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Northern Nambiquara
Data collected by UNICEF
Data on Northern Nambiquara
Alternative names: Northern Nambikwara, mamainde, nakarothe, nagarotú, negarotê, lakondê, latundê, tawandê, yalakalorê.
According to Lévi-Strauss, the name “nambiquara” or “nambikwara” is of Tupi origin. The other names are those of Northern Nambiquara groups, each believed to have their own dialectal variants.
Dialects and variants: Northern Nambiquara is a collection of mutually-intelligible dialects, of which Mamainde and Nakarothe (Negarotê) are most widely spoken. Other variants such as Lakondê, Tawandê and Yalakalorê are moribund or extinct.
Classification: Nambiquara language family
This small language family is generally considered to be composed of three dialect groups: Northern Nambiquara, Southern Nambiquara and Sabanê. To date, no relation between these languages and any other language family has been proven.
This language family is sometimes considered to be a single language isolate made up of numerous dialects. Here we follow the classifications proposed by Fabre (2005) and Ivan Lowe (1999).
Geographic area: Brazil. Mato Grosso State. The speakers of Northern Nambiquara variants reside principally in three Indigenous Territories, along the Roosevelt and Tenente Marques Rivers, as well the Cabixi and Piolho Rivers in the northwest.
Number of speakers: It is difficult to obtain exact figures on the number of speakers of variants of Northern Nambiquara. The total Nambiquara population is 1595 according to the ISA (FUNASA, 2010).
UNESCO gives an estimate of 320 speakers of Northern Nambiquara variants, whilst SIL gives an estimate of around 350 speakers, of which 330 are speakers of the Mamainde dialect.
Language status: No official status
According to Linguamón : “Portuguese is Brazil’s only official language. The country’s only linguistic legislation concerning other tongues refers to schooling and is restricted to bilingual and intercultural primary education (exclusively in indigenous communities), although there are actually few trained bilingual teachers.”
Vitality and transmission: UNESCO considers Northern Nambiquara to be “vulnerable” (level 1 on a scale of 5). The whole population is able to speak the language. However, many dialects of Northern Nambiquara have disappeared or are about to disappear. In the short term, only the Mamainde dialect may survive.
The Nambiquara populations are currently able to maintain active usage of their languages, thanks to their relative isolation. This isolation, however, much like their way of life, environment and culture faces very real threats.
Historical details
The Nambiquara live where two ecosystems meet: between the savannahs of Cerrado and primeval Amazon rainforest. They are best known for having been studied by Claude Lévi-Strauss, who spent time with them in 1938.
The first contact with the Nambiquara probably did not take place until the mid-18th Century, when gold prospectors first arrived in the region. At the time they were given the name “Cabixi”, a term which has since fallen into disuse.
Gold digging in territory occupied by the Nambiquara gave way to numerous armed conflicts between the land’s indigenous inhabitants and those living in the small villages which sprung up around the mines. These conflicts lasted until the mines were abandoned, exhausted, at the end of the 19th Century.
Once the gold miners had left, rubber tappers took their place. The conflicts turned out yet more violent for the Nambiquara who saw entire villages destroyed, men massacred or forced into slavery and women kidnapped by settlers.
The territories which were thereafter allocated to the Nambiquara by the government have long been fragmented, arid and under constant pressure from the ongoing exploitation of the forests and lands of their ancestors. In the 1960s, for example, the most fertile land of the Guaporé Valley was sold to government-financed agricultural companies. In the 1980s the World Bank financed the construction of a road linking Cuiabá to Porto Velho, cutting in half the Guaporé Valley, the heart of the Nambiquara territory.
Despite conflict, damage to the environment, land occupied by farms, and, of course, epidemics contracted as a result of contact with colonial society, the Nambiquara have managed to avoid being completely decimated. Lévi-Strauss estimated that at the beginning of the 20th Century the total Nambiquara population reached 10 000 people and that in 1938, when he spent time with them, it stood their total population at 2000 – 3000 people. In 1969 a census by Price put the number of Nambiquara at 500.
At the end of the 20th Century the Nambiquara population started to increase once again, slowly. But despite this demographic resurgence, numerous groups had disappeared or had been reduced to a few individuals. This is the case of the surviving Da’wendé and Sabanê groups, who merged with the Northern Nambiquara Mamainde people, and currently live amongst them in the Capitão Pedro Indigenous Territory. In total almost ten Nambiquara groups have disappeared.
It took almost 50 years for the Brazilian government to allocate them sufficient territories, where they could live in near-autonomy. To date, the surviving Nambiquara occupy 9 “reserves”, forming a scattered territory which represents only a small portion of that which they occupied prior to colonisation.
For more information about the Nambiquara, as well as the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss, see the pages dedicated to them on the indispensable ISA website, Povos Indígenas no Brasil.
Sources
Castro Alvès, Flavia de (2010) Brazil Amzónico. In « Atlas sociolingüístico de pueblos indígenas en América Latina », UNICEF. Tome 1, Pp 245- 264
Fabre, Alain. 2005. Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos. Avaliable online [18/08/2011]
Online Sources
Pages dedicated to the Nambiquara on the Povos Indígenas no Brasil website (in English/Portuguese) [18/08/2011]
Page dedicated to the Sabanê on the Linguamón website [18/08/2011]
Further bibliography
Cook, Cecil E. – David Price 1969. The present situation of the Nambiquara. AA 71/4: 688-693.
Eberhard, David. 2009. Mamaindê Grammar. A Northern Nambikwara language and its cultural context. Ph.D. diss. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit
Gomes, Maria Antonieta Coelho Ferreira 1979. O princípio da hierarquização tonal: constatações empíricas em Nambiquara e Mamaindé (MT). Dissertação de Mestrado. Salvador: UFBA.
Kingston, Peter. 1991. Dicionário Mamaindé-Português/Português-Mamaindé. Cuiabá: SIL.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude 1948. « La vie familiale et sociale des Indiens Nambiquara ». JSAP 37: 1-32.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1955. « Nambikwara ». In Claude Lévi-Strauss, Tristes tropiques : 287-377. París.
Lowe, Ivan . 1999. « Nambiquara » In R.M.W. Dixon and Alexandra Y.Aikhenvald, (eds) The Amazonian languages, Cambridge University Press.
Price, David 1972. Nambiquara society. Ph.D. diss., Dept. of Anthropology. University of Chicago.
Telles, Stella .1999. Latunde grammar. Amsterdam (ms.).
Voort, Hein van der 1996. « Linguistic fieldwork among the Indians in the South of Rondônia, Brazil ». Yumtzilob 8/4: 359-386. Rotterdam.
See the Atlas sociolingüístico de pueblos indígenas en América Latina and Fabre (2005) for a more complete bibliography.
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