Figure 1.--These are Taurepang childre in Roraima state, we think all boys. This is an interior northern state bordering on Venezuela and Guianas. The photograph was taken in 1911. Notice the feathered head dresses, worn for special occassion like this photograph.

There was a substantial Native American population in Brazil at the time of the Portugese discovery. Anthropolgists now disagree as to the nature of the Native Amricans in the Amazonian basin. There aew early reports that not only was there a substantial population, but they had a prosperous agricultural lifestyle. The Portuguese attempted to enslave the Native Americans to work on landed estate. Authors speculate that Portuguese slave raids along the coast and up the rivers forced them to abandon this culture and move into the interior to become hunter gathers. This way they were no longer vulnerable to slave raiders. This may or may not have been the case. The absence of monumental architecture suggests thst they may not have been as advanced as simr have suggested. We do know that the combined impact of Portuguese drepadations and lack of resistance toEuropean disease. The result was a disasterous collapse of the idigenous population. The only artifact of this once vibrant people are the Caiçara people still fond along the coast in southern Brazil. They are the descendents of Portuguese Conquistadores and native women. The Caiçara seem to be the most prevalent in remote fishing villages. Only the tribes seeking refuge in the vast unexplored interior survived. Thus the survivors were not the advanced cultures the Spanish found in Mexico and Peru with large quantities of gold and silver. Only primitive tribes deep in the Amazon survived. One such tribe is Enawene-Nawe. We have begun to colllect information on the Amazonian tribes

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Created: 12:25 AM 6/20/2013
Last updated: 12:25 AM 6/20/2013