The Kantaruré are an indigenous tribe of people who live in Brazil, state
of Bahia. According to Funasa, there were 493 people in the group in 2006.
They are descendants of the Pankararu tribe. They all descend from a
single couple who left the main tribe at the beginning of the XX century. The
Pankararu woman known as Rosa Baleia left the village in the Brejo dos Padres
to marry Balduíno, who lived in Olho d´Água dos Coelhos, near the Serra Grande.
They raised 13 children and founded the village of Batida.
Language
The term Kantaruré refers to a mythical figure from a magical-religious
universe, called "Wild mixed-breed", "Father of the ritual terrain". According
to a Kantaruré elder, the ethnonym was given by a Pankararé Indian.
They speak Portuguese and no trace of their original language is left.
The Kantaruré Indigenous Land covers an area of 1,695 hectares, and it was
homologated in 2001. The Kantaruré were 353 in 2003, and were distributed in
two different major groups, one living in Batida and the other in Pedras 3 km
farther.
External links
*Kantarure at
socioambiental.org