The Kaingang (also spelled ''caingangue'' in
Portuguese or ''kanhgág'' in the
Kaingang language) people are an
Indigenous Brazilian
Indigenous peoples in Brazil ( pt, povos indígenas no Brasil) or Indigenous Brazilians ( pt, indígenas brasileiros, links=no) once comprised an estimated 2000 tribes and nations inhabiting what is now the country of Brazil, before European con ...
ethnic group
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
spread out over the three southern
Brazilian states of
Paraná,
Santa Catarina and
Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul (, , ; "Great River of the South") is a Federative units of Brazil, state in the South Region, Brazil, southern region of Brazil. It is the Federative_units_of_Brazil#List, fifth-most-populous state and the List of Brazilian st ...
and the southeastern state of
São Paulo. They are also called Caingang and Aweikoma, though the Kaingang and Aweikoma (
Xokleng
The Xokleng or Aweikoma (sometimes called '' botocudos'') are a Native American tribe of Brazil; their territory is located mainly in the state of Santa Catarina. They were one of the original inhabitants of Misiones Province
Misiones (, '' ...
) are now considered separate groups. The Kaigang people were the original first inhabitants of the province of Misiones in Argentina. Their language and culture is quite distinct from the neighboring
Guaraní.
It has been stated that the Kaingang rarely live long in one place causing them to move a lot, but some sources, such as Juracilda Veiga
and ethnographic registers (José Francisco Tomás do Nascimento 1886, Telêmaco Borba 1908 etc.), indicate that Kaingang groups have a crucial relation with the land where they were born and their ancestors were buried.
The
Kaingang language is a member of the
Jê family.
Copel agreement
In November 2006
Brazil's state-owned power company,
Copel, agreed to compensate the group 6.5 million dollars for operating a
small hydro plant in the
Apucaraninha Reservation. The company finally gave in to a settlement after the natives carried two barrels full of fuel into the plant's machine room and threatened to destroy the plant.
This is part of a larger trend of indigenous groups challenging energy projects according to
Platts.
See also
*
Indigenous people of Brazil
Footnotes
Murdock, 1949.
Citations
References
*
*
*
Indigenous peoples in Brazil
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