaller groups. "