Kaingang

The Kaingang people are an Indigenous Brazilian ethnic group spread out over the three southern Brazilian states of Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul and the southeastern state of São Paulo. Their population was around 51000 in 2022.^[1]

Kaingang

Caingangue Indians (1910).
Total population
51000[1] (2022)
Regions with significant populations
Paraná, Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul, São Paulo (Brazil)
Languages
Kaingang language

For the language, see Kaingang language.

Names

Kaingang is spelled caingangue in Portuguese, and kanhgág in the Kaingang language. It is also sometimes rendered as Aaingang^[2] or Caingang.

The Kaingang have sometimes been grouped with the Aweikoma (Xokleng), although they are now considered separate groups.

Culture and language

The Kaingang people were the original first inhabitants of the province of Misiones in Argentina. Their language and culture is quite distinct from the neighboring Guaraní.

It has been stated that the Kaingang rarely live long in one place causing them to move a lot, but some sources, such as Juracilda Veiga^[3] and ethnographic registers (José Francisco Tomás do Nascimento 1886, Telêmaco Borba 1908 etc.), indicate that Kaingang groups have a crucial relation with the land where they were born and their ancestors were buried.

The Kaingang language is a member of the Jê family.

Copel agreement

In November 2006 Brazil's state-owned power company, Copel, agreed to compensate the group 6.5 million dollars for operating a small hydro plant in the Apucaraninha Reservation. The company finally gave in to a settlement after the natives carried two barrels full of fuel into the plant's machine room and threatened to destroy the plant.

This is part of a larger trend of indigenous groups challenging energy projects according to Platts.

See also

• Indigenous people of Brazil

Footnotes

^ Murdock, 1949.

Citations

1. Tommasino, Kimiye; Fernandes, Ricardo (2001). "Kaingang". Povos Indígenas no Brasil. Instituto Socioambiental.
2. Clark, Patricia Roberts (21 October 2009). Tribal Names of the Americas: Spelling Variants and Alternative Forms, Cross-Referenced. McFarland. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-7864-5169-2.
3. Veiga, Juracilda, "Kaingang", in Clements, William M (ed.), The Greenwood Encyclopedia of World Folklore and Folklife, vol. 4:North and South America, Westport/London: Greenwood Press, pp. 193–199

References

• Murdock, George Peter (1949). Social Structure. New York: The MacMillan Company. ISBN 0-02-922290-7.
• Platts Renewable Energy Report (2006-11-13). "Following standoff, Brazilian utility compensates tribe for small hydro use". The McGraw-Hill Companies. Retrieved 2007-08-04.
• Veiga, Juracilda, Nimuendajú, Curt (ed.), Aspectos Fundamentais da Cultura KaingangEditora