The Zo’é Tribe... by Shaye, Nick, and Keith (and Claire)

The Zo’é Tribe... by Shaye, Nick, and Keith (and Claire)

An Isolated Lifestyle

Who are the Zo’é people?

Rich Gardens



• The Zo’é tribe is a unique and very isolated group of people that reside deep in the Amazon rainforests of northern Brazil.

• They have their own customs and traditions that may seem quite odd to us, but are important and significant to the tribe.

Housing

The Zo’é have been a very small isolated tribe for a long time, they first made contact with the outside world in 1982, when a group of missionaries built a base on their land.

Their land is now recognized by the government, which control access to the tribe to prevent transfer of diseases like the flu.

The Prize Brazil Nut

Zo’é communities are often surrounded by large gardens. These gardens house many fruits and vegetables, such as peppers, bananas, and tubers. These gardens also have cotton, which is used to make body ornaments and hammocks, bind arrow heads and weave slings for carrying babies.

Most Zo’é live in large rectangular houses. Generally these houses have no walls, so they are open on all sides. Several families often live together, sleeping in the hammocks they have slung together and cooking food from the open fires they have outside.

The Zo’é cherish Brazil nuts. They site many of their communities inside groves of Brazil nut trees. Not only do these nuts provide a rich source of food, but the shells can also be used to make bracelets, and the shell fiber can be used to make hammocks.

Social Life and Roles

Rituals

Monkey Hunt

Fishing

The Poturu

• The Zo’é people are all polygamous, so the men and women have more than one partner.

• It is actually common for a woman to have several daughters with many men, and then for those men to later marry one of her daughters.

• Everyone is equal in the Zo’é tribe, so there are no leaders

• However, the opinions of certain advanced men, called ‘yü’, are more important when it comes to establishing new communities and marriage.

The Zo’é people are outstanding hunters. They are great archers and always retrieve every arrow they shoot. They make various types of arrows for the different types of game they hunt. They hunt various species of monkey that inhabit the forest around them. If a monkey manages to survive the hunt, they adopt it as a sign of respect.

• The lives of the Zo’é people revolve a lot around the rituals that they celebrate, including birth, death, and the boy’s first “tapir” that they hunt.

• Seh’py is the biggest ceremony in the tribe and it basically marks any important event.

• Seh’py is named after the fermented drink that the people drink during the ritual. Men dress in sy’pi which are long fibre skirts and they dance and sing with the women. After the ceremony, at dawn, the men drink seh’py together and eventually throw it up.

The Zo’é fish using smaller bows and arrows, made specifically for fishing. They have developed an inventive way of catalyzing the fishing process. They submerge a toxic grass in the stream to force the fish to come to the surface for oxygen. They can catch about 70 fish an hour using this technique.

The most distinguishing feature of a tribe member is a wooden plug that pierces their bottom lip, called a poturu. It starts at the age of about 8 years old by inserting a sharp monkey bone through the bottom lip, and gradually increasing its size by putting larger plugs in.

What’s in store for the Zo’é?

Zo’é Contact History

Troubles for the Zo’é Tribe

Zo’é people and the Government

Missionaries Kicked Out

Zo’é Contact History cont...

• The Zo’é people live in an area with very rich natural resources so pressure on their territory from large mining companies has greatly increased lately.

• Nut gatherers and missionaries will come and invade their land on occasion as well.

• Before the 1940’s and 50’s, the Zo’é people were left alone and isolated... then men hunting jaguars and other animals came and disturbed the peace.

• 1975 was the year where a mineral survey plane flew over the community and dropped goods out. The surveyors later reported that the Zo’é people had destroyed and buried the objects.

• Between 1982 and 1985, the New Tribes Mission started to make expeditions to visit the Zo’é tribe though they only made fleeting contact with a small group.

After some time, the Zo’é people began to fall sick to diseases carried over by the missionaries. The tribe had no immunity to the diseases so they rapidly died from malaria and the flu. Medical teams were sent in, but about one quarter of the Zo’é population died between 1982 and 1988.

FUNAI then kicked the missionaries out in 1991 and began to persuade the Zo’é people to return to their old villages

• February 2011: a select group of Zo’é people headed to the capital of Brazil to explain their demands.

• Their demands included: an education project that would train Zo’é people as health workers and a land protection program.

• Also, the Zo’é people must learn about their rights and to understand Brazillian society so that they can interact in a peaceful way.

• The Zo’é people have recently come in contact with society and some individuals have accused FUNAI, the National Indian Foundation which deals with Indian affairs, of isolating the tribe completely and putting them in a metaphoric “bubble”.

• However, this policy has really saved the Zo’é people and helped them to flourish as a group.

• The first actual contact with the Zo’é people occurred on November 5, 1987. The Zo’é tribe had been keeping an eye on the missionaries that set up near their community and were impressed with the missionaries hunting techniques.

• Eventually, a group Zo’é’s came to the missionary camp and exchanged broken arrowheads for goods that the missionaries had. This exchange prompted Zo’é people to build homes near the base in hopes that their trade of advanced tools would continue.

The Future of the Zo’é

Mounting Pressure

After that incident, the Zo’é people have been fairly stable and free from harm. However, there is pressure building from hunters, miners, and nut collectors and any outside contact brings great health risks to the tribe. Cattle ranchers are moving slowly but surely towards the Zo’é territory and it may be hard to keep them out. But they are fighting and the people of the tribe will continue to inform the government of Brazil about their right for protection of their land.

Cited Sources

The hope is that the Zo’é people begin to understand and interact more so with the outside world than they do now, but without risking their lives or territory in the process. It will be a struggle for this unique crowd of humans, but with the help of the Brazilian government, they will be a strong, blossoming tribe for years to come.

http://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/zoe