Indigenous Brazil

Brazil is home to many Indigenous peoples, each with their own languages and traditions. Their body arts include tattoos, painting, featherwork, necklaces and lip ornaments.

Karajá cheek circles are among the most recognisable markings. Other historical accounts describe lines around the mouth among Apiaká and Kawaiwete, also called Kayabí, communities. Similar shapes could have different meanings in different places.

Body paint offered colour without a permanent tattoo. Genipap produced dark designs, while annatto supplied red. Among Mebêngôkre-Kayapó communities, painted patterns and ornaments play important roles in daily and ceremonial life.

The person making a design was as important as the finished result. Patterns needed knowledge and skilled hands, whether worked onto skin or into feather ornaments. These portraits reveal only a few parts of a much wider, continuing world of Indigenous creativity.