Waiwai in Brazil

The indigenous people known as the Waiwai (or ‘Wai-wai’ / ‘Uaiuai’) are the result of the union of the Wai-wai, Parukoto, Tarumã and Mawayana indigenous groups, who inhabit the Brazilian Amazonian regions of Roraima and Pará, as well as the south of Guiana.

Waiwai people enjoy a multiethnic, multicultural and multilingual way of life. To understand this diversity, it is necessary to comprehend some fundamental factors about the Waiwai, such as their history of contact with non-indigenous people, their history of migration, their history of inter-ethnic relations and their process of Christian religious conversion.

Waiwai language, which belongs to the Karib linguistic family, is influenced by several other ethnic and linguistic groups, as a result of a characteristic of the Waiwai, which is their willingness to contact isolated Indigenous Peoples.