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toc They occupy twenty-one widely dispersed villages in a two-million hectare reserve in the Brazilian states of Parà and Mao Grosso ((Posey, 1983.).As of 2007, the Kayapo people numbered approximately 6000. Their population has been increasing at a raid rate due to increased health care. Women play a large role in this society. New wives live with their matrilineal grandmother and the new husband joins her house [|(Martin, V.)].
 * Introduction to the Kayapo Indians**

The Kayapo are composed of various subgroups, including Xicrin, regarded as a closely related but separate people, the Gorotire east of the Xingu river, and the Mekranoti west of the Xingu river. There are small difference between culture and dialect of these people.

Individuals in this society belong to the house of their mother. Men leave their hoseholds when they marry, but they transmit their names to their sister's sons and to their own houses. Women transmit their names to their brother's daughters. This name returns to the daughter's daughter and house of origin in the next generation. Matrilineal Kayapo houses, which possess roughly equal status, occupy places on the village circumference and each is equidistant from a sacred center.


 * Location, Environment, and Population.**



__Location__: the Amazon rainforest, Brazil __Environment__: tropical rainforest __Population__: an estimated 6,000, due to more recent medical care changes

[] // SOURCE: National Geographic Index. // Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, January–June 1984. Sting, and Jean-Pierre Dutilleux. //Jungle Stories: The Fight for the Amazon.// Paris and London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1989.


 * Family structure, kinship and marriage**

Like many other tribes in the Amazon, according to multiple ethnographers, the Kayapo’s kinship ties are subject to manipulation and dismissal. This is often done in order for a community member to achieve a desired outcome or treasure, such as a bride wealth or to gain status. Genealogies for Kayapo families are very difficult to create and navigate due to this flexible naming of kin. Many biologically related members of a community consider their relatives as unrelated, while a person of another tribe can enter into a community and gain many new kin through social movement. It is difficult to document this shedding of biologically related kin because in almost every case, it is due to some sort of inner familial conflict. Marriage is a possible way of gaining new un-blood related relatives, but it is not the only one.

This process of relation is a way in that the Kayapo strengthen and solidify village co-existence. Often times, especially in the Northern Kayapo tribes, Kayapo that are members of the same village identify each other as kin. Designation of kin is contextual, because it does little to describe the actual experience of the Kayapo involving their relations and interactions with each other. Their idea of kinship is so different from ours (that of the American people), that it is difficult to understand what makes a person kin without that specified blood relation.

Many villages have communal activities such as basket weaving or hunting when if any individual villager decides against participating, they can become completely ostracized from the rest of the village and be seen as unwilling to cooperate for the greater good of the group.

The nuclear family in the Kayapo culture has an extreme sense of closeness. If any member of the family does something wrong in the community, it is strongly reflected back into the family as a whole. The well-being of any one member represents the well-being of the entire unit. If just one member of a family is injured, the entire family is considered to be injured. While this can sometimes doom a familial group to failure due to a member’s mistakes, this closeness of the nuclear family also celebrates successes and joys of any member of the family as a triumph to all.

When the reigning female of the nuclear family becomes impregnated with her first baby, very careful measures are taken to ensure the safety and security of both mother and child. If the firstborn child dies, either in the womb, as a stillborn or due to sickness right after birthing, the mother will literally grow ill with sadness and longing. While other tribes similar to the Kayapo believe that sadness will affect ones health in the long run, the Kayapo believe that sadness reflects a certain physical state. This is a good example of the risk of emotional introversion among Kayapo families. While strong emotional ties are a huge indication of familial togetherness, it can be taken to an extreme and cause a unit to become distant from other units in a village. These kinship ties, whether they are through blood or not, are in the end, terminable. The true closeness of a village lies in the sense of community between multiple nuclear families.

SOURCE: W Fisher - South American ** Indian ** Studies, 1998 - salsa-tipiti.org []

** Gender and Sexual Orientation ** The Kayapo have a patriarchal society in which they believe that the women's place is to have children and prepare body paint for the men. The men's place in this society is to collect and find the food (Turner 2006). Men have certain privileges that women do not, such as the right to enter the central hut in the villages where business is conducted (Popovic 2011). Men also are allowed to take multiple wives - usually 2 or 3 - to increase the number of offspring a male has (3).

The Kayapo view anything that they dislike as weak, and in turn, feminine. The over consumption of material goods falls under these categories to the Kayapo (4). The correlation of femininity and weakness reflects the male dominance this society exudes.

Everything a woman does is seen as less than anything a man does. Even the everyday tasks of women are seen as secondary to men's because the men is the provider of the goods to perform these tasks. Most of the women's activities involve having young children nearby for them to take care of; the men do little in raising their very young. Because most of their tasks involve these young, child rearing is seen as a feminine, and therefore, weak task, meaning that having babies is weak. This view further allows men to exert their control over all aspects of a woman's life, including her sexuality (Turner 2003).

Acts of sexual violence are common among the Kayapo. Rape is seen as socially acceptable in ritual and spiritual ceremonies. A woman's rite of passage when she reaches puberty is to go into the forest with older men and have sexual intercourse with them all. Collective rape is also used as punishment for women who break ritual rules, such as coming too close to the central hut when a ceremony is taking place (Turner 2003).

Although women are seen as inferior to men, younger men are seen as inferior to their elders. For instance, when a man marries a woman he must move into her household with her family. The father-in-law has control in that house and the new husband must obey his commands. The father's power and absolute control is supported by the chiefs and all others in the village, meaning the son-in-law has no say or grounds to fight back against this, at times, tyrannical rule. In this way, the women are still seen as products to their fathers and the sons-in-law are seen as subservient to their fathers-in-law (Turner 2003).

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8322.2006.00458.x/abstract Turner, T. 2006. //Political Innovations and their Inter-Ethnic Alliance: Kayapo Resisitance to the Developmentalist State.// Anthropology Today. Vol 22:5. http://traditionscustoms.com/people/kayapo?page=2 Popvic, M. 2011. //Kayapo.// Tradtions and Customs From All Over the World. http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/jwec_02/jwec_02_00074.html I have no idea how to cite this one! Sorry!! http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/Anthro/Anth210/kayapo.htm I don't know how to cite this one either!!! Sorry!! http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=tipiti Turner, T. 2003. //The Beautiful and the Common: Inequalities of Value and Revolving Hierarchy among the Kayapo.// Tipiti: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America. Vol 1:1.


 * Language**

The native language spoken by these Brazilian natives is Kayapó. Due to the great geographical isolation of Kayapó villages, the individual Kayapó tribes speak different dialects, all derived from the Kayapó language (Advameg, 2011).

Some Kayapó villages speak some basic Portuguese. The oldest villages that were in existence around the time of Portuguese imperialism in Brazil speak truer versions of Portuguese than some of the newer tribes (Verswijiver, 2002).

The Kayapó language belongs to the Gê linguistic family. In this tribe, oratory skills are held with the utmost respect. The Kayapó value themselves as beautiful speakers, as opposed to all other groups who speak harshly. Those who speak other languages are looked down upon by the Kayapó because they do not speak as beautifully (Verswijver, 2002).

At times during important religious ceremonies, men will speak as though they were punched in the stomach. By changing the tone of voice, the Kayapó are emphasizing the importance of the ceremony and the distinction of this ceremony from daily life and normal rituals (Verswijiver, 2002).

Verswijiver, G. (2002, May). //Kayapo: Language.// Retrieved from: []

The Kayapo lands have been recognized as reserves by the state, and are under their control. This means that the Kayapo are not protected from intrusions and development projects. They have faced some struggles with people invading their lands. Issues include illegal gold mining, a proposed radioactive waste dump, and a large hydroelectric project. in 1988, they organized their First Meeting of Indigenous Peoples in Altimira to protest the Belo-Monte hydroelectric project financed by the World Bank. Universal media coverage helped to protect their lands. the Kayapo traveled to Washington D.C. to speak with officials at the World Bank, Congress, and the U.S. Treasury. They organized large demonstrations and many environmentalists came to their aid in order to protect the Kayapo people. The World Bank decided to suspend their project. The Kayapo Indians have great pride in their culture and work hard to preserve it (Conklin, Graham, 1995).
 * Effects of globalization**

In 2006, two hundred representatives of Kayapo communities met for five days in Piaracu to work out a plan to prevent the Brazilian government from building a hydroelectric dam. This meeting was the result of four years of organization and alliance building by the Kayapo. It was led by Megaron Tzukarramae. The work of the Kayapo people has generated a united front of about twenty-five groups of indigenous people of Xingu Valley as well as organizations of national Brazilian settlers. Though it was a challenge to form a united front, the Kayapo were able to mediate differences amongst groups in order to serve the greater good. The protest led officials to halt work on the dam project (Turner, 2006). The Kayapo leaders, such as Paulo Payakan; however, were very media savvy and were able to translate their traditional cultural values so that outsiders could understand. They utilized aspects of their culture such as elaborate body paint and dances in order to gain the support of the public (Conklin, Graham, 1995).The Kayapo then took their protest a step further by contacting Brazilian settlers and convincing them to protest against the dam as well. Though the settlers and Indians were often hostile towards each other, the settlers opposed the projects for their own reasons, such as the pollution of the river. This was a historic event for the Kayapo as it was the first time they were able to all unite and fight for a common cause [|(Turner, 2006)]. The Kayapo say that they are not entirely against development projects, but against ones that are performed in a way which will cause damage to the environment in which they live (Turner, 2006).

The Kayapo people have been able to protect their land and their culture in a variety of ways. They were able to prevent the building of the World Bank hydroelectric project, governmental prosecution of Kayapo leaders for protests against governmental plans, governmental plans for dumping of toxic waste in Kayapo territories, and have regained control of Kayapo lands from mining companies [|(Zimmerman, 2001).].

In order to protect their territories, the Kayapo have utilized the profits which they have received from mahogany sales They have invested in aerial patrols, communication with boats and radios, demonstrations in Brasilia and Altimira, and strategic meetings of Kayapo leadership (Zimmerman, 2001).

This is not to say that some of the Kayapo leaders have not been corrupted by the chance to make money. There have been some Kayapo who have sold out resources in their communities in order to reap the benefits. These people are often banned from their villages. The Brazilian media had also published reports of Kayapo corruption and hypocrisy.[|(Conklin, Graham, 1995)]

Beth A. Conklin and Laura R. Graham, The Shifting Middle Ground: Amazonian Indians and Eco-Politics. American Anthropologist. New Series, Vol. 97, No. 4 (Dec., 1995), pp. 695-710 Turner, T., Turner, V. (2006). Political Innovation and Inter-ethnic Alliance: Kayapo Resistance to the Developmentalist State. //Anthropology Today:// Vol. 22, p 3-10. Zimmerman, B., Peres, C., Malcolm, J., Turner, T. (2001). Conservation and Development Alliances with the Kayapo of South-Eastern Amazonia, a Tropical Forest of Indigenous People. //Environmental Conservation.// vol. 28, pp. 10-22.

The Kayapo Indians are a horticultural society. They plant trees and herbs along forest trails. Though they appear to be planted in unchartered territories, many of these gardens provide food and medicine for the tribes. Slash-and-burn techniques are used by the Indians, however, these fields are often revisited by the Indians and farmed in order to provide resources for them. The Kayapo also utilize natural openings where gaps of light shine through in order to plant crops which are more dependent on direct sunlight [|(Prance, G.).] Another interesting aspect of Kayapo farming is their use of banana trees to produce shade and create a unique environment underneath.
 * Farming Techniques**

Another technique which is utilized by the Kayapo for farming purposes is the formation of rock gardens. Exposed rock becomes hot and dry when heated by the sun. Mulch and soil is piled in the rocks to create planting zones. The Kayapo believe that these rock gardens have cosmic energies associated with spiritual forces.

The Kayapo grow many plants that they utilize for medicinal purposes. Shamans specialize in different medicinal treatments, and each treatment requires its own type of plant. "Medical Knowers" are also important because they are able to provide knowledge on how to cure minor illnesses. Some of these medicinal plants are grown in hidden locations so as to prevent use by people other than the designated healers [|(Posey, 1985)].

The Kayapo have an impeccable knowledge of insects and insect behavior. They restrict leaf cutting ants from gardens and fruit trees by introducing nests of ants that use both physical and chemical means to repel leaf-cutting ants.

Prance, G. //Ethnobotany: Evolution of a Discipline.// Discorides Press, 1995. Ed. Schultes, R., Reis, S. Print.


 * Importance of Bees**

The Kayapo are very dependent on bees and have several ways of classifying bees. They group them into four major categories regarding their aggressive behavior: docile, stinging, biting, and blister-causing. The natives are very familiar with the various species of bees and work to identify them. The Kayapo alsogroup the bees based on nest structure and location. They recognize eight zones in which they group all of the bees. They have specific criteria for grouping nests including size, site, height from the ground, and size and shape of entrance tube. The Kayapo have a variety of techniques for invading the nests. They include fire and smoke to empty the nests so that the honey can be harvested. For more docile species of bees, the Kayapo knock down the nests with axes and bare hands, and they are not concerned by the swarms of stinging bees. Some of the bees are semi-domesticated species. They are kept in or near their homes and nests are raided at certain times throughout the year. The best times to harvest honey are determined by the phases of the moon (Posey, 1983)

Posey, D. Folk Apiculture of the Kayapo Indians of Brazil. //Biotropica.// Vol. 15, No. 2 (Jun., 1983), pp. 154-158


 * Categories of names**

There are three categories of names for the Kayapo people: beautiful, common, and joking names. Beautiful names contain one of eight ceremonial classifiers: //Bemp, Taktak, Bekwoy, Nhak, Koko, Ngre, Peyn,// and //Ire.// Beautiful names must be confirmed during a ceremony. Only those whose names that have been confirmed ceremonially can transmit their names to name receivers. Common names can be given without a ceremony. Babies who die before naming are socially non-existent. There is no dance performed to honor its death and the mourning period is drastically shortened in comparison to named individuals. Names can be added to those given at birth and can be confirmed through ceremonies. Joking names are invented by groups of men and women. These names tend to be short-lived and they often use objects and things that they see in nature to describe qualities of people. People are generally known by one or a few names, though some people have as many as thirty-two names.

Some names are specific to males and some to females. Females never have male names; however, some males have female names in the event that there is a lack of available male names or a female lacks an heiress. Ornaments like earrings, often are worn to symbolize ones beautiful name. This jewelery varies between houses. There are also dietary restrictions associated with each beautiful name. Names are of great importance to the Kayapo people, and they are also very symbolic. When one dies, his or her name can then be recovered and transferred to future generations.

The origin of beautiful names come from the mythological appropriation of fish names. New names are not usually invented but taken from animals, plants, and the dead. New names are generated from people who have been visited by someone in a dream, or from a shaman during a "nocturnal journey," a time when their spirit leaves their body. Names tend to describe characteristics of a person, although there are cases where names are opposite of the person described.

Knowledge of traditional matters is a primary responsibility of the elders. People often are unaware of all of their names, as they received them at such a young age. they depend on name-givers and elder members of their house to know the full list of names that they have received. Young mothers work hard to learn and memorize all of the names of their children. Children who are orphaned at a young age are often unaware of all of their names [|(Lea, 1992)].

Lea, V. (1992). Mebengokre (Kayapo) Onomastics: A Facet of Houses as Total Social Facts in Central Brazil. //Man.// vol. 27 pp. 129-153.


 * Ceremonial Life**

Ceremonies are very important in the Kayapo culture. Naming ceremonies are the primary type of ceremony performed. One other type of ceremony that is important is the annual corn ceremony. The Kayapo calendar of village dispersal and aggregation is determined by their ceremonial life. The entire village, including deceased members of the village, are believed to attend these ceremonies. Prior to each ceremony, there is a long hunt which lasts for about a month. They hunt land turtles and store them for weeks before a feast for the entire village. There is usually dancing and singing from dusk till dawn and the naming ritual is performed. Naming rites occur in the house of the person being named. These are very formal ceremonies. The name-giver sits on the ground with the receiver and his or her parents and proclaims the names being given in a loud and serious voice.These ceremonies provide a genealogical history and help to distinguish between members of different houses. A great deal of preparation goes into these ceremonies. There are months of rehearsals for the song and dance rituals performed. The parents of the child being honored are expected to provide adequate amounts of food for those in attendance of the ceremony. If done properly, this helps the parents to gain prestige in the village. The last born sibling, regardless of sex, are least likely to undergo a naming ceremony [|(Lea, 1992)].

The Kayapo Indians have strong ties to their land both culturally and spiritually. There are areas which are sacred to the Kayapo, and they will defend them as such. Everything from the clothes they wear to the construction of villages, and rituals indicate that the Kayapo are proud of their culture and refuse to alter it, unless done so amongst themselves. The Kayapo identify themselves as one with nature and the universe and believe in their ability to defend and protect certain aspects of their land. This is the reason that the Kayapo headdress with feathers. The shaft of the feathers is symbolic of the universe. The Kayapo villages are designed to be built in a circle in order to reflect the Kayapo belief in the universe. Their distinct practices and rites of passage also exemplify an interrelation with nature and the universe, in which naming ceremonies for children are held in either rainy or dry seasons, and other ceremonies and spiritual dances are related to the crops that the Kayapo grow. Even some forms of recreation, such as storytelling is a huge way of preserving the identity of the people. Story-telling is embedded within dance rituals and ceremonies, and thus, also follows a definitive cycle that is linked to nature and the changing seasons. Holidays for the Kayapo are also celebrated around the changing seasons.In the Amazon, these are the dry season and the rainy season. Kayapo ceremonies are inextricably linked to their holidays. For instance, an initiation rite is held when a boy reaches puberty or when he receives his special ancestral name. The important dry-season celebration known as Bemp (after a local fish) also includes marriage rites as well as initiation and naming ceremonies. The Kayapo Indians do not divide their time in religious or secular parts. The religious, social, natural, and festive elements are all interconnected and interwoven into the culture.

Religious practices are based on the foundation that all things in nature have a soul. The ceremonies and religious practices reflect this belief.

Lea, V. (1992). Mebengokre (Kayapo) Onomastics: A Facet of Houses as Total Social Facts in Central Brazil. //Man.// vol. 27 pp. 129-153. http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Brazil-to-Congo-Republic-of/Kayapos.html http://www.leslietaylor.net/gallery/kayapo.htm

**Music** Similarly to many other indigenous groups, the Kayapo use music in many of their traditional rituals and ceremonies. Singing, dancing, and chanting are popular in these rituals. Instruments such as maracas, a type of rattle, are used often as well the simple banging on the ground with sticks to create a rhythym. The maracas are a symbol of what the Kayapo's believe the Earth to look like - a giant rattle, beating out the rhythyms of life. Two other popular instruments are the bamboo trumpet and the transverse flute (Advameg 2009). A popular rite song used by the Kayapo, Kworo Kango, has been copyrighted by a famous musician Marlui Miranda, who performs many tribal songs in her albums (Thomson 2011). Marlui Miranda is not the only well known artist to borrow from the Kayapo. International superstar Sting took a Kayapo leader, Raoni, on tour with him to perform and spread the word about the Kayapo Mekragnoti reserve and all the troubles the Kayapo have encountered with the Brazilian government (Rabben 1995).

http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Brazil-to-Congo-Republic-of/Kayapos.html Advameg. 2009. //Kayapos.// Countries and Their Cultures. http://www.maria-brazil.org/ihu.htm Thomson, S. 2011. //Ihu of the Music of the Amazon Indians.// Maria-Brazil. http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/brazil/kayapo-choices-short-term-gain-vs-long-term-damage Rabben, L. 1995. //Kayapo Choices: Short-Term Gain vs. Long-Term Damage.// Cultural Survival. Vol 19:2.


 * Colonialism and the Kayapo**

Throughout the course of history, many native tribes have been subjected to the effects of colonialism. Consequently, tribes have been stripped of their land and resources, and are forced to adapt to a new ways of life. Their political and cultural values weaken as they become a mere product of acculturation. It is inevitable that the clash of two societies, in which one is more powerful creates an unfair outcome. However, there are a few cases where a culture has been resistance to change and have successfully preserved their way of life and cultural practices. Such is true for the fierce Kayapo Indians. They remain in the rain forest around the Amazon River in Brazil and have fiercely protected their culture. Despite pressures to conform into the dominant society, they have resisted assimilation and have even fought amongst each other, as well as other enemy tribes in order to keep their culture embedded within their society. Despite contact with the outside world, a large number of Kayapo Indians resisted learning Portugese. This caused a large language barrier, making it harder for the Kayapo culture to assimilate into westernized systems of dominance. In our modern society however, the Kayapo have become more modernized.

Although the resistance to cultural change have been protected by the Kayapo, integration of certains aspects of Western culture can be seen. Younger men often wear Western-style shorts. This is due to the increasing contact with Westernized Brazilians who have come to the Amazon to farm, log, or mine gold. In regards to education, the Kayapo have accepted a more Western-style education, including reading and writing. However, many Kayapos have been extremely wary of accepting this type of schooling, because they fear that their children will lose or forget traditional skills that are taught to them such as hunting, fishing, and harvesting. At the same time, the Kayapo want to promote the improvement of their culture in healthy ways, as well as preserve significant aspects of it. Missionaries in the Xingu River area have attempted to offer this type of schooling and the Kayapo accepted. Therefore, they are willing to assimilate aspects that they consider important into their society and allow it to be taught to their children. This is also seen with recreation in Kayapo society. Children that had once been traditionally inclined to fish with their fathers or learn essential hunting skills are now being taught soccer by outside villagers as a form of entertainment.

Despite the fact that the Kayapo have been resistant to much change, there are environmental and social changes that have occurred, in which the Kayapo have no control over. Many activities that are practiced by new colonizers and westernized Brazilians have threatened the way of life the Kayapos want to preserve. A population explosion, poverty and an unequal system of land ownership have driven many people into the Amazon region to search for land. Deforestation of the Amazon is occurring at a rapid rate due to the need for more land in order to build commercial property and businesses. This destruction is further accelerated by the activities of cattle ranchers who grow beef that is then exported to fast food chains in the United States. As a result of cattling, land that is over-grazed by cattle quickly becomes completely barren, and can no longer be used by the Kayapo. In addition to land destrction, commercial loggers provide tropical hardwood for construction in Japan, Western Europe, and the United States. The destruction of so many trees contributes to carbon dioxide pollution in the atmosphere, decreasing the amount of oxygen in the air, as well as global warming. Mining is another activity that poses a threat to the Kayapo Indians. Due to the need of charcoal for smelting furnaces, much of it is taken from virgin forest that are irreplaceable. A harmful byproduct of the gold rush has been the introduction of new diseases among the Kayapo, and because of the lack of much medicinal knowledge, the Kayapo have no immunity. Specifically, when the poisonous gas mercury is released as a byproduct of heavy activity, the Kayapo have fallen prey to all of these poisonous toxins that now thrive in their once pure environment. The search for land by colonizers and other villagers has intensified, and as a result, some Amerindian groups, including the Kayapos, have been attacked and murdered and others have had their land forcibly taken away. In order to make a living, many have had to work for very low wages in miserable conditions in some of the frontier towns.This has changed the concept of employment for the Kayapo and they now have the belief that because they earn money for their work, they can now purchase goods that they did not have before. They have no longer restricted themselves to hunting and gathering.

http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Brazil-to-Congo-Republic-of/Kayapos.html http://www.leslietaylor.net/gallery/kayapo.htm


 * Politics**

Prior to the 1970s, the Kayapo people did not have much contact with the Brazilian government. At the time, Brazil was still under the dictatorship of military-led coup d'état João Goulart. Goulart ruled until 1985, when the military was defeated to bring about the New Republic. This New Republic reigned from 1985 until 1990. The newfound relationship that the Kayapo people began with the government brought about major changes in culture. Not only did their own political system begin to have changes (representatives were then appointed to keep in contact with the Brazilian government representatives), but social changed occurred as well. Western clothing was then introduced to the culture as well as the use of guns and metal tools. The Kayapo leaders also “succumbed to the seduction of goods and money offered by illegal mahogany loggers and gold-miners seeking concessions on Kayapo lands.” By the time the 1980s came about, the Kayapo increased their concern for their territories. As a result of the land claims becoming more prominent in discussion, they Kayapo decided to act. The leaders including Paiakan, Megaron and Kanok, learned to translate Amerindican cultural values into western environmentalist terms. This is something that was not necessarily unheard of at the time, but not practiced on a large scale. With what they learned through translation, it became much easier to have debates with other government officials about deforestation and overall concern for the forest. This topic was and continues to be heavily debated in terms of what the best course of action to maintain the forest is. However the Kayapo have been triumphant in keeping their land protected. The chiefs of the Kayapo people lead by consensus. However the wave of westernization did not change much of their politics. The candidates for chief are evaluated on the principles of Kayapo tradition. They must have knowledge of their culture and a combative spirit, as well as exhibit solidarity, generosity and exemplary conduct. “For the Kayapo, the moral force of social solidarity or the power of strong leaders to compel consent and obedience is created and conveyed by symbolic performances such as communal ceremonies or chiefly oratory and imbued in the symbolic acts, images and verbal [expressions] of which they are constructed” (Turner 2003).” The leaders of the Kayapo people have been well picked. Out of all the diverse cultures that reside in Brazil, the Kayapo people have made significant contributions to their society. Not only have they brought attention to themselves, but they have brought attention to the nature of the forest and land as well. This is something that NGOs, scientists as well as governments have not achieved. Protecting the land in such a way is not an easy feat. Kayapon territories span 10.5 million hectares in Brazil. This stretch of land could quite possibly form the largest single protected tract of tropical forest in the world. The Kayapo people value traits of power and beauty. However this is not the same as in western culture. In countries such as the United States, where western culture is clearly dominant, beauty is achieved through materialistic ways. To attain beauty as well as power, one must do so through rituals enacted by the community. This is something that has not changed overtime. Although there have been many influences in the culture, the Kayapo people have proven themselves resilient to negative influences. The way they preserve their culture is reminiscent of how they protect their land. Just as some part of the culture such as having warriors and not necessarily part of their culture anymore, the traditions that the Kayapo people have has remained prominent to this day. []
 * Values:**



The Kayapo are known for the infamous lip discs. Today, mostly older men in their culture have these discs as opposed to all of the males.






 * General Points on Globalization**

The Kayapo have done the most to raise awareness to their people and their community. They have clearly been the frontrunners in issues that affect not only their people, but the nations around them as well. When there was debate on a dam being built in Brazil that would flood into their territory, the Kayapo used the media to bring attention to the damage that it would cause. Click on this link to view the presentation that includes some points on the Kayapo:

[]

The Kayapo has also increased their relations with people outside of their own. The Body Shop has teamed up with Kayapo to raise awareness for Brazil's rainforest; which we all know is in jeopardy. Overall the media has played a huge role in helping Kayapo reach the exposure that they need.

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