South America

Ache

Identification. The Ache are a South American native population of hunter-gatherers that has lived in eastern Paraguay since at least the first Jesuit missionary reports in the 1600s.

Afro-Hispanic Pacific Lowlanders of Ecuador and Colombia

Anambé

Identification. In the Tupí-Guaraní language, the word "Anambé" is applied to various species of birds.

Apiaká

Identification. The Apiaká are an indigenous group living in the northern part of Mato Grosso, Brazil.

Araweté

Identification. The Araweté are an Indian group in northern Brazil.

Aymara

Identification. The name "Aymara" is of unknown origin.

Identification. The name "Baniwa" is a lingua geral (the old trade language of Jesuit missionaries spoken throughout the northwestern Amazon) term used since early colonial times to refer to the Arawak speakers of the Rio Içana and its tributaries in northwestern Amazon, Brazil "Curripaco" refers to one of five dialect groups (which include the Baniwa of Brazil) inhabiting the upper Içana and Guainía rivers of Brazil, Venezuela, and Colombia.

Barama River Carib

Identification. The Barama River Carib bear the name of a waterway in Guyana's North West District.

Barí

Baure

Bororo

The approximately 700 (1987) Bororo speak a Gê language and live in central Mato Grosso, Brazil, in three clusters of nine villages. Bororo culture is in a state of considerable flux, with frequent population movements, abandonment of villages and establishment of new ones, and integration into the regional economy.

Callahuaya

Identification. The name "Callahuaya" derives from an Inca province of the same name.

Campa

Candoshi

Canela

Canelos Quichua

Cariña

Cashibo

Chácobo

Chamacoco

Chayahuita

Chimane

Chimila

Chipaya

Identification. The Chipaya speak Chipaya and live on the high plains of Bolivia.

Chiquitano

Chiriguano

Chocó

ETHNONYMS: For the Catio: Embena, Epera, Eyabida, Katio. For the Northern Emberá: Atrato, Bedea, Cholo, Darién, Dariena, Ebera, Eberá, Emberá, Emberak, Empera, Panama Emberá.

Chorote

Cinta Larga

Cocama

Colorado

Cotopaxi Quichua

Craho

Identification. The Craho are Timbira speakers who live in the north of the state of Tocantins in Brazil.

Cubeo

Identification. The Cubeo are an ethnic group of the Colombian Amazon.

Cuiva

Culina

Identification. The origin of the name "Culina" is unknown; it was already in use in the 1860s when William Chandless became the first English explorer to penetrate their region.

Cuna

Desana

Emberá

Emerillon

Europeans in South America

Peoples of European ancestry are unevenly distributed across South America. A majority of the population in some countries, a minority in others, they wield considerable economic and political power throughout South America.

Fulniô

Gorotire

Guahibo-Sikuani

ETHNONYMS: Generic for the linguistic family: Goajivo, Guahibo, Guayba, Jiwi, Uajibo, Uwaiwa, Waiwa. Specific ethnic groups: 1) Jiwi, Sikuani; 2) Cuiba, Chiricoa, Jiwi; 3) Hitnu, Macaguane; 4) Cunimia, Guayabero.

Guajajára

The 7,000 to 10,000 Guajajára speak a language belonging to the Tupí Family and live between the Pindaré and Mearim rivers in the Brazilian state of Maranhão. In 1830 they numbered in excess of 12,000 people and lived in Pará as well as Maranhão.

Guajiro

Identification. The Guajiro are an Indian group living in Colombia and Venezuela.

Guambiano

Identification. The Guambiano, a South American Indian group in Colombia, call themselves "Wampimisamera" or "people of Guambia." The mestizos of the area frequently call them "Silveños," referring to the people in the environs of Silvia, a small town in the heart of Guambian territory.

Guarayu

Hoti

Huarayo

Itonama

The Itonama live primarily on the Río Iténez and Iténez Lake, but also on the Baures and San Simón rivers, all of which are in the department of Beni in Bolivia. Itonama may also be found in the towns of Magdalena, San Ramón, and Huacaraje.

Jamináwa

Jebero

Jews of South America

Jews in South America are a small, though distinct, ethnic and religious minority. The Jewish population in the ten South American countries where they live was as follows in the late 1980s: Argentina, 228,000; Bolivia, 6,000; Brazil, 150,000; Chile, 17,000; Colombia, 7,000; Paraguay, 900; Peru, 5,000; Suriname, 350; Uruguay, 44,000; and Venezuela, 20,000.

Jivaro

Kadiwéu

Kagwahiv

Identification. The Kagwahiv, known in Brazilian literature as "Parintintin," are a small, once warlike, Tupíspeaking tribe, who during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries terrorized rubber gatherers along 400 kilometers of the Rio Madeira, driven there from the Rio Tapajós in the mid-nineteenth century.

Kaingáng

Kalapalo

The Kalapalo, who numbered 110 in 1968 and perhaps more than 200 in the early 1990s, speak a Carib language and live in the village of Aifa (meaning "finished") in the upper Xingu Basin of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Their village is located within the Indian reservation known as Xingu National Park.

Karajá

Karihona

Kashinawa

Identification. The Kashinawa are an indigenous people of Amazonia who share a common identity and language.

Ka'wiari

Kogi

Krikati/Pukobye

Kuikuru

Identification. The Kuikuru, who comprise a single village, refer to themselves and other groups of the upper Xingu as "Ukuge" ("my people") and to all other Indians as "Ngikogo" ("Wild Indian").

Lengua

Macuna

Identification. The name "Macuna" is of foreign, probably Geral, origin.

Maká

ETHNONYMS: Cochaboth; Enimacá; Enimagá; Etaboslé; Imacas; Inimacá; Lengua (ancient); Macca; Maká (in Spanish and Guaraní); Mak'á; Makká; Namaká (in Mataco); Ñimaqá, Njimaqá, Njomaqá (in Toba and Pilagá); TawaLáj Lawós (in Chulupí [Nivaklé]); TowoLi (in Lengua). The pronoun jekheweliL of the first person plural exclusive is the most appropriate alternative to ethnic auto-designation.

Makushi

Marinahua

Maroni Carib

Marubo

Identification. The Marubo live in the southwest of the state of Amazonas in Brazil.

Mashco

Identification. The name "Mashco" is of unknown origin, and in the Peruvian departments of Cuzco—in the tropical zone toward the northeast—and Madre de Dios, the word has been synonymous with "assassin" or "criminal." The various Mashco factions identify themselves as "Xarangbütn" (human beings), but they also call themselves by some toponym, which refers generally to a river on which they live.

Mataco

Matsigenka

Maxakali

Mayoruna

The Mayoruna live in widely scattered groups along the Rio Javari, which over much of its course marks the boundary between Brazil and Peru. On the Brazilian side there are several small settlements with a total population of about 250 on the upper Javari.

Mehinaku

Identification. The Mehinaku village is located approximately four-fifths of a kilometer east of the Rio Kulesau (one of the major tributaries of the Rio Xingu) in the Xingu National Park in central Brazil.

Mennonites

Mennonites are a German-speaking people distinguished by their life-style and religious beliefs, which derive from the Anabaptist movement of the 1520s and 1530s. There are about 80,000 Mennonites in Latin America, with the largest numbers in South America in Paraguay (15,000), Bolivia (8,000), and Brazil (6,000) and smaller numbers in Uruguay and Argentina.

Mocoví

Mojo

Moré

Movima

The Movima Indians live close to Santa Ana on the Río Yacuma, as well as on the lower Río Rapula, and on the Matos and Apere rivers in the central part of the department of Beni in Bolivia. Estimates of their population range from 1,000 to 2,000.

Mundurucu

Identification and Location. The Mundurucu live just south of the equator in the Brazilian states of Para and Amazonas.

Nambicuara

Identification. The name "Nambicuara" was given to this group of Brazilian Indians by neighboring Indian groups.

Nivaclé

ETHNONYMS: Ethnonyms in the earliest sources that possibly refer to the prehistoric Nivaclé are Guentusé, Mathlelá, and Lateshelechí-Maiceros. Other ethnic groups refer to them as Ashlushlai, Suhín, Sotirgaik, and Wentusij.

Noanamá

Otavalo

Páez

Identification. The Páez live in southwestern highland Colombia and speak the Páez language.

Paï-Tavytera

Palikur

Panare

Identification. "E'ñepa" is the self-designation, but "Panare" is the most common name in the literature and probably derives from the word for "friend" or "ally" in the languages of neighboring Indian groups in Venezuela.

Paraujano

Paresi

Pauserna

Pemon

Piapoco

Piaroa

Piro

Identification. The Piro refer to themselves as "Yine" (people) or "Wumolene" (our kinfolk).

Puinave

Pume

Quechua

Quechua designates the language that the Inca, in the course of their military expansion, disseminated across wide expanses of the Andean highlands. Many of the groups they conquered learned Quechua as a second language or adopted it in lieu of their own tongues.

Rikbaktsa

Identification. The name by which these Brazilian Indians refer to themselves is "Rikbaktsa," meaning "human beings." They are called "Canoeiro" by the local non-Indian population because of their custom of using canoes.

Salasaca

Identification. "Salasaca," the name of an ethnic group of Ecuador, is derived either from the name of the zone to which they were sent as mitimaes (settlers) from Bolivia, or from two common surnames, "Sala" (a Panzaleo name found in eastern Ecuador) and "Saca" (a Puruhayes name found in the west of the country).

Saliva

The 2,000 Saliva people today live primarily in the department of Meta and in the territories of Vichada, Guianía and Vaupés in Colombia; a small population also lives in southwestern Venezuela, near the Colombian border. Many of those living in Colombia are on government reservations.

Saraguro

Identification. The name "Saraguro" is Quichua for "Land of Corn," reflecting both its traditional role as a food-exporting region of the Inca Empire and the present close bond between the land, the people, and their agriculturai livelihood.

Saramaka

Sharanahua

The Sharanahua ("Good people") Indians live in the area of the upper reaches of the Río Purus, primarily in Peru, but there are some in Brazil as well. In addition to Sharanahua Indians themselves (who numbered only ninety in 1973), the Sharanahua tribe includes the remaining populations of Mastanawa, Chandinahua, and perhaps some Jamináwa people.

Shavante

Sherente

Approximately 850 Sherente live on two reservations located on the east bank of the Rio Tocantins in the Brazilian state of Tocantins. Until around 1812 the Sherente were not clearly distinguished from the Shavante, whom they closely resemble in language and customs.

Shipibo

Siona-Secoya

Sirionó

Suruí

Identification. The Suruí of Rondônia call themselves "Paiter," meaning "people," "ourselves." "Suruí" is the name given to them by non-Indians before contact with Brazilian society in 1969.

Suya

Tacana

The 5,000 Tacana Indians live primarily along the Beni, Tahuamanù, Abuná, Acre, and Madre de Dios rivers in the department of La Paz, Bolivia (12° to 15° S, 67° to 68° 35′ W). Many may be found in or near the towns of Ixiamas, Tumupasa, and San Buenaventura in that department.

Tanimuka

Tapirapé

The approximately 200 Tapirapé live in a single village at the mouth of the Tapirapé and Araguaia rivers in north-eastern Mato Grosso, Brazil. They speak a language that belongs to the Tupí-Guaraní Family.

Tatuyo

Terena

Ticuna

Toba

Trio

Tunebo

Tupari

The Tupari inhabit the headwater region of the Rio Branco, a right tributary of the Rio Guaporé in the state of Rondônia, Brazil. They speak a language of Tupían affiliation and refer to themselves as "Haarat." Their population prior to the invasion of their territory by rubber collectors in 1920 is estimated to have been 2,000.

Waimiri-Atroari

Wáiwai

Identification. The name "Wáiwai," meaning "Tapioca people," originated with their northern neighbors, the Wapisiana, who were impressed with the enormous quantities of tapioca the Wáiwai consumed.

Wanano

Waorani

Wapisiana

Identification. The Wapisiana offer no explanation of their name but acknowledge that, in some pronunciations, it contains their word for people, pidyan.

Warao

Waurá

The approximately 170 Waurá live in several small villages in the Indian reservation of Xingu Indian Park in Mato Grosso, Brazil. Historically, they lived in that same area on both sides of the Rio Batoví (12° 30′ S, 54° W).

Wayãpi

Witoto

Xikrin

Identification. In the oldest literature, these Indians are referred to as "Diore," "Chicri," or "Purukarôt." Their self-denomination, however, is "Putkarôt." "Xikrin" was a name given them by Whites, but nowadays they rarely identify themselves as such.

Xokléng

Yagua

Yanomamö

Yawalapití

Yekuana

Approximately 3,100 Yekuana inhabit a region of the Guiana highlands north of the upper Orinoco in Venezuela. Their territory is crossed by five major tributaries of the Orinoco—the Cunucunuma, Iguapo, Padamo, upper Ventuari, and upper Caura—and the area is mostly covered by tropical-forest growth with intermittent savannas.