Korubo: Fight to the end (1)

The Korubo are some of the last people on Earth to live in near isolation from modern society as Indians of Amazonia although they have on numerous occasions had violent contacts with the surrounding communities.

Much of what the outside world knows of this group is based on the research of Brazilian explorer Sydney Possuelo who first contacted the tribe in October 1996 and journalist Paul Raffaele.

An offshoot of the group is led by a woman named Maya. This splinter group has around 23 members while the larger group is estimated to have 150 members.

Their hunting and war weapon of choice is the club, and aside from poison darts they use no other ranged weapons. Their workday is about 4-5 hours long, and often live inside large, communal huts called malocas.

They have no known spiritual or religious practices, though they occasionally practice infanticide for unknown reasons. Both men and women paint themselves with a red dye from the roucou plant.

Their diet includes fish, spider monkeys, peccary, birds, wild pig, fruit, manioc and corn. A leading cause of illness and death within the tribe is malaria. They have some knowledge of agriculture, making clearings for harvests of crops.

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.

Credits: Wikipedia