Xingu Peoples - Post-contact History

Post-contact History

Kuikuro oral history says European slavers arrived in the Xingu region around 1750. Xinuguano population was estimated in the tens of thousands but was dramatically reduced by diseases and slavery by Europeans. In the centuries since the penetration of the Europeans into South America, the Xingu fled from different regions to escape modernization and cultural assimilation. Nonetheless settlers made it up as far as the upper run of the Rio Xingu. By the end of the 19th century, about 3,000 natives lived at the Alto Xingu, where their current political status has kept them protected against European intruders. By the mid twentieth century this number had been reduced by foreign epidemic diseases such as flu, measles, smallpox and malaria to less than 1,000. Only an estimated 500 Xingu peoples were alive in the 1950s.

The Brazilian Villas-Bôas brothers visited the area beginning in 1946 and pushed for creating the Parque Indígena do Xingu which was established in 1961. The number of Xingu living here in 32 settlements has risen again to today over 3000 inhabitants, half of them younger than 15 years.

The Xingu living in this region have similar habits and social systems, despite different languages. Specifically, they consist of the following Indian peoples: the Aweti, Kalapalo, Kamaiurá, Kayapó, Kuikuro, Matipu, Mehinako, Nahukuá, Suyá, Trumai, Wauja and Yawalapiti.