Other Names: Iny
Area: Goiás, Mato Grosso, Pará and Tocantins, Brazil (Map).
The group’s territory is defined by an extensive stretch of the Araguaia river
valley, including the world’s largest fluvial island, the Ilha do Bananal, which
measures approximately two million hectares. Their 29 villages are located by
preference close to the lakes and affluents of the Araguaia and Javaés rivers,
as well as inland on the Ilha do Bananal. Each village establishes a specific
territory for fishing, hunting and ritual practices, internally demarcating
cultural spaces recognized by the whole group.
Population: approximately 2,500 (1999)
First Contact: 1673
Language Root: Macro-je, Javae, and Xambioa
Economy: Agriculture and Artisan
Today: Self sustaining in part
There is a high degree of mobility among the Karajá, one of whose cultural
traits is exploration of the food resources along the Araguaia river. Today,
they still follow the custom of camping with their families in search of the
best spots for catching fish and turtles, in lakes and on the river’s
tributaries and beaches, where in the past they built temporary villages. These
were often the scene for festival performances during the dry season period when
the Araguaia fell to its lowest. With the arrival of the rains, they moved to
villages built on the higher cliffs, safe from the rising water level. Some of
these sites are still used for their domestic and collective swiddens, dwellings
and cemeteries.
Men are responsible for defending the territory, clearing swiddens, domestic
and collective fishing trips, the construction of dwellings, formalized
political discussions in the Aruanã House or the men's plaza, negotiations with
non-indigenous Brazilian society and the performance of the principal ritual
activities, since they are equated symbolically with the important category of
the dead. Women are responsible for the education of children until the age of
initiation for boys and in a permanent way for girls, focusing here on domestic
tasks such as cooking, collecting swidden products, arranging the marriage of
children (normally managed by grandmothers), the painting and decoration of
children, girls and men during the group's rituals, and the manufacture of
ceramic dolls, which became an important source of family income in the
aftermath of contact. On the ritual plane, women are responsible for the
preparation of foods for the main festivals and for the affective memory of the
village, which is expressed through ritual wailing of a special form when
someone becomes ill or dies. Body painting is symbolically important to the
group. Body painting is undertaken by women. Men are painted with different
designs, depending on their age grades, using genipap juice, charcoal soot and
annatto dye. Some of the more common patterns are black stripes and bands on the
arms and legs. The hands, feet and face are painted with a small number of
designs representing natural species, especially fauna.
The village is the basic unit of social and political organization. Decision
making is made by male members of the extended families, who discuss their
positions in the Aruanã House. Factional rivalry between groups of men disputing
political power in the village is common. As a result of contact, one of the
village's men is elected 'chief' and is held responsible for tackling political
issues with external agents, such as FUNAI, universities, NGOs, state
governments and so on. The community's staple food sources are the fish
populations found in the Araguaia river and the lakes. A few mammals are prized
as game, while the Karajá display a special predilection for capturing macaw
parrots, jabiru storks and spoonbills to make feather decorations. Swiddens are
cleared in gallery forest using a slash-burn technique. The ethnographic and
historical records cite the cultivation of maize, manioc, potato, banana,
watermelon, yam, peanuts and beans.
Karajá material culture includes house building techniques, cotton weaving,
feather decorations, and artefacts made from straw, wood, minerals, shell,
gourds, tree bark and pottery. Baskets are made by both men and women. They
feature woven motifs reminiscent of Greek designs and inspired by fauna with
animal body parts (Taveira, 1982). Ceramic art is exclusive to the women,
displaying a highly diverse range of kinds and motifs, from domestic utensils
such as pots and plates, to dolls with mythological, ritual, quotidian and
zoomorphic themes. The ceramic dolls made by the Karajá are the focus of intense
interest from tourists who visit the villages, especially during the season when
beaches are exposed along the Araguaia river (July, August and September): as a
result, the dolls have become another means of subsistence for the group.
Currently only the Karajá sub-group manufactures the dolls. An activity unique
to women, these ceramic figures function now as in the past as children's toys.
Feather decorations are very elaborate and possess a direct relationship to
rituals. Now that macaw parrots - highly prized birds for the Karajá - are more
difficult to capture, the variations previously seen in this art form have
decreased, leaving only a few decorations such as the lori lori and aheto
designs, widely used in the boys' initiation ritual.
Text from © Instituto Socioambiental. You can
find their web site here:
http://www.socioambiental.org/e/
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The Karaja
Indians reside in the vast lowlands of the Matto Grosso of Brazil. They are a
very artistically talented tribe making ceramic dolls and animal figures called
litjocos, masks, baskets, and
beautiful feathered caps. With the very first contact of the Karaja, these
special dolls and animal figures (litjocos) were noted by the chronicler. In the
past this was exclusively women's work. They were originally made as children's
toys. They were also used as a cultural teaching tool. They portray every day
life in the community, animals of the forests and fish of the rivers. One of the
most famous figures of the Karaja is a set of male and female dolls. The female
figures reveal their notions of feminine beauty in heavy thighs and voluptuous
lower bodies. Karaja sculptures also portray the magical side of the Karaja with
figures such as; Arena, Adjoromani, and Kboi, special heroes of the mystical
world of the Karaja.
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