The Kaingang and the Aweikoma: A Cultural Contrast
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The names dorin, nhakfateitetei, and taven, are the designations of three partic
ular subtribes which lived in Paraná and thus are inappropriate as alternatives
to “Kaingang”. The names tupi, chavante, ingain, caagua (an alternative form;
caaigua), and guayana (alternative forms: guaynd, goyand, goaianaz, gualacho,
gualachí, chiqui, cabelludo, tupy, way ana, way anna, wayannaz, chobaca), have been
used to denote the Kaingang tribe but each is, in fact, the name of another Indian
tribe and is quite wrongly applied to the Kaingang. The extinct Guayana tribe is
probably the ancestor of the contemporary Kaingang and Aweikoma societies.
The term “Kaingang” (or “Caingang”) is the name that has gained almost
universal acceptance among Americanists; it is unambiguous and is the name
the Kaingang call themselves, i.e. koingang “men”. It seems to have first been
used in anthropological literature in 1882, by Borba. AmbrosettTs name
kaingangue is a variation of it.
The various alternative names for the Aweikoma Indians are fewer but
have caused even more confusion. The term bugre, as we have already seen, is
too inclusive to be precisely applied to any one tribe. The name botocudo is
the designation of another society. “Botocudo of Santa Catarina” is a cumbrous
title. “Kaingang of Santa Catarina” is as clumsy and as ugly, and relates to a
society which, as I hope to show, is not Kaingang. The names socre, xocren,
shokleng, sokleng, xalan, xaque, and xokleng, are terms that have been applied
to both the Kaingang and the Aweikoma by various writers, and the latter name
has gained popularity as a rival term to that of “Aweikoma”. The term “Awei
koma”, however, has been adopted increasingly by anthropologists since
it was first employed in published form by Nimuendajij in 1908. It is not
the name the Aweikoma call themselves, but it is a perfectly satisfactory one
and is the term I employ in this essay.
5. Francisco Schaden (1958) suggests the following eight differences
between the two cultures:
a) The Kaingang tribe inhabits the campos whereas the Aweikoma are
chiefly forest-dwellers (p. 108).
b) The Kaingang were agriculturalists even before the coming of the
Brazilians, but it was only after Brazilian influence that the Aweikoma took
to agriculture (p. 112). Jules Henry (1964, p. 59) states that sometime in the
past the Aweikoma used to cultivate the soil, but at the time they were settled
into their reservation they were hunters and food collectors only.
c) Fishing plays its part in the Kaingang economy, but the Aweikoma,
though living near streams containing fish, have never been fishers (p. 112).
d) The Kaingang displayed more cunning in meeting the advances of the
Brazilian invaders than did the Aweikoma (p. 105).
e) Unlike the Kaingang, members of the Aweikoma tribe wear a labret
(p. 111).
/) The Kaingang cut a tonsure; the Aweikoma do not (p. 111).
g) There is no initiation ceremony for young persons among the Kaingang
as there is among the Aweikoma (p. 111).