Ethnographic Sketch of Brazilians

Subject: Sciences
Pages: 1
Words: 274
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This is a group of people who are found in Brazil that is located on the East Central Coast of the South American continent. Being autonomous people, each unit or village is led by a headman. This headman relies on a group of sons and in-laws for support, since his sons and their wives live virilocal. The dominant mode of production among the Brazilians is horticulture as they are mainly commercial rubber producers although they later ventured into gold mining.

In the case of divisions of labor most tasks are strictly alienated into the field of males or females. Male tasks incorporate hunting and tilling the land, while the female members would handle the processing of manioc flour and cleaning clothes. Cooperation amongst them is highly regarded. This cooperation is strongly sanctioned. In terms of property relations, personal property e.g. in case of death is burned. Few valuables are kept and belong to the household. Originally, rubber tappers exchanged merchandise with the Brasilians for manioc flour.

Later on, the Brazilians learned the art of tapping and curing of rubber latex and in due course altered themselves to take an essential role in the structure of sponsorship that ran the rubber trading business. The people lived in traditional villages of nuclear families. However, on the parental level, they implement bifurcate-merging kin terms. Their residence pattern is quite distinctive. Rather than a system based on conjugal ties, all males above thirteen live in the same household, while the females live with all the males below thirteen years of age in another. The Brasilians hardly ever turn to violence and they shun fighting when it comes to resolving disputes.