Apiaká - Settlements

From the earliest reports to the present, the Apiaká have been known to build their villages near the banks of large rivers, with the exception of the aforementioned nomadic group. Koch-Grünberg reports that an Apiaká village consisted of a house of enormous size, very well built and sheltering hundreds of people. During the nineteenth century Apiaká villages, initially concentrated in the vicinity of the confluence of the Arinos and Juruena rivers, were moved. Part of the group traveled north along the Rio Juruena, and another part went east, up to the Rio Sao Manoel, where they became known as Parabiteté. This group's tatoos were recognized by the Apiaká as those of "brothers, originating from the same family tree" (Koch-Grünberg 1902, 353).

In the mid-1970s a group of families began the return trip toward the south, looking for a "good employer." A Jesuit missionary invited them to settle in the vicinity of the Kayabi on the Rio dos Peixes. From then on, additional families moved to the south and built the villages of Nova Esperança (1968), Mayrob (1982), and Tatu (1986), all on the Apiaká Indian Reserve. Their houses and kitchens are built from materials obtained from the nearby forest. The architectural style is modeled on that used by Brazilian rubber tappers. As a roof covering, wooden slats are substituted for palm fronds. When the kitchen is not a subdivision of the nuclear-family house, it consists of a smaller structure with half-walls, adjacent to the house.