ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses one particular instance of the struggle to define adequate reservations, with the Nambiquara Indians as the residual ethnic minority and Brazil as the national society. The Indians called Nambiquara occupied more than 50,000 square kilometers in northwestern Mato Grosso and southern Rondonia. The Nambiquara preference for living in savannah, coupled with the need to live near forest, results in areas of relatively greater population density along the interface between the two zones. The Nambiquara area contains, as before contact, a large number of very small, separate ethnic groups that must intermarry in order to perpetuate themselves. The Fundacao Nacional do Indio decision to treat all of the Indians in the region as a single tribe, the Nambiquara, clearly served national interests. The Northern Nambiquara and the SabanS have drawn together and maintain ties, through the Manduca and kithaulhu, with the rest of the Campo Nambiquara.