Like the other Kawahib peoples, the Jupaú
and Amondawa are divided into kin groups, each with
a chief, organized in two moieties: the Curassow and
the Macaw.
Before contact, they were highly mobile, there
being fixed settlements at certain times of the year
and temporary camps or tapiris, spread throughout the
whole area of occupation.
The villages were built in small clearings opened
in the woods. In their gardens they planted corn, sweet
cassava, sweet potato, yams and cotton. They produced
manioc flour and a fermented beverage of sweet cassava.
They did not use tobacco and, according to the records,
one non-Indian who lived with them in the 1940s was
able to get tobacco from the rubber-gatherers (Costa,
1981).
Before contact, they lived in rectangular malocas,
with very high sloping roofs, and doors on both sides.
Presently, besides the malocas (which are few in number),
they live in wooden houses with roofs of sheets of asbestos,
a practice which was introduced by the Funai.
The Jupaú often complain that these houses are
very hot, preferring to stay in the malocas during
the day, in the villages that still have them. They
make small thatch traps, to catch game, and build thatch
shelters, when they go on long trips within the indigenous
land.
Marriage and Kinship
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Marriages are traditionally polygamous and are
arranged between the two moieties, such that the Curassow
only marry with the Macaw. Marriages are arranged between
cross cousins: the young man marries his mother’s brother’s
daughter. In the last few years, due to the scarcity
of women and the influence of contact with non-Indians,
marital relations have become monogamous, there even
being cases of polyandry. Due to this solution, the
men have gone to live with the women upon marrying.
When a child is born, it is already promised
in marriage. With the development of their breasts,
the girls already have permission to have boyfriends.
Actually, at times there is a certain resistance in
accepting the promised husband, which leads to conflict
in the family group.
People of both groups change names at each birth
of a member of the nuclear family. When a boy is born,
he receives the name of the father when he was a baby;
as he grows older, he takes on the names that his father
had.
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