Kashinawa - Settlements

Traditional Kashinawa villages consisted of a single large house situated in the middle of a garden near a large stream that provided water and bathing sites. Each house, made of hardwood posts and poles with a thatched roof that came to within a meter of the earthen floor, contained at least two extended families, linked by consanguinity and affinity, with a total population of 25 to 100 individuals. When they moved to the banks of larger rivers that flood seasonally, the Kashinawa adopted local Peruvian-Brazilian architecture with raised palm-bark floors and walls enclosing at least the sleeping areas. Each house provides living accommodations for a single nuclear or extended family. Small cooking huts are constructed near or attached to the house. When a new village is established, it is constructed in a new garden, with additional new gardens being made in areas cleared in the forest surrounding the village at a distance of up to one hour's walk.