Gramática do Kamaiurá, Língua Tupi-Guarani do Alto Xingu Gramática do Kamaiurá, Língua Tupi-Guarani do Alto Xingu Gramática do Kamaiurá, Língua Tupi-Guarani do Alto Xingu, by Lucy Seki, is an authoritative and comprehensive description of Kamayurá, an indigenous language of Brazil. Kamayurá is spoken by the people of the same name, which number about 290 as of 2005, living in two villages in the Xingu National Indian Reservation, Brazil. The book has 482 pages of text, plus 17 pages of color photos of the Kamayurá. Its thoroughness and completeness set it apart from most other books on American Indian languages, which usually give only an incomplete overview of their
Xingu peoples European slavers arrived in the Xingu region around 1750. Xinuguano population was estimated in the tens of thousands but was dramatically reduced by diseases and slavery by Europeans. In the centuries since the penetration of the Europeans into South America, the Xingu fled from different regions to escape modernization and cultural assimilation. Nonetheless settlers made it up as far as the upper run of the Rio Xingu. By the end of the 19th century, about 3,000 natives lived at the Alto Xingu, where their current political status has kept them protected against European intruders. By the mid twentieth century this