Kalapalo

The Kalapalo were the first people of the Xingu to be contacted by the Villas-Boas brothers, in 1945. They are one of the four groups that speak the Karib language, and they inhabit the region of Upper Xingu. Today they live in two villages inside the Xingu Indigenous Park and total around 650 individuals.

Some similarities between the myths of the Kalapalo and those of the
Ye´kuana people, an ethnic group with villages located in the savannahs of Venezuela and Roraima, suggest that the ancestors of the Xingu Karib left the region of the Guyanas in recent times, certainly after contact with the Spanish, and this intensified during the second half of the 18th century. From a cultural point of view, however, there is little in common between the Kalapalo and the Karib people of the North.

Kalapalo social life varies according to the season of the year. In the dry season, which lasts from May to September, there is an abundant supply of food. This is the period for holding public rituals, which include music and the participation of members of other villages. In the rainy season, food is scarce and the village is enclosed to relations between houses and family. In the multiethnic context of the Xingu Indigenous Park, the Kalapalo have stood out for the active vigilance of their territorial limits, avoiding the invasion of neighboring farms. Their best-known products are their craftwork items, above all necklaces and belts, made from seeds and snail shells.

Central to the discussion of human social life is an ideal of behavior called ifutisu, a set of ethical precepts by which the Kalapalo distinguish Upper Xingu people from all other human beings. In a more general sense, ifutisu can be defined as behavior characterized by a lack of aggressiveness—for example, the ability to speak in public without making others uncomfortable is a valued characteristic—and by the practice of generosity—such as hospitality and the willingness to give or share material possessions. The Kalapalo believe that their society’s viability depends upon conforming to this ideal.