Kashinawa - History and Cultural Relations



The Kashinawa probably have lived in the general area where they are presently located since no later than A . D . 1200, but our knowledge of their presence in the region dates from reports of the English geographer William Chandless in the 1860s. Beginning about that time, Brazilians from the state of Pará began to make expeditions during the dry season to exploit rubber, sarsaparilla, cacao, and copaiba oil. Later, colonists from northeastern Brazil settled in the area. These early contacts seem to have been peaceful. In 1898 Peruvian caucheros (rubber workers) staged planned massacres of the indigenous peoples, which, along with the epidemics that accompanied contact with outsiders, decimated the indigenous population of the region. Beginning about 1910, some Kashinawa worked rubber for Brazilian bosses under the debt-peonage system, as some still do today. Others fled to the headwaters of the Rio Curanja, a tributary of the Purus, where they lived in relative isolation until the late 1940s. In Acre, the Kashinawa lived with Brazilian settlers, tapping rubber and hunting for them. They became Catholics like their Brazilian bosses, the men learned Portuguese, and the residential basis for their sociopolitical organization was lost. They continued to see themselves as Kashinawa, however, because the Brazilians regarded them as índios or caboclos —not "civilized."

The building of the BR-364 highway into the state of Acre, beginning in 1970, opened up the state to land speculation and cattle ranching, with an ensuing battle for control over land between ranchers and the seringalistas (rubber tappers), a battle that continues. As a result of the development of an indigenous movement in Acre, some of the Brazilian Kashinawa now live on their own land within "indigenous areas" established by the Brazilian government, with bilingual schools and economic cooperatives. U.S. Protestant missionaries began work with the Peruvian Kashinawa in 1955, resulting in the establishment of bilingual schools under the auspices of the Peruvian Ministry of Education and in the conversion of many of the Kashinawa to Protestant Christianity. Despite these acculturative influences, the Kashinawa continue to maintain much of their indigenous culture, adopting and adapting to Peruvian and Brazilian elements where useful.


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