The Kayapo are also a highly evolved group ecologically, exemplifying living in balance with the ecosystem. They cultivate many types of plants utilizing biological pest control. They domesticate and classify the insect life. All parts of the surrounding jungle are utilized by them for practical and medicinal purposes. The Kayapo belong to the Ge linguistic group that reside around the southern tributaries of the Amazon. They represent an ancient culture of seasonal farmers and gatherers. During the rainy season they live in highly complex villages in the scrub and savanna area of the Xingu basin partaking in a rich ceremonial life. During the dry season they break up into smaller bands and disperse into a wider area. The Xingu basin provides them with many reds and blacks for their face paint, so they almost always have some on.
Korubu
The Korubu are a tribe of living in the . The group calls themselves 'Dslala', and in they are referred to as caceteiros (head bashers). Much of what the outside world knows of this group is based on the research of Brazilian explorer who first contacted the tribe in October 1996 and journalist . The Korubo are a few of the last people on Earth to live in near from the modern society, although they have on a few occasions had violent contact with the surrounding communities. An offshoot of the group is led by a female named Maya. This splinter group has around 23 members and the larger group is estimated to have around 150 members. A dispute between about 20 members and the main tribe caused the two bands to separate. The main tribe is for the time being in complete isolation whereas the smaller band of Korubo have frequent interaction with neighbouring settlements and FUNAI employees. Population figures of the main tribe are unknown but estimated from aerial reconnaissance of houses to be a few hundred individuals.
wrote an article about them in its August 2003 edition called After First Contact. More recently, The wrote an article about the same tribe called Out of Time in its April 2005 edition. Their hunting and war weapon of choice is the club, and , they use no other ranged weapons. Their workday is about 4-5 hours long. They usually live inside large, communal huts called malocas.
They have no known or traditions. They sometimes practice for unknown reasons. Both men and women paint themselves with a red dye from the plant.
Their diet includes fish, , , , , , and . A predominant cause of illness and death within the tribe is by , which is brought by outsiders and mosquitoes. They have some knowledge of farming and agriculuture, making clearings for harvests of crops.
first peaceful contact in 1972 ended tragically and over the following decades Brazil's FUNAI agency lost seven civil servants in attempts to establish a peaceful relation with them. This finally occurred in 1996.
Much is unknown about these people, because of FUNAI's refusal to let anthropologists study the group. After a long history from the 1950s of massacres of this indigenous people a special department of FUNAI organized an expedition in 1996 to establish a first peaceful contact with them. The Korubo in the past have killed trespassers on their land and the latest incident occurred year 2000, when Korubo warriors killed three lumbermen near the Indian Reservation. FUNAI helps the Korubo by giving them modern immunization shots and checking up on them often. FUNAI also established a national park that encompasses the Korubo's land in order to stop logging in the area. Their goal is to prevent further contact with the tribe by modern society in order to preserve their way of life for several more years.