Mythologies of the Kuikuro Tribes

The Kuikuro are an indigenous people from the Mato Grosso region of Brazil. Their language, Kuikuro, is a part of the Cariban language family. The Kuikuro have many similarities with other Xingu tribes. They have a population of 592 in 2010, up from 450 in 2002. The Kuikuro are likely the descendants of the people who built the settlements known to archaeologists as Kuhikugu, located at the headwaters of the Xingu River. The settlements were probably inhabited from around 1,500 years ago to about 400 years ago; after this point the population may have been reduced by diseases introduced by Europeans or, indirectly, by other native tribes who had traded with Europeans. Stories of Kuhikugu may have inspired the British explorer Percy Fawcett on his ill-fated expedition looking for the "Lost City of Z" in the 1920s.

Nowadays the Kuikuro are most populous people of the upper Xingu. The constitute a Carib sub-group alongside other groups that speak dialect variants of the same language ( Kalapalo, Matipu and Nahukuá) and make up the multi-lingual system known as upper Xingu, found in the southern part of the Indigenous Park of the Xingu. The Carib peoples can be considered to be as important as the Aruak peoples ( Waujá and Mehinako) in the history of the development of this system, although the Aruak are credited with being the original source. This section provides detailed information on the language, history, and other characteristics of the Kuikuro, producers of the famous snail shell necklaces and belts that continue to play a key role in the traditional system of exchanges and payments in the upper Xingu. For other cultural and social aspects, such as shamanism, cosmology, festivities and rituals, the section Xingu Indigenous Park provides an overview of the aspects also found among the Kuikuro. The word ‘Kuikuro’ has a history. The name that Steinen heard and tried to record was that of a group living at the time in the Kuhikugu village, a contraction of kuhi ekugu (‘true kuhi’), on the banks of a lake with abundant fish kuhi (Potamorraphis, fam. Belonidae). The people of Kuhikugu constituted the first village of a new local group that had separated from other Carib groups of the upper Xingu in the middle of the 19th century. They were the founders of a people that non-indians call Kuikuro to this day. The mispronunciation of the name of the former Kuhikugu ótomo ended up as the collective name for their descendants and the surname for each individually: to non-indians ‘Kuikuro’.

The Kuikuro tribes are indigenous communities residing in the Brazilian Amazon, specifically within the Xingu Indigenous Park. With a history stretching back centuries, the Kuikuro people have nurtured their unique cultural heritage, spiritual beliefs, and sustainable practices. This article explores the history, culture, social structure, economic activities, challenges, and the significance of preserving the Kuikuro tribes as vital custodians of the Amazon rainforest and living cultural legacy in the Xingu Indigenous Park. The Kuikuro tribes have lived in the Amazon rainforest for generations, deeply connected to the rivers, forests, and land that sustain their way of life. The Kuikuro belong to the Carib linguistic family and have thrived as semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers, utilizing their intimate knowledge of the ecosystem for survival. The arrival of outsiders, particularly during the colonial era and the expansion of agricultural frontiers, brought significant disruptions to their traditional way of life. Despite these challenges, the Kuikuro have demonstrated resilience in preserving their cultural identity and strong connection to their ancestral lands.

The Kuikuru, who comprise a single village, refer to themselves and other groups of the upper Xingu as "Ukuge" ("my people") and to all other Indians as "Ngikogo" ("Wild Indian"). "Kuikuru" is a phonetic variant of the autodenomination "Kufikugu," deriving from kufi, a kind of fish, plus the suffix -kugu, meaning "place," referring to a village site occupied by the Kuikuru a century ago. The Kuikuru speak a Carib language. Only a minor dialectal difference exists between Kuikuru and the language of the neighboring Kalapalo and Nafukuá. The Kuikuru are skilled in making a variety of artifacts such as bows and arrows, hammocks, stools, bark canoes, fish traps, feather headdresses, composite combs. They use pottery extensively for food preparation and cooking, but do not make it themselves.

The Upper Xingú constitutes an intertribal and multilingual system, as a result of a long process of adaptation of different migration waves. We find, in the Upper Xingú today, indigenous peoples belonging to the main stock and the two major language families of the South American Lowlands: Tupi, Carib and Arawak, totalizing a population of 2,500. There is a dynamic balance between faction conflicts and political interaction in the region, which presents a complex trade network, where each group maintains its own territorial, political and linguistic identity, as well as some specific cultural elements. The Upper Xingú Carib groups are the Kuikúro, the Matipú, the Nahukwá and the Kalapálo. Their traditional territory lies in the eastern region of the upper Xingú, drained by the rivers Culuene, Buriti and Culiseu. The Kuikúro are around 500 individuals living in three villages: Ipatse (main village), Ahukugi and Lahatuá. Around 50 Kuikúro speakers live in the Yawalapiti (Arawak) village, near the mouth of the Tuatuari river. Shamanism is strong and alive among the Kuikúro, articulating the cosmopolitics of the spirits with the sociopolitics of the chiefs. Upper Xingú society is strongly hierarchical. Chiefly status is inherited from both maternal and paternal lines, but access to main chiefly functions depend on individual capacities and performances during life. The principle chief is the one who receives notables from other communities by performing the chiefly speech, a formulaic and formal discourse.