Data collected by UNICEF

Data on Xokleng

Alternative names: Laklaño, Bugres, Botocudos, Aweikoma, Xokrén, Santa Catarina Kaingang, Aweikoma-Kaingang.

Xokleng is allegedly regarded by the community members as the name « given by the white », the self-designation being « Laklaño ». Many other names have been given to this ethnic group, though most of them are now obsolete.

Classification: Macro-Jê, Jê languages, Southern Jê branch.

We hereby follow Rodrigues (1999).

Some sources prior to the 1960s considered Xokleng to be a Kaingang dialect. They’re now usually considered as two distinct, yet close, languages.

Geographic area: Brazil, state of Santa Catarina.

Most Xokleng live on the « Terra Indigena » (TI) of Ibirama, located along Rio Hercílio and Rio Plate; a territory they share with Mbyá, Ñandeva (who speak Tupi-Guarani languages) and Kaingang people.

Some twenty other families live on the outskirts of the cities of Blumenau, Joinville and Itajaí.

Number of speakers:

The 2004 FUNASA census accounts for an « ethnic » population of 887.

There is no precise account of the number of speakers at this point; UNESCO estimates « no more than 100 speakers » of Xokleng.

Language status: No official status.

According to Linguamón: « Portuguese is the only official language of Brazil. The linguistic legislation operative for the other languages only applies to the educational sphere, and especially bilingual and cross-cultural primary education (exclusively in the indigenous communities). But in reality there are only few qualified bilingual educators. »

Vitality & transmission:

Xokleng is a « critically endangered » language according to UNESCO (stage 4 on a scale of 5); in other words, it is nearly extinct.

As mentioned above, it is hard to account for a precise number of Xokleng native speakers, but chances are they’re all bilingual and aged. The younger ones, 30 and under, are all natives of Portuguese and no longer speak the ancestral language.

Historical and ethnographic observations

It is very likely that the Kaingang and Xokleng shared a common origin before growing apart in the course of the last centuries. They were traditionally semi-nomadic hunters-gatherers, and did not practice agriculture.

The traditional Kaingang and Xokleng territory used to be located in the vast highlands of today’s southern Brazil. A first route was open in 1728 to link the provinces of Rio Grande do Sul and São Paulo, running across the territory of the South Jê populations.

The route allowed western agriculture to settle in the region, reducing Xokleng living space and resources. The araucaria pine tree, which was a vital resource for the Xokleng, was consistently exploited by the colonists; a deprivation of resource that caused the first armed conflicts between western colonists and the indigenous populations, but also among the indigenous groups themselves.

The extension of the Rio Grande do Sul colonial territory at the beginning of the 19th century forced the Xokleng to flee towards today’s Santa Catarina.

The Xokleng, as were the Kaingang and the other Jê populations, were traditionally organized as a dualistic society. The great migrations and inner conflicts over resources brought this system to an end. The surviving Xokleng then separated into three factions, out of which only the laklaño faction still exists nowadays.

In the second half of the 19th century, the colonial spread reached the Xokleng territories of Santa Catarina, causing another cycle of violent conflict. The state of Brazil then allowed colonists to gather into bugreiros « Indian hunter » brigades, with the barely hidden objective of exterminating all those described as « soulless primitives », and considered as impediments to progress. These bugreiros are largely responsible for the extinction, in just a few years, of two out of the three Xokleng factions.

And what militias could not finish, diseases took care of. Between 1914, year of the first – peaceful – contact with the colonial society, and 1935, two thirds of the surviving Xokleng population died from the epidemics carried by the « white », who had forced them to sedentarize in « Indian Stations »: more or less reservations created by the government to « pacify » indigenous populations.

Besides the exposure to diseases, sedentarization caused an acculturation of the Xokleng people, who gave up a large part of their social rites (labial perforation of young men, cremation of the deceased, etc.) and traditional religious practices. Most of them are now Pentecostalists.

Mixed marriage with the white, the Guarani, and the Cafuzos (of mixed origins), generated profound changes within the Xokleng society along these 90 last years. Especially when the North dam was built.

The construction of this dam in the 1970s flooded a significant part of the area home to Xokleng villages, forcing the Ibirama TI population to yet another exile towards another area, limited in space and poor in resource.

Up to the 1960s, the Ibirama TI (known as the «Posto Duque de Caxias » until 1975) consisted in forests that massive exploitation progressively swept away. There was nothing left of it in the 1980s, depriving the TI populations of one of their main sources of livelihood. The Xokleng populations began to suffer malnutrition.

Nowadays the men often work as daily farm hand and women as housemaids. A few families own small farms inside the TI. A movement claiming restitution of the lost territories has been set in motion these past few years, and one can only hope, if it comes together, that it’ll allow the Xokleng to establish a new, economically, culturally and socially united society.

For more information on the Xokleng, please refer to the section devoted to them on the indispensable Povos Indígenas no Brasil website (Portuguese/English)

Sources

De Castro Alves, Flávia (2010). Brasil no Amazónico. In « Atlas sociolingüístico de pueblos indígenas en América Latina », UNICEF. Tome 1, pp 265-280.

Fabre, Alain. 2005. Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos. Available online [28/04/2011]

Online sources

Data collected by UNICEF on Xokleng [28/04/2011]

Pages devoted to Xokleng on the Povos Indígenas no Brasil website [28/04/2011]

Data collected by UNESCO on Xokleng [28/04/2011]

Ethnologue.com page on Xokleng

Additional bibliography

Bubltitz, Terezinha 1994. Análise fonológica preliminar da língua Xokleng. Dissertação de Mestrado. Brasília: UnB.

Mullen, P. – P. Vandresen 1986. O bilingüismo xokleng/português no Posto Duque de Caixas. En: IV Encontro de variação lingüistica e de bilingüismo na região sul. Anais: 115-134. Porto Alegre: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul.

Müller, Salvio Alexandre 1985. Efeitos desagregadores da construção da barragem de Ibirama sobre a comunidade indígena. Dissertação de Mestrado. Florianópolis: UFSC.

Rodrigues, Ayron D. (1999). « Macro-Jê » In R.M.W. Dixon and Alexandra Y.Aikhenvald, (eds) The Amazonian languages, Cambridge University Press.

Wiik, Flávio Braune, 1998. Doenças e tranformação sociocultural: epidemias, corporalidade e práxis entre os índios Xokleng do sul do Brasil. Revista de Divulgação Cultural, 20/64. Blumenau: Editora da FURB.

Refer to Atlas sociolingüístico de pueblos indígenas en América Latina and Fabre (2005) for a more comprehensive bibliography.