Mehinako
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Mehinaku, Mehináko or Mehinacu are an
indigenous people of Brazil Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...
. They live in the Indigenous Park of the Xingu, located around the headwaters of the
Xingu River The Xingu River ( ; ; ) is a river in north Brazil. It is a southeast tributary of the Amazon River and one of the largest clearwater rivers in the Amazon basin, accounting for about 5% of its water. __TOC__ Description and history The fir ...
in
Mato Grosso Mato Grosso ( – ) is one of the states of Brazil, the List of Brazilian states by area, third largest by area, located in the Central-West Region, Brazil, Central-West region. The state has 1.66% of the Brazilian population and is responsible ...
. They currently reside in area around the Tuatuari and Kurisevo Rivers. They had a population of 254 in 2011, up slightly from 200 in 2002.


Name

The Mehinaku are also known as the Mehináko, Meinaco, Meinacu, Meinaku, Mehináku, Mahinaku, Mehinaco, and Minaco people.


Language

The Mehinaku speak the Mehináku language, an
Arawakan Arawakan (''Arahuacan, Maipuran Arawakan, "mainstream" Arawakan, Arawakan proper''), also known as Maipurean (also ''Maipuran, Maipureano, Maipúre''), is a language family that developed among ancient Indigenous peoples in South America. Branch ...
language. They also speak some Portuguese. A dialect of their language, Waurá-kumá is related to the
Waurá language Waurá (Wauja) is an Arawakan language spoken in the Xingu Indigenous Park of Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by are ...
.


History

Like many indigenous tribes, the Mehinaku do not keep detailed, chronological historical records going back more than a few generations. The oldest known village established by the Mehinaku was set up sometime around or before 1850 and was called Yulutakitsi. However, because the community no longer exists, the exact location of its former site is unknown. According to the Mehinaku, historical villages were located along the Tuatuari river, north of the main Aweti village. The Mehinaku claim their older villages were much larger; which is likely because European explorers had not brought the diseases that indigenous people had no immunity to. These communities were likely abandoned for a variety of reasons, overused soil, intrusion of leaf-cutter ant colonies, and a tribal taboo associated with living in places where many people had died. In 1884, when the first
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
explorers arrived at the Xingu River headwaters and began to document the tribes living there, the Mehinaku had two villages and a camping site used only during the dry season. Many anthropologists believe that, at the time, the population of the region may have been more than four times what it is today, and that the villages were likely much larger. In the 1950s, the
Ikpeng The Ikpeng (also known as Txikāo) are an indigenous community that now lives in the Xingu Indigenous Park in Mato Grosso, Brazil. They had a population of 459 in 2010, up from a low of 50 in 1969. Name The Ikpeng are also called Txicão, Txikã ...
, a separate tribal group, invaded Mehinaku territory and drove them from it. During the invasion, the Mehinaku chief was called by an arrow. Another tribe, the Yawalapiti, was forced to do the same. This tribal migration forced a political shift in the upper Xingu region. The Yawalapiti gave the Mehinaku one of their houses at a location called Jalapapuh, and Aweti agreed to divide territory along a trail between their village and the new Mehinaku center. For around a decade, the Mehinaku built communities around their new cultural center, until an outbreak of flu and measles killed around 15 people in the 1960s. After that, the Mehinaku relocated to a nearby area. The Mehinaku moved again in 1981 but did not go far from their original community. The proximity of a post where they could receive medical care gave them little incentive to relocate to their ancestral homeland, although the risks from the Ikpeng were gone by that time.


Culture

The Mehinaku have no provision for privacy in their social arrangements, and live with a striking degree of transparency. Huts that house families of ten or twelve people have no internal walls, and are situated around an open area that is in constant view. On the rare occasions when members of the group are out of sight, their activities can be inferred by their curious fellow villagers, who are able to recognize (and draw from memory) each other's footprints. Gregor sums up the situation by writing: "Each individual's whereabouts and activities are generally known to his relatives and often to the community as a whole. A Mehinaku has little chance of staying out of the public eye for any length of time."Gregor, ''The Mehinaku'', p. 67.


Subsistence

The Mehinaku hunt, fish, and farm to provide for themselves. Their primary crops are
manioc ''Manihot esculenta'', common name, commonly called cassava, manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America, from Brazil, Paraguay and parts of the Andes. Although ...
and
maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...
.


Notes


References

* Gregor, Thomas. ''The Mehinaku: The Drama of Daily Life in a Brazilian Indian Village''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980. * Gregor, Thomas. "Exposure and Seclusion: A Study of Institutionalized Isolation among the Mehinacu Indians of Brazil," ''Ethnology'', Vol. 9, No. 3 (Jul., 1970), pp. 234-250.


External links


Mehinako: History of occupation in the upper XinguMehináku artwork
National Museum of the American Indian The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum in the United States devoted to the culture of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers. The museum has three ...

''Le nostre radici - 02 Antropologia - I Mehinacu dell'Amazzonia, Antica Saggezza di una Tribù Felice''
{{authority control Xingu peoples Indigenous peoples in Brazil Indigenous peoples of the Amazon