Krikati/Pukobye - History and Cultural Relations

The names of these tribes appear for the first time in records of the nineteenth century, during which period the Timbira tribes were pacified and reduced in number by war and disease. The first mention of the Pukobye locates them east of their present territory, near the Rio Grajaú. The Krikati were first situated near the Rio Tocantins, to the west of their present site. Protracted conflict with a rancher in the 1920s led to the abandonment of the village of Canto da Aldeia and to a period in which they attached themselves to Brazilian homesteads or lived as isolated family groups before reuniting again by 1935 in a village called Itaboquinha. That village was also abandoned after many died in an epidemic. In the early 1960s they united again in their present location. Kindred feelings do exist between individual Krikati and Pukobye, but the social stance of each group is to mute their ancestral diversity and to emphasize locality as the important criterion of tribal identity.