Bororo

Bororo, South American Indian people found along the upper Paraguay River and its tributaries in the Mato Grosso region of Brazil. They speak a language of the Macro-Ge group, of which there are two dialects: Bororo proper and Otuké. The Bororo have a western and an eastern division. They probably number fewer than 1,000 persons.

Farming has remained subordinate to hunting, gathering, and fishing among many Bororo groups. Slash-and-burn cultivation is practiced in the growing of cassava, corn (maize), and rice. Women sew and harvest the fields; men clear the fields and hunt.

In the rainy season the Bororo abandon their villages and move away from the rivers to higher ground. The village, nevertheless, is their permanent home, and its organization mirrors the complex structure of Bororo society. Houses are built in a circle or semicircle around the men’s house and a ceremonial plaza. The Bororo reckon kinship through the female line.

The Bororo social structure is based on age, kinship, and sex. Society is made up of moieties (dual divisions), clans, and associations determined by age and sex. Four to seven clans may constitute a moiety. Clans may have a traditional hierarchical ranking; they may be differentiated by their animal or plant ancestors and emblems, by the privileges and prohibitions relating to the technique and style of manufactured objects, and by their particular ceremonies, rites, songs, and proper names. The possible permutations in such a system allow for a breadth and variety of groups and relationships rivaled in South America only by the Ge (q.v.), to whom the Bororo are culturally related.