::01

According to information obtained from the Asurini and estimates made by the anthropologist Berta Ribeiro (1982), around 1930, the group had an approximate population of 150 individuals. From then until the year they were contacted (1971), many Asurini were killed in conflicts with the Kayapó or the Araweté, when women and children were also taken captive.

Following contact with attraction expeditions, the population of the Asurini of the Xingu declined nearly 50% by 1982, mainly because of the effects of new sicknesses transmitted by the Whites who participated in these expeditions but were totally unprepared to encounter a non-immunized population. In 1971, the Asurini population was approximately 100 individuals; by 1982, it had fallen to 52. By 1992, there were 66 Asurini and, in 1994, this number had risen to 72. Presently, the population is comprised of 33 women, 18 men, and 55 young men and children, totalling 106 individuals. In large part, the demographic recovery is due to an increase of the infant population and, consequently, a change in the pattern of family composition, along with interethnic marriages.