Kayapo Culture and History
The Kayapo inhabit five legally ratified indigenous territories in south of the state of Pará and the north of the Mato Grosso state. This contiguous block of five territories (nearly 105,000 km²) is home to close to 7,000 Kayapo living in 18 villages. The forest provides the Kayapo with all their subsistence needs. Kayapo society is communal and based on principles of egalitarianism with a rich ceremonial component that bonds community members into a single entity. This well developed social organization generates strength in leadership and solidarity to face threats to Kayapo land and culture.
History
The Kayapo, whom had been pushed eastward from woodland savanna into canopy forest by the advancing frontier, were “pacified” by government agencies and missionaries in the 1950s and 60s as their population underwent decimation by introduced diseases. As late as the 1960s, they were a warrior culture that practiced raiding against their neighbours, and boys were raised to fight.
Over the last three decades, Kayapo society has undergone many changes. Increasing contact with government agents, missionaries and others in the 1970s introduced superficial change, such as western clothing, use of guns and metal tools. During this period as well, land claims were heating up as the Kayapo militantly defended their traditional territories. In the mid-1980s, more drastic social change occurred as Kaypao leaders succumbed to the seduction of goods and money offered by illegal mahogany loggers and gold-miners seeking concessions on Kayapo lands.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Kayapo political organization, militancy and pressure tactics resulted in official recognition of almost 10.5 million hectares of their lands. Strong Kayapo leaders, such as Kanok, Toto-i, Paiakan, Ropni and Megaron, learned to translate Amerindian cultural values into western environmentalist terms. In 1989, the Kayapo became international environmental heroes when their protest stopped World Bank funding for a mega-dam project near Altamira on the Xingu River.
Culture
The Kayapo’s successful protection of their lands can be traced to political organization, warrior tradition, and their well-developed communal society based on complex ceremony and symbolism.
Kayapo chiefs lead by consensus. All chief candidates are evaluated on the basic principles of Kayapo tradition: exemplary conduct, knowledge of culture, combative spirit, solidarity and generosity. “For the Kayapo, the moral force of social solidarity or the power of strong leaders to compel consent and obedience is created and conveyed by symbolic performances such as communal ceremonies or chiefly oratory and imbued in the symbolic acts, images and verbal [expressions] of which they are constructed” (Turner 2003).
The Kayapo value social traits of “power” and “beauty”. A Kayapo strives during his or her life not for production and accumulation of material surplus as in western culture, but rather to attain social values of “beauty” and “power” bestowed only through properly orchestrated ritual enacted by the community. This societal organization reinforces solidarity and binds individuals into a single community, meaning that the community, rather than individuals controls the great common-property forests.
The social organization of the Kayapo has forged great leaders who have achieved more for the conservation of the southeastern Amazon than all governments, scientists and NGOs together. Today, as overt warrior culture recedes into history, traditional ritual organization of the Kayapo remains vital and continues to be a wellspring of Kayapo strength into the 21st century.
