Karipuna of Amapá

The Karipuna of Amapá live along the Curipi river, a tributary of the Uaçá in the Oiapoque borderlands of far northern Brazil. They are a people of layered origins: descendants of Indigenous groups from the lower Amazon who fled the Cabanagem war in the 1830s, together with earlier Yao migrants and later arrivals drawn by the region's gold rush, who consolidated into a single Indigenous identity over the twentieth century.

Their first language is Kheuól, a French-based creole distinct from that of Cayenne, spoken alongside Portuguese; it is now taught in village schools. Families combine manioc farming, fishing, and small trade, favoring marriages within extended kin networks while keeping alliances open to outsiders. Religious life blends shamanic practice — the Turé healing ceremonies with song, dance, and caxiri — with Catholic festivals, above all the Festival of the Divine each May.

The Karipuna hold recognized lands within the Uaçá, Juminã, and Galibi Indigenous Territories, demarcated jointly with the Palikur and Galibi-Marworno. Like their neighbors, they monitor threats from road-building along the BR-156 corridor and from gold mining in the border zone.