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Xingu river from space, downstream section.

Map of the Amazon Basin with the Xingu River highlighted

The Xingu River in northeast Brazil is a tributary of the Amazon River.

There was little known about the Xingu River, until it was explored in 1887 by Karl von den Steinen from Cuiabá. Travelling east, 240 miles (390 km), he found the river Tamitatoaba, 180 feet (55 m) wide, flowing from a lake 25 miles (40 km) in diameter. He descended this torrential stream to the river Romero, 1,300 feet (400 m) wide, entering from the west, which receives the river Colisu. These three streams form the Xingu, or Parana-xingu, which, from 73 miles (117 km) lower down, bounds along a succession of rapids for 400 miles (640 km). A little above the head of navigation, 105 miles (169 km) from its mouth, the river makes a bend to the east to find its way across a rocky barrier. Here is the great cataract of Itamaraca, which rushes down an inclined plane for 3 miles (4.8 km) and then gives a final leap, called the Fall of Itamaraca. Near its mouth, the Xingu expands into an immense lake, and its waters then mingle with those of the Amazon through a labyrinth of eanos (natural canals), winding in countless directions through a wooded archipelago. In the borders of this river, the Brazilian government created in the late 1950's the first Indian Park in Brazil. This park marks the first Indian territory recognized by Brazilian government. Nowadays fourteen tribes live there, like their ancestors, surviving using natural resources, extracting from the river most that they need as food and water. These people are in great danger, because these lands and the river are menaced by uncontrolled forest exploration, the cattle and the farming growing around the park and the construction of hydroeletric power plant in the Kuluene River, the most important ascedent of the Xingu River, despite the fight of these people against this.

In the Upper Xingu region was a highly self-organized pre-Columbian anthropogenic landscape, including deposits of agricultural terra preta, with a network of polities each of which covered about 250 square kilometers.¹

In popular culture

The name has at least one reference in literature, as the title of a humorous Edith Wharton short story from 1911. It also the title of a song on Waterfall Cities, a 1999 album by Ozric Tentacles. A Beer produced near the river is sold in the international market under the name "Xingu".

In the NY Times bestselling novel The Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, the Xingu River is the location of the doomed Whittlesey/Maxwell expedition responsible for discovering evidence of the lost Kothogo tribe and their savage god Mbwun.

References

• Cowell, Adrian. 1973. The Tribe that Hides from Man. The Bodely Head, London.
• Original text from 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica

Further reading

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• This page was last modified on 13 October 2008, at 17:42.

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