Mura

Mura, South American Indian people of the Amazon tropical forest of western Brazil. The Mura originally inhabited the right bank of the lower Madeira River near the mouth of the Jamari River. Contact with whites led them to adopt guerrilla tactics; they spread downstream to the Purus River, raiding sedentary farmers along the way. By 1774 the Mura expansion had been countered by a local Brazilian campaign of extermination. In 1786, weakened by disease and by losses suffered at the hands of the aggressive Mundurukú, the Mura made peace with the whites.

The Mura are primarily fishermen of the rivers, admired for their skill. Their villages are very small, without much organization. A family spends much of its time in its canoe. The Mura are fast approaching extinction as an ethnic population. They now speak Portuguese, and few of them remember the Mura language. They are nominally Christian, but their rituals include the use of a narcotic made from the parica tree, flagellation rites, and shamanism.