Bruce stayed with the Kayapo village of Krinu for the last phase of his Amazon trip. The Kayapo are a powerful and well-known Brazilian tribe who inhabit a vast area of the Amazon across the Central Brazilian Plateau. In 2003 the Kayapo population stood at an estimated 7,096. Within their vast area, there are many subgroups and some of these smaller communities are known to exist in virtual isolation, having little direct contact with other Kayapo. They do not refer to themselves as Kayapo preferring the term Mebengokre, meaning 'the men from the water place', but because it is their public name they are happy for it to be used.
Kayapo culture is characteristically rich and complex. Their appearance is highly decorative and colourful, using face and body paint, beads and feathers. The Kayapo believe their ancestors learnt how to live communally from social insects such as bees, which is why mothers and children paint each other's bodies with patterns that look like animal or insect markings, including those of bees. Women shave the distinctive V shape into the scalp and men ceremonially wear the flamboyant Kayapo headdress with outwardly radiating feathers, which represents the universe. The rope of the headdress is a symbol for the cotton rope by which the first Kayapo is believed to have descended from the sky. Traditional ceremonies may last many months and mark the beginning and end of seasons as well as rites of passage. Their beliefs are linked to their environment, which they rely on for sustenance and material resources.
The Kayapo have a long history of contact with others. Since the initial arrival of Europeans around 500 years ago, the Kayapo have experienced forced migration further west into the rainforests as a result of invasions, they have lost land and habitat and they have also suffered from the introduction of diseases that accompanied the arrival of outsiders.Yet the Kayapo have prospered through contacts with media and commerce. The tribe became rich in the 1980s when they employed white outsiders to log species on their lands but this practice ceased when logging was outlawed on indigenous lands. Then the Kayapo decided that their future lay in the preservation of the forest and in 1989 worked with Sting and the late Anita Roddick of The Body Shop to raise awareness about the destruction of the Amazon. They were an important and vocal part of a global media campaign that brought the Amazon to the forefront of environmental debates.
