Kaingang - Kaingang (English spelling)

An indigenous group living in the Brazilian states of São Paulo, Paraná, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul. They are an indigenous group that speak the Southern Gé language and remain in southern Brazil along with the Botocudo (Shokuren). Their population is about 20,000 (1994). Unlike the Gé peoples of central and northern Brazil, they came into contact with white people early on, and as a result, their social and cultural changes were seen early and were drastic. Before they came into full contact with white people, they were hunter-gatherers wandering the forest areas, but later they established villages and became settled farmers who mainly practiced slash-and-burn agriculture. During the hunter-gatherer period, they lived in bands (political and economic communal groups consisting of several families), but subtribes, which are subdivisions of tribes, were divided into exogamous half-tribes that intermarried with each other. They are patrilineal in origin. The group shared the same tribal organization that divides the group into two groups for rituals and marriages, and the age hierarchy that groups people of the same age into one group, as other Jé peoples. Today, they have lost their unique clothing and ornaments, but they still retain their unique language, and have not lost the characteristics of the Jé peoples, such as their village structure, tribal organization, and age hierarchy. They live alone or together with Guarani indigenous peoples in many indigenous territories, but many have left the indigenous territories and live in cities and rural areas.

[Kimura Hideo]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

ブラジルの、サン・パウロ州、パラナ州、サンタ・カタリナ州、リオ・グランデ・ド・スール州に住む先住民集団。ボトクード（ショクレン）とともにブラジル南部に残った南部ジェ語族の言語を話す先住民集団である。人口は約2万（1994）。中部および北部のジェ諸族と異なり、早くから白人と接触した結果、社会、文化の変容が早くにみられ、しかも激しかった。本格的に白人と接触する以前には、森林地帯を放浪する採集狩猟民であったが、その後は村をつくり、焼畑農耕を主とする定着農民となった。採集狩猟民時代にはバンド（数家族からなる政治・経済上の共同集団）に分かれて生活していたが、部族の下位区分である亜部族は互いに通婚し合う外婚半族に分けられていた。出自は父系である。集団を儀礼や結婚などにおいて二つに区分する半族組織や、同年代の人々を一つの集団にまとめる年齢階梯(かいてい)制度は他のジェ諸族と共通していた。現在では固有の服装や装飾品を失っているが、いまだに固有の言語を保持し、村落形態や半族組織、年齢階梯制などにみるようなジェ諸族の特性を失っていない。数多くの先住民区に単独で、またグァラニ系の先住民などとともに住むが、先住民区を離れ、都市や農村部に住む人も多い。

［木村秀雄］

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