Word: caiap
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...cabodos (rubber-tree tappers and Brazil-nut gatherers) who live along tributaries of the Amazon, the Caiapó Indians are bad medicine. Savage and naked, they lurk in the jungle until the men in caboclo settlements leave for the day's work. Then they swoop down, killing everyone but the girls, whom they kidnap. If they meet resistance, they fire thatched huts with flaming arrows, like Sioux attacking a covered-wagon train. Says an old trader: "The best thing to do when you see a Caiapó is to shoot first...
...Caiapós, on the other hand, the cabodos are sinister members of a light-skinned tribe which threatens their tropical hunting grounds and may rightfully be attacked. In this view they have a virtual ally in the powerful Indian Protective Service, a federal bureau. So considerate is the Indian Service of its wards that it has even tried to have the government forbid shooting of Indians in self-defense...
Last week, after many months of increasing Caiapó depredations, the State of Para Chamber of Commerce sent an angry telegram to Brazil's Congress, "transmitting the intense clamor of the state's population against the murdering of rubber tappers and nut gatherers by the Caiapó Indians." It noted that "at a time when Brazil needs its rubber for its economy, security and defense," production in the area had dropped from 2,000 to 400 tons a year as frightened cabodos refused to venture into Caiapó territory. Worse, the Indians, in addition to bows & arrows, clubs...