Ge Mythology
GE MYTHOLOGY. Before Brazilian expansion diminished their territories, the widely scattered, generally independent and isolated groups that speak languages of the Ge family occupied a large expanse of the Brazilian interior, from approximately 2° to 28° south latitude, and from 42° to 58° west longitude. They are usually grouped into three branches on the basis of linguistic similarities: the northern Ge (the Kayapó, Suyá, Apinagé, and the various Timbirá groups in the Brazilian states of Pará, Mato Grosso, Goiás, and Maranhão), the central Ge (the Xavante and Xerente, in the states of Mato Grosso and Goiás), and the southern Ge (the Kaingán and Xokleng, in the states of São Paulo, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul).
In addition to their language affiliation, the Ge-speaking groups share a tendency to occupy savanna or upland regions away from rivers, to live in relatively large semipermanent villages, and to subsist on extensive hunting and collecting and some degree of horticulture. Compared with other lowland groups in South America, the Ge have a fairly simple material culture and very complex forms of social organization involving moieties, clans, and name-based groups. Their rites of passage are long and elaborate. Several non-Ge-speaking groups on the Brazilian central plateau also have some of these traits.
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