Culture Report
The Kalapalo Indians of Central Brazil are one of a few surviving indigenous cultures that is uniquely protected by a national reserve in lowland South America. Through no effort of there own, they have been isolated artificially from Brazilian social and economic influences that reach almost every other Indian tribe in Brazil. This unusual situation has made it possible for the Kalapalo's culture to be undisturbed by the outside world and the surrounding tribes. Much of Kalapalo life is run through a central concept or an ideal of behavior, called ifutisu. This is an infinite ideological concept that is represented in many ways in social life and ideal organization among the Kalapalo. The area in which the Kalapalo live is in the northeastern Mato Grosso state called Upper Xingu Basin. There are four unintelligible languages by groups in this region. This makes the Upper Xingu Basin linguistically diverse, but with many of the groups still sharing the same social and ideological features. It is very difficult to trace back the origins of Kalapalo life because of the integration of the many different and culturally diverse groups in the Upper Xingu Basin. So, many of systems of kinship classification, marriage practices, cerem
The Kalapalo seek to establish the first of the two marriages, which is the arranged marriage on the basis of past relationships of kinship or affinity. Also fishing is done at this time for the rivers are low and the water is clear. The idea of sharing takes place only along the lines of prior relations; such as kinship, friendship, or membership of the same household. This is what the Kalapalo call otomo concept which is similar to the anthropologist's concept of kindred. Despite this corporate organization, membership in villages and households is constantly changing, and there is much movement of people between group to group. Members of a household group are obligated to pass out food which they collect amongst themselves. Kalapalo technology is very primitive. The rainy season occurs during the months of October through early April, where a decrease subsistence activities begins. Kinship for a Kalapalo is an all-pervasive bond which extends into almost every part of their life, such as religion, economic, political and familiar relationship are all deeply influenced by kinship. The Kalapalo's attitude towards cleanliness approaches the excessive side. This type of marriage is marked by the giving of bridewealth, which is the payment to the girl's parents and their siblings by the parents of the husband to be. This is very different from other non-western societies whereas the individual acquire the responsibility to join in social units, by birth or other means of relationship to and with each other regardless of the identity of the individual themselves. onial organizations, status allocation, and religious beliefs are consistent with cultural rules and social practices and not with the original system. Some of these special statuses are anetaw village mediators between households and village groups. Also many of the men and women take on different types of marriage such as polyandry and polygymy.
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