Zo'é people

Zo'é is a small indigenous people of Brazil, which comprises around 250 members. It is attributed to the ethnicity of the Tupi. The Zo'é are currently a indios isolados ( isolated Indigenous ).

They are also known as lip plug - Indians, because anyone who is to be recognized as a member of the tribe, must wear a lower lip plug of white wood. At the age of about seven years, the lower lip of the children is perforated and used a small lip flock of six to seven inches.

Geography

The Zo'é live in the headwaters of the Rio Cuminapanema, Municipio Oriximiná in the north of the state of Pará in Brazil.

First contact

For the first time Zo'é were contacted in 1987 by an American missionary society. Through contact and the transmission of diseases to which the Zo'é had no defenses, died within 2 years a quarter of the population. After the missionaries of the contact with the isolated peoples by the National Foundation for the protection of indigenous people ( FUNAI ) was then banned, they left the area in 1991.

Meanwhile, the population of the Zo'é recovers. You also begin to more programs for their protection and the protection of their country to become involved. In February 2011, traveled for the first time a group of Zo'é in the capital of Brazil, in order to express their demands for land rights, participation and health care.

Name

The term Zo'é is needed to distinguish between "one of us " and the whites or the enemies, which are the only two ethnic categories that use the Zo'é. Apart from these two expressions they do not use a term to define, for example, from neighboring indigenous groups.

Initially, the Zo'é FUNAI named ' poturu ' were called because that was the word with which answered the Zo'é when pointed at her and asked for the name. The word ' poturu ' refers to the wood from which the labrets are made.

Language

The language Zo'é belongs to the subgroup VIII of the Tupi- Guarani languages ​​and is similar to the language Wayampi. The ISO 639-3 code is pto. Other names for the language are: Buré, Poturu, Poturujara, Tupi of Cuminapanema.