Nambikwara people

The Nambikwara are an indigenous people in the Amazon. They live on the border of the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso and Rondônia. The numerically small ethnic group ( 1.200 ) speaks its own language, the Nambikwara.

Culture

The Nambikwara have no clothes but only wear jewelry bands, the men a straw skirt the genital. They live semi-nomadic, that is, the group moves into the dry season around and eats the prey of men and what women can gather. As a dwelling serves them at this time only a sunscreen made ​​from leaves and twigs. It was only in the rainy season they build temporary huts firmer; the men operate at this time agriculture (eg cassava ).

The material culture of the Nambikwara is described as an extremely simple and works well compared with neighboring ethnic groups barren. They sleep on the bare ground, not even hardly know decorative arts, some pottery. The belongings of the family takes in a large Kiepe place that is worn during rounds from the wife.

The organization of the Nambikwara is weak. The only strong bond the family (the Nambikwara practice Kreuzkusinenehe ); belonging to a group subject to the free decision and is changeable. The power of the chiefs is based on the satisfaction of the group members ( charismatic authority ). In return, the chief enjoys no significant privileges except the permission of a polygamous lifestyle ( he takes concubines in addition to his first wife ).

History of Research

When building a telegraph line of Brazilian adventurers Cândido Rondon came at the beginning of the 20th century with the tribe in contact. The French anthropologist Claude Lévi -Strauss operational in 1939 at the Nambikwara field research, he also dealt in his doctoral work with them ( La vie familiale et sociale of india Nambikwara, 1948).