Yawalapiti

The Yawalapiti are an Arawak speaking people from the Upper Xingu, and were certainly one of the first groups to occupy the region. Their name means "village of the tucum palm trees" and is today used as a self-designation. The "village of the tucum palms" would be the most ancient location that they remember and is situated in the Xingu Indigenous Park near the confluence of the Culuene and Batovi rivers. Their present village is situated more to the south, a place of fertile land.

The Yawalapiti have already been threatened with extinction, with populations reduced by epidemics and only 28 individuals remaining in 1953. In 2014, 262 people were registered living in the village. The population growth is due as much to better health conditions as to the practice of intermarriage with other tribes, incorporating members of other villages. Presently, only four or five individuals speak Yawalapiti, and the languages that predominate in the village are Kuikuro (of the Karib language family) and Kamaiurá (of the Tupi-Guarani family), due to the numerous marriages that link the Yawalapiti to these groups.

Following the Upper Xingu pattern, the Yawalapiti village is circular, with all the communal houses arranged around a central plaza (uikúka) with a house frequented only by the men, which is specifically the place where the sacred flutes (apapálu) are hidden. In this house, or on the stools in front of it, the men get together to chat at dusk, and paint themselves for ceremonies. The men build the houses and take care of all the wood work (stools, bows, mortars, beiju scoops, and so on. They also make baskets and ceremonial instruments (flutes and rattles).

The stools made by the Yawalapiti, like those of other Xingu peoples, depict animals that inhabit their mythology, like jaguars. They believe in the existence of a multiplicity of spirit beings with considerable influence on human affairs; these beings cause most illnesses, but can also help the shamans and are “owners” of certain animal species. They are invisible spirits, munukinári, which only appear to the sick and to shamans in a trance state. It is common to conceive the spirits as owners of an anthropomorphic essence beneath an animal, or monstrous, appearance.