Eine Familie der Botocudos auf der Reise. Pl. 10

Title

Eine Familie der Botocudos auf der Reise. Pl. 10

Description

Botocuden Indian family traveling in Brazil.Brazil's indigenous population includes a variety of different ethnic groups that inhabited the area that is now Brazil before the Portuguese conquest in the 1500s. Brazil is the country with the most uncontacted peoples in the world.The Aimoré are one of several South American peoples in eastern Brazil, called Botocudo in Portuguese. Some called themselves Nac-nanuk or Nac-poruk, meaning "sons of the soil." The Botocudos were nomadic hunter-gatherers who roamed the forests naked and lived off the forest. Their tools and household utensils were all made of wood, and their only weapons were reed spears and bows and arrows. The most distinctive feature of the Botocudos was the tembeitera, a wooden plug or disc worn in the lower lip and earlobe. The operation to prepare the lip often begins as early as age eight, when a hard, pointed stick is used to make an initial hole that is gradually enlarged by inserting larger and larger discs or plugs that can eventually reach a diameter of up to 10 cm. Earplugs are also worn that are so large that they extend the earlobe to the shoulders. Ear jewelry of this type is common in South and even Central America, at least as far as Honduras, as Christopher Columbus described when he discovered that country on his fourth voyage (1502).

ca. 1815

Artist

Wied-Neuwied (1782-1867)

Prince Alexander Philipp Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied ( 1782 – 1867)Neuwied, was a German explorer, ethnologist and naturalist. He led a pioneering expedition to southeast Brazil between 1815–1817, from which the album Reise nach Brasilien, which first revealed to Europe real images of Brazilian Indians, was the ultimate result. It was translated into several languages and recognized as one of the greatest contributions to the knowledge of Brazil at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In 1832 he embarked on another expedition, this time to North America, together with the Swiss painter Karl Bodmer.

Historical Description

The oldest traces of human life were found in the Caverna da Pedra Pintada in the state of Piauí. The early inhabitants fundamentally changed the ecosystem of the Amazon basin by planting certain types of plants and improving the soil. Their settlements - for example on the huge river island of Marajó - were far larger than long thought. In the province of Mato Grosso there were numerous planned locations where fish farming and agriculture were practiced until around 1500. The cities, which were up to 60 hectares in size, were connected by a road network - although in most areas the canoe was the means of transportation - there were dams and artificial ponds. As in many places in America, the people of the Xingu are believed to have been victims of the epidemic, especially smallpox. The indigenous peoples in Brazil lived partly from hunting, fishing and gathering, as well as from the fragile ecosystem of adapted soil management. A large part of the local population died in the course of European colonization, mostly from imported diseases, but also as a result of forced labor or enslavement. The majority of the Indians living outside the rainforest, especially in the cities, were assimilated insofar as they survived violence and epidemics and mingled with European immigrants. Already in 1494 Portugal and Spain decided to divide South America in the Tordesillas Treaty. Because the line had been agreed in ignorance of the coastline of the New World, the (at that time still generally unknown) eastern tip of South America also belonged to Portugal. The prerequisite for a legitimate possession was the consequent catholization of the locals. The period from 1500 to 1530 was marked by bartering with the locals. In 1549, today's Salvador da Bahia (São Salvador da Bahía de Todos os Santos) was named the capital. From 1530, native Indians were brought to the coast from inland who had to do the work on the sugar cane plantations in the northeast. Many of them died because of hard work, persecution, and indigenous susceptibility to European diseases. The colonialists then tried to replace the lost labor with slaves from Africa.