Data collected by UNICEF

Data on Southern Nambiquara

Alternative names: Southern Nambiquara, kithãulhú, hahaintesu, wasusu, alatesu, waikisu, halotésu, sawentésu, wakalitesu, alakatesu, niyahlósú, si’waisu, lunkatesu, manduka, wãnairisu.

According to Lévi-Strauss, the name “nambiquara” or “nambikwara” is of Tupi origin. The other names are those of Southern Nambiquara groups, each believed to have their own dialectal variants.

Dialects and variants: Southern Nambiquara is a collection of dialects, the exact number of which is not agreed upon. Fabre (2005) recognises 4 dialectal subsets: mundúka, nambiquara do Campo, Nambiquara do Guaporé and Nambiquara do Sararé (kabixí). Each of these is in turn made up of several groups, each speaking their own variant. The total number of variants varies between 12 and 20 according to sources.

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. Speakers of Southern Nambiquara dialects live along the Juruena River, the Guaporé River, on the Chapada dos Parecis Plateau, along the Galera River and the Sararé Valley.

Number of speakers: It is difficult to obtain exact figures on the number of speakers of variants of Southern Nambiquara. The total Nambiquara population is 1595 according to the ISA (FUNASA, 2010).

UNESCO gives a figure of 721 speakers for dialects of Southern Nambiquara, whilst the Linguamón website gives an approximate figure of 900 speakers. In reality the population may be slightly higher, numbering one thousand or more taking into account ISA figures

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 Southern Nambiquara to be “vulnerable” (level 1 on a scale of 5). The whole population is able to speak the language. However, many dialects of Southern Nambiquara have disappeared.

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

Page dedicated to the Nambiquara on the Povos Indígenas no Brasil website (in English/Portuguese) [18/08/2011]

Page dedicated to the Nambiquara 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.

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.

Price, David. 1976. « Southern Nambiquara phonology ». IJAL 42/4: 338-348.

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.