Parintintim

“Kagwahiv” is the self-denomination of a number of small groups in the region of the middle and upper Madeira River and central Rondônia that speak a language of the Tupí-Guaraní family and share features of social structure, notably a pair of patrilineal exogamous moieties named for contrasting bird species. Today the various tribes that call themselves Kagwahiv are known by separate names, many of them given by enemy groups. The northernmost is known as "Parintintin," possibly from a Mundurucú designation.

Location

When the Parintintin people were pacified in 1922-23 their territory extended on the east side of the Madeira from the Maicí and Ipixuna River drainages south to the mouth of the Machado. (Their Indigenous Land now is cut short on the south by the Transamazon Highway). Today most of the people lives in two Indigenous Lands in the ville of Humaitá, in Amazonas State. The two lands was homologated in 1997. The Ipixuna land has the extension of 215.362 ha and there lived 54 persons in 1999 (Funai/PIN Kagwahib). The Nove de Janeiro land has 228.777 ha and, in 2000, was habitated by 80 persons (Funai/ADR Porto Velho).

Linguistic affiliation

Foto: Acervo Museu Plínio Ayrosa, década de 1920.

The self-designation "Kagwahiv" in its widest sense denotes "our people" as opposed to tapy'yn, "enemy." Although there are slight differences from group to group, all of these groups share a common Kagwahiv language, a Tupi-Guarani language of the "h" variety characterized by gender-differentiated pronouns (ga and h_). One may discern two major dialects: a northern dialect spoken by the Parintintin and Tenharim, along with the few surviving Juma, Pãi’_ and Diahui among them; and a southern dialect spoken by the Urueu-wau-wau, Amundava and Karipuna, distinguished by certain small but significant differences of vocabulary.

All are presumably descendants of the "Cabahyba" who inhabited the Tapajós headwaters in the late eighteenth-early nineteenth centuries, one of the group of upper Tapajós tribes designated by Carl Friedrich von Martius as "Central Tupi" which included, besides the Kagwahiv, the Kayabi (whose language shares gender-differentiated pronouns) and Apiaká.

History

Crianças ouvindo gramofone. Foto: IR1/SPI - Acervo Museu do Índio, 1927

There is scant record of the Parintintin prior to their pacification by an expedition led by Curt Nimuendajú in 1923, save for numerous melodramatic accounts of their raids on rubber tappers on the Madeira. Phonological affinities with Urubú (Ka'apor) of Maranhão suggest an ultimate coastal origin, confirmed by legendary accounts of a journey upriver from a "land without water" to their present location, crossing an expanse in which the shore was out of sight for two days (possibly the lower Amazon).

The first historical references to the Kagwahiv or Cawahib do not occur until the end of the eighteenth century, when, according to Nimuendajú's researches, they were located at the confluence of the Arinos and Juruena rivers, formators of the Tapajós. Nimuendajú (1924) has reconstructed the history of their ancestral tribe, denoted "Cabahyba" by Martius, from the first mention of them on the Tapajós in 1797. They were driven from the Tapajós by Portuguese-armed Mundurucú in the mid-nineteenth century, scattering westward in several waves (Menenedez 1989): to the Madeira, where the Parintintin are now situated; to the Machado where Lévy-Strauss, and before him Rondôn and Nimuendajú, encountered the "Tupí-Cawahíb"; and across the Machado to the central Rondônia highlands where the Urueu-wau-wau, Amundava and Karipuna are located.

Fission was a continuing process; a Pãi'_ chief described to one backwoodsman, who passed it on to me, how the Kutipãi'_ split off from the Pãi'_ over a leadership issue. The many Kagwahiv groups at war with each other in the region may have split apart after arriving in the area, or come successively from the Tapajós.

The Kagwahiv-Parintintin, particulary, are a small, once warlike, Kagwahiv group who during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries entered into conflict with rubber tappers along 400 kilometers of the Rio Madeira, after having been driven there from the Rio Tapajós in the mid-nineteenth century by the Mundurucú. Pacified in 1922 in a classic pacification led by Curt Nimuendajú (1924), the Parintintin now live in clusters of small settlements scattered along tributaries through the territory they once dominated, which borders the east bank of the Rio Madeira from the Rio Marmelos (8o S) to the mouth of the Machado, east to the Maicí.  

Foto: Acervo Museu Plínio Ayrosa, década de 1920.

In the late nineteenth century, Byahú (who met his end ambushed by a Pirahã) may have been chief of all Parintintin. After his death they divided into subregional groups: Byahú's son Pyrehakatú opened up the Ipixuna valley and became chief there, while Diai'í after Byahú's death held sway over the upper Maicí region, where Nimuendajú established his pacification post. A third group further south, near the mouth of the Machado, was led by Uarino "Quatro Orelhas." After pacification, Indian Protective Service (SPI) posts were established, one at Canavial on the Ipixuna, and one near Calamas under Garcia de Freitas, who later turned it into his own personal seringal. In 1942 when the SPI underwent a fiscal crisis, the SPI mandate was terminated on the pretext of punishing a rebellious appointed chief, Pyrehakatu's son-in-law Paulinho Neves (Ijet), who then became Ipixuna area chief.

Groups of Parintintin also live near Tres Casas, on the seringal of Manuel Lobo who had called on the SPI to initiate the 1922 pacification. The post of a newly established reservation under the Pôrto Velho agency of Funai (the new Indian service) is now located there. In a new policy initiative for Funai, the chefe de posto is a Parintintin, as is the teacher.

Social organization

Like between the other Kagwahiv, the social organization is composed by a pair of patrilineal exogamous moieties named for contrasting bird species.

Parintintin settlements were never very large, and with reduction in their population settlements now average typically three to five nuclear families in each. The largest prepacification settlements of Pyrehakatú numbered little more than two or three times that size.

Settlements are typically located on igarapés (small waterways) for access to canoe transportation and aquatic resources. Traditional settlements consisted of a single longhouse (ongá) in which each nuclear family was allotted one segment between the central pillars and outer wall stanchions to stretch their hammocks. Only exceptionally large settlements boasted two houses; among the Parintintin Pyrehakatú headed such a settlement at the height of his influence. Around the house, or between the two houses, was a plaza (okará) which was kept rigorously clear of growth, and a thriving settlement would be ringed by fruit trees. In the northern Kagwahiv groups that have been long in contact, the ongá has been replaced by individual family houses in the style of Brazilian rubber-tappers’ houses, made of poles and thatch with one or two separate sleeping rooms and an open front room to receive guests. Three or four of these make up a present-day settlement.

Kinship

Among the Parintintin, nonlocalized exogamous patrimoieties are named after birds: the mutum (curassow, a ground-dwelling game bird) and the kwandú (harpie eagle). The Kwandú moiety is also associated with the red-headed macaw, taravé, which is the name of the corresponding Tenharim moiety. While all Kagwahiv groups have the Mytum as one moiety, the other moiety is identified with different macaws in each: taravé for the Tenharim, kanindé (the blue and yellow macaw) for the Urueu-wau-wau, and yet a different macaw for the Karipuna I talked with at the Casa do Índio in Porto Velho.

The system is complicated among the Parintintin by a third group, the Gwyrai’gwára, who are considered Kwandú but marry indiscriminately with other Kwandú or with Mytum, and so effectively constitute a third patrisib. Paulinho attributes their origin to the assimilation of a conquered group of that name into the Kwandú. They are identified with the japú, oropendola, a swamp-dwelling yellow bird that builds its oriole-like nest hanging from branches over the water.

The moieties are not localized. In fact, since the Parintintin marriage pattern is uxorilocal (the man coming to live with his wife in her father’s household), the moiety of a settlement’s headman will often alternate from generation to generation.

The system of moieties shared by nearly all of the Kagwahiv groups (the “Tupi-Cawahib” of the upper Machado seem to be an exception) presents a mystery: What is their origin? The Kagwahiv seem to be unique among all societies of the Tupí-Guaraní family in having exogamous moieties. (The Tapirapé have non-exogamous moieties, and the Mundurucú, who have exogamous moieties, are of the Tupí macrofamily but not Tupí-Guaraní.) It is unlikely that the moieties are borrowed from their old enemies the Munduruku, as their Red and White moieties are quite different in structure. But it seems almost certain that the moieties were borrowed from some neighboring group. The most likely source seems to be the Rikbaktsa, who were neighbors of the ancestral Cawahib tribe on the Arinos river, immediately upriver from them. The Rikbaktsa (see entry in this volume, Kinship) have a pair of moieties named for birds: specifically the yellow and scarlet macaws, both of them among the eponymous birds of Kagwahiv moieties. Such borrowing from neighboring tribes, even hostile ones, is not uncommon among Tupi-Guarani societies.

Kin terminology is a two-line system appropriate to moieties, with sibling terms extended to same-generation members of one’s own moiety, mother’s brother and father’s sister identified with parents-in-law, and so on. All cross cousins--same generation members of the opposite moiety--are designated amotehé, a term which means “lover” in other Tupí-Guaraní languages. They translate it into Portuguese as “unrelated.” Married amotehé observed a formal avoidance of one another, although by the 1960s only a few of the very oldest generation took these avoidances seriously.

The marital terms offer an interesting divergence between the northern and southern dialects of Kagwahiv. The northern Kagwahiv groups-Parintintin and Tenharim-have symmetrical terms for wife and husband, both descriptive terms meaning “she whom I have go with me” and “he whom I have go with me” (rembirekoh_, “wife,” and rembireko’ga, “husband” ). The southern Kagwahiv speakers, on the other hand - like many other Tupi-Guarani languages - have this construction for “wife,” but conserve the ancient Tupí root men for “husband” (mena’ga with the Kagwahiv masculine suffix).

One more feature of Parintintin kin terms which I have not verified for other groups is the distinct series of terms for deceased relatives. To speak of a deceased relative, you cannot use the term you used for them while they were living, but a series of kin terms that only apply to deceased persons, some of them adding the suffix “-ve’e” to the regular kin term, but some of them completely distinct: “father”= rúva, “deceased father” = poría.

Marriage

Parintintin marriage was traditionally determined by a series of arrangements beginning at birth. When a woman had a child, it would be named by a brother of hers who had a small child of opposite sex. The brother’s act of naming his sister’s child established a betrothal between the named child and his own. When of age--at the completion of the girl’s menarche ritual--the betrothed pair were married, the bride being given away by two real or classificatory brothers. These brothers in turn thus gained the right for one of them to give a name to her newborn child and claim that child in betrothal to one of his own.

A man completed his marriage through a period of bride service rendered to the father of his bride, his father-in-law (tutý). At the completion of this period--about five years for a first wife, less for a subsequent one--the marriage was considered fully realized. The couple then moved to their own sector of the ongá (longhouse), or more recently were free to construct their own family house and take up residence in it. At this point, the son-in-law was in principle free to leave the settlement (if he could persuade his wife); but in practice the couple usually remain in the wife’s father’s group, and the husband becomes one of his father-in-law’s core followers.

Polygyny was practiced, preferably sororal, but was never widely popular because of the complexity of familial relations involved; one man with five wives was joked about as imprudent. When a man took a second wife, the first wife was considered free to leave if she so chose; but in some cases it was the first wife who urged her husband to take her sister as a second one.

Many marriages still follow the rules of moiety exogamy, but it is increasingly difficult for young people to find appropriate spouses of the opposite moiety, and the system of social relations is rapidly changing. Monogamy is enforced by the Salesian bishop who comes once a year to sanctify marriages, as well as by social relations with neighboring Brazilians, who often serve as padrinhos for Parintintin.

During the period of bride service, the bride and groom and any children they might have are part of the bride's father's domestic unit. They hang their hammocks in the father-in-law's section of the longhouse (nowadays in the sleeping room of his family house) and cook at the same fire. The son-in-law delivers all his game to his father-in-law for distribution and repairs his house. He has no garden of his own but helps to clear his father-in-law's garden.

On the completion of bride-service, the new family unit (by now usually with children) would move to their own section of the longhouse and establish a separate cooking fire. Now they build their own separate house, with adjacent cooking shelter, and move in. Ostensibly the husband is now free to move to another settlement, but wives are usually reluctant to leave their fathers and the family usually stays in her settlement, the son-in-law serving her father as a follower rather than a dependent. This is how the core following of a group headman is formed.

This developmental cycle is followed most strictly in the case of marriages that are first marriages for both partners, in former times mostly marriages arranged at birth. When one partner has been married before, the new couple retain greater autonomy, the extent of dependence depending on the relative prestige of the new husband and his wife's father.

As a headman ages, he may retire. He may be succeeded by his own son, or one of his sons in law now with sons-in-law of his own. Pyrehakatú withdrew to a small spot supported by his youngest son-in-law, while his senior son-in-law Ijet (Paulinho) took over. leadership of his former group.

Socialization

Infants are freely nursed, carried on the mother’s hip to have free access to the breast. A child continues to nurse for three years or more after birth, and may be given the breast even at four or five when sick. But two children cannot nurse from the same mother, so when a child is born, its next older sibling is perforce weaned. Feelings of sibling rivalry on the part of the displaced child are recognized and laughed about. A strong effort is made to space children at intervals of at least five years, using contraceptive herbs, to avoid what they see as premature weaning.

After a period, toddlers are given to the care of an older sibling, more often but not invariably a big sister. The task is not entirely welcome on the older sibling’s part, but a special lifelong bond grows between the young child and its caretaker. Children are given considerable freedom of choice, and physical punishment is strongly avoided; but the value of generosity and sharing is insisted on from an early age.

An infant was given its first name (mbotagwaháv, “play name”) by a mother’s brother in the naming ceremony. At initiation, a boy received his face tattoos and his first ka’á, penis sheath, from a father’s brother who bestowed on him a new, moiety-associated name which replaced his birth name. Thereafter, new names were assumed on major changes of status such as marriage or entering a new stage of life, or at certain special events: a woman on the birth of her first child, a man on taking an enemy head. A woman’s initiation came at menarche, when she was isolated for ten days in a hammock behind a partition, observing strict taboos on movement and eating. At the end she was carried to the river by her father or a brother and ritually bathed, and her face was tattooed. Her wedding to her betrothed followed the ceremony.

Political organization

With patrilineal exogamous moieties combined with bride service, a mature traditional Parintintin household consists of a father and daughters of one moiety, and sons-in-law of the opposite moiety. The mother's brother (tutý), as future father-in-law, is regarded with the same respect due a father; it is the father's brother (ruvý) who, with the mother's sister (hy'ý), provide the warm, supportive relationships in the ascending generation.

Leadership in Kagwahiv societies lies primarily with the headman of the residential local group or settlement, called mborerekwára'ga, "he who binds us together," or more often ñanderuviháv, which may be understood either as "our residing person" (from -ruv-, "to be at, reside in") or as "our father-person" (from the noun ruv-, "father"). Among the Parintintin, the leading headman was designated paramount chief, or later chief of a particular river drainage (ñanderuvihavuhú/ mborerekwaruhú).

A man with married daughters would become the nucleus for a settlement, with his sons-in-law as a core of his following. Often the headman's authority is reinforced by a brother as co-headman, ga-irúno. The headman's wife is a key partner in his leadership, with important duties of hospitality and as a leader of women in the settlement; traditionally, the headman retires when his (first) wife dies. He may be succeeded either by a son or a son-in-law. A son expected to succeed his father may be excused from bride service, or return quickly to his father's settlement after a abbreviated period of service.

The means of controlling conflict and unwelcome behavior in Parintintin groups is simple: avoidance. A major focus of child socialization is to discourage competition and fighting between child playmates. Undesirable behavior, such as lack of sharing, is dealt with by social pressure and ostracism. A headman works to minimize friction in the group, leading by persuasion rather than by coercion, and mediating disputes. Irreconcilable conflict is dealt with by one party to the conflict moving out of the group. Thus intragroup conflicts are channeled into intergroup ones, leading to a situation of rivalry and antagonism between neighboring groups--a centrifugal relationship among groups in the society.

Since such intergroup discord may lead to fission of a society, as between the Pãi'_ and Kutipãi'_ mentioned above, this situation may lead to warfare among neighboring Kagwahiv groups. Warfare was a cultural focus of precontact Parintintin society, as it was in coastal Tupí societies. Raids were organized by any warrior moved to call one, and led by two ñimboipára'nga, "raid organizers," whose position lasted only for the duration of the raid. A focus of male prestige was the taking of an enemy head, which would be exhibited at an akangwéra torýva ("head-trophy dance"), a lavish festivity celebrating the exploit. It was cosponsored by the headtaker, who thus achieved the honored status of okokwaháv, and another prominent warrior, often a headman. There is evidence for ritual consumption of certain body parts of the slain enemy to gain prized qualities, or for women to have a male child. The killer was obliged to undergo a period of ritual seclusion like a woman's menarche seclusion. He thereupon assumed a new name.

Cosmology

The cosmological frame of the Parintintin world view is laid out in the myth of Pindova'úmi'ga (or Mbirova'úmi'ga), the spiritually powerful ancient chief/pajé (shaman) who brought into being the Sky People (Yvága'nga) who appear to shamans in their healing ceremony. After going successively into the sky, the river, under ground, and into a tree--and finding them already occupied by, respectively, too many vultures, fish, ghosts and bees--he lifted his house and the most productive forest land to the still vacant second level of the sky, where he and his offspring became the Sky People. The mythical model for shamans, he is to be distinguished from the trickster-creator Mbahíra (Maír of other TupI mythologies), who brought fire to man and originated many cultural items and processes, as well as shaping the landscape, but has little to do in the current world. A third ancestor, “Old Woman” (Ngwãiv_), was cremated by her sons and transformed into the staple cultigens, corn, manioc and other tubers.

Religious Practices

One area of ritual survived longer. Food taboos are an enduring and central part of the lives of older Parintintin. They are probably more generally observed in the more recently contacted tribes. Different sets of food avoidances (mainly fish, meat and honeys) apply during pregnancy and after the child's birth; to all parents from the birth of the first child until old age; and during sickness. Avoidances for sickness, especially a child's, apply to close relatives as well as the sick person. Handling manioc is dangerous when sick. Agouti, which makes one lazy, is prohibited for the young men of an age when they used to be warriors.

Sex is prohibited when timbó is being used to poison fish; it will interfere with the action of the poison. Sex between parallel cousins (members of the same moiety, clan siblings) will cause the deaths of children of the offenders.

Certain acts make a hunter paném, unable to kill a certain species of animal or fish, or any species with an affected weapon. Hunters who suspect they are paném now go to a curandeiro to be freed from the state.

Curing, beyond the herbal level, was done by a shaman (ipají) in a ceremony called the tocáia ("hunting blind"). One ipají would go into trance inside a small hut (tocáia) in the plaza, undergoing a spirit journey to all sectors of the cosmos to summon the spirits to come to blow on the patient to heal him or her. Another shaman would remain outside the tocáia to engage in dialog with the spirits summoned. The regions to which the shaman journeys in his trance corresponded to the sectors of the cosmos visited by Pindova'úmi'ga. The journey concluded with a visit to summon the Sky People, climaxing with Pindova'úmi'ga himself. Each spirit would announce himself with a signature song (sung through the voice of the ipají in the tocáia), and was greeted by the ipají outside, who would ask for its help.

Dreaming is closely associated with shamanism. An ipají or a layman may encounter spirits in their dreams; a shaman can command the spirits he encounters. Ordinary people can have dreams that are predictions of the future--mainly of success in hunting or of illness and death; but a shaman can cause the future to come about through dreams. Ipají were themselves born through dreams: an ipají would dream of a particular spirit, or of a Sky Person, who would announce that he would be born to a particular woman. Her nextborn son then would be marked for apprenticeship to the dreaming shaman, and the spirit who was reborn in him would be his rupigwára, the spirit agent of his power.

The central religious rite of Parintintin culture, the rite of curing by an ipají, is no longer practiced. The transmission of shamanism is a complicated process, starting with an older shaman dreaming the birth of his successor; and the chain of transmission was broken by the premature death of many shamans in the epidemics following pacification. Many of the children dreamed by the last ipají are still alive, but he died before he could pass on his knowledge to them. Parintintin now travel to Humaitá to use the public health system, or to Porto Velho to use the FUNAI doctors; but to supplement these medical treatments, they regularly turn to local Brazilian curandeiros, whose methods blend old Iberian curing traditions with indigenous practices.

Economy

Traditional Kagwahiv economy is based on hunting, fishing, gathering of nuts and palm fruits and shifting (slash and burn) cultivation. Fishing is done with bow and arrow from canoes or, during the rainy season, from triangular platforms (mbytá) made of poles tied between trees in the flooded forest. As the rains tail off, pools left in the forest by the receding waters are poisoned with timbó, the vines beaten against logs and the stupefied fish speared on the surface with fishing arrows. Hunting, now done with shotguns, was once done with feathered arrows of bamboo with notched hardwood tips inserted for small game, or a larger corner-notched bamboo point attached to a hardwood tip for larger game, as for warfare. Small catches of game or fish were distributed by the hunter following family ties; larger catches would be brought to the headman or the hunter’s father-in-law (usually the same man) who would distribute it to the community according to rules of allocation.

Shifting fields are cleared annually for gardening in jungle areas selected by the headman, who may assign specific areas to each family head. A man calls a collective work party to help clear the garden, feasting them in return. Women used to plant and harvest, although this is increasingly done in family groups. Traditional crops included several varieties of maize which have been lost; now they cultivate manioc and several varieties of potatoes and yams. Fruit trees are planted in the garden areas close to the settlement site, and also around the edge of the settlement clearing. Fruit is picked, or knocked down from tall palm trees with a pole, by women and children. Turtles are picked up in the forest, and turtle eggs laid on the beaches in dry season are enthusiastically gathered. Men cut down honey trees after the bees are smoked out; dozens of varieties of honey bee are known and differentially prized.

Commercial Activities

Cash is now needed for shotgun shells, metal tools, coffee, sugar and clothing. They buy some items they once made, such as hammocks. Economically dependent for cash crops on gathering Brazil nuts and tapping rubber and sorva (a latex tapped from a jungle tree, used in natural plastics and chewing gum), the Parintintin are hard-pressed economically. Invasive exploitation of their resources by neighboring Brazilian settlers further threatens their livelihood. They are diminishing in numbers, counting less than 200 individuals, many of whom oscillate between living on the reservation and working along the bank of the Madeira or in the nearby cities of Humaitá and Porto Velho. Men work in construction on the roads or in the cities, and women as domestics. Some have achieved success as cooks or boatmen on the recreios (passenger boats) and regatões (vending or trading boats) of the Madeira, and a few have made careers as translators and functionaries in Funai.

Industrial Arts and Trade

The main day-to-day transportation is by canoe. They are still sometimes made from the hollowed out tree trunks, but now wooden canoes are often bought from Brazilians. One half-Parintintin has been successful in boat construction, building recreios on contract. Older Parintintin make excellent bows and arrows; the elderly chief Paulinho’s bows were in great demand among Brazilian neighbors and Parintintin alike. Hammocks used to be woven from cotton planted in settlements; now they are made from the threads of worn out commercial hammocks. Pottery has not been made in the memory of living informants. Bought metal utensils are used for cooking; they were introduced before pacification from raids on rubber tappers’ households, as were raised floors in houses.

Division of Labor

Traditionally, men cleared gardens in the dry season and women were responsible for planting, weeding and harvesting food crops. Men, however, always gave some aid to their wives in weeding; working in the garden was understood to be a time for sexual activities as well. Nowadays, under the influence of neighboring Brazilian settlers, harvesting manioc and other crops is much more a family activity. Men and women work together now in the toasting of manioc flour and beijus from manioc.

Men hunted, women did most cooking, and this is still true. Men now build the smoking platforms for smoking cuts of large game for preservation. Women, and now some men, make excellent baskets, including carrying baskets for transport over trails. Women weave hammocks.

Children are often detailed to pick fruit for adults from the settlement's fruit trees, and young boys shoot lizards and small fish with their miniature bows and arrows to contribute to the larder.

Sources of information

• BETTS, LaVera. Dicionário Parintintín-Português-Parintintín. Brasília : Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1981.

 

• KRACKE, Waud H. Force and persuasion : leadership in an Amazonian society. Chicago : Univ. of Chicago Press, 1978. 340 p.

 

• -------. “Kagwahiv moieties: form without function?”. In: KENSINGER, Ken (ed.). Marriage patterns in Lowland South America. Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 1984. pp. 99-124.

 

• --------. El sueño como vehículo del poder shamánico : interpretaciones culturales y significados personales de los sueños entre los Parintintin. In: PERRIN, Michel (Coord.). Antropología y experiencias del sueño. Quito : Abya-Yala ; Roma : MLAL, 1990. p. 145-58. (Colección 500 Años, 21)

 

• -------.“He who dreams: the nocturnal source of healing power in kagwahiv shamanism”. In: LANGDON, J. e BAER, G. Portals of power: shamanism in South America. Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, 1992. pp. 127-148.

 

• LÉVI-STRAUSS, Claude. "The Tupí Cawahib". In: STEWARD, J. Handbook of South American Indians Vol. 3, The Tropical Forest Tribes. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1948. pp. 299-305.

 

• -------. "Tupi-Kawahib". In: Tristes trópicos. São Paulo : Companhia das Letras, 1998 [1ª ed. 1955].

 

• LEVINHO, José Carlos. “Os Parintintin.” Boletim do Museu do Índio, s/d.

 

• LINS, Joaquim Gondim de Albuquerque. A pacificação dos Patintintins. Manaus : s.ed., 1925. 68 p.

 

• MENENDEZ, Miguel. Os Kawahiwa. Uma contribuição para o estudo dos Tupi Centrais. São Paulo : Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas da Universidade de São Paulo, 1989. (tese de doutorado em Antropologia Social).

 

• NIMUENDAJÚ, Curt. Os índios Parintintin do rio Madeira In: Textos indigenistas. São Paulo : Loyola, 1982 [1ª ed. 1924]. p. 46-110.

 

• -------. "The Cawahib, Parintintin and their neighbors." In: STEWARD, J. Handbook of South American Indians Vol. 3, The Tropical Forest Tribes. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1948. pp. 387-397.

 

• PAES, Silvia Regina. Mito e cultura material. Terra Indígena, Araraquara : Centro de Estudos Indígenas, v. 12, n. 76, p. 3-42, jul./set. 1995.

 

• SAMPAIO, Wany Bernadete de Araújo. Estudo comparativo sincrônico entre o Parintintin (Tenharim) e o Uru-eu-wau-wau (Amondawa) : contribuições para uma revisão na classificação das línguas tupi-kawahib. Campinas : Unicamp, 1997. 94 p. (Dissertação de Mestrado)

 

• SCHROEDER, Ivo. Indigenismo e política indígena entre os Parintintin. Cuiabá : UFMT, 1995. 169 p. (Dissertação de Mestrado)