Ofayé

For the language, see Ofayé language.

Ofayé

Total population
60 (2010)
Regions with significant populations
Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil
Languages
Ofayé language, Kaiwá, Portuguese
Religion
Christianity

The Ofayé (also spelled Opaié or Ofaié) are an Indigenous people of Central Brazil. They live along the Paraná River, near the mouth of the Sucuriú River into the headwaters of the Ivinhema and Vacaria Rivers.

Their traditional lands were overtaken by cattle ranchers. Most Ofayé live in an Indigenous territory located near the municipality of Brasilândia in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul.

Language

The Ofaye language, a Macro-Jê language, is severely endangered, and only two people were recorded speaking it in 2005.

History and culture

Early history and territory

An Indigenous group belonging to the Macro-Jê family, the Ofayé descend from Indigenous civilizations of the Chaco in Bolivia. Originally comprising an estimated population of five thousand speakers of the Ofayé language, they were first documented in 1617 in eastern modern-day Mato Grosso do Sul, around present-day Três Lagoas.

As hunter-gatherers and fishers, they led a semi-nomadic lifestyle across territories bounded by the Paraná River to the east, the Serra de Maracaju to the west, the latitude of the Sucuriú River to the north, and the banks of the Verde River to the south. Their social organization was traditionally matrilineal and uxorilocal, with extended families structured around maternal lines. Rather than settling in permanent locations, they typically operated in smaller, mobile bands distributed across this entire range, moving whenever hunting or fishing grew scarce. They were historical adversaries of the Kaingang people of western São Paulo state, though small hunting bands of Ofayé occasionally ventured into that region. To the north, beyond their territory, lived the Kayapó of the Sertão do Camapuã, while the Guarani-Kaiowá inhabited lands south of the Verde River and west of the Serra de Maracaju.

Colonial and imperial eras

Beginning in the 18th century, the Ofayé faced incursions from São Paulo bandeirantes and mining expeditions during the Brazilian Gold Rush. Between 1716 and 1748, the Ofayé were encountered along the Paraná and Sucuriú rivers, as well as along the western Tietê River, the Pardo, the Anhanduí, and reaching as far as the Aquidauana River. In the 1840s, Joaquim Francisco Lopes—commissioned by the Baron of Antonina to survey communication and transit routes connecting the provinces of São Paulo, Paraná, and Mato Grosso—documented Ofayé settlements at the headwaters of the Negro, Taboco, and Aquidauana rivers, tributaries of the Paraguay River.

From the mid-19th century onward, bandeirantes actively raided and enslaved the Ofayé. During the Paraguayan War, colonial expansion halted temporarily, granting the Ofayé a brief respite. However, following the end of the conflict in the River Plate basin, cattle ranchers crossed south of the Sucuriú River and settled around Três Lagoas during the 1880s. Consequently, the local Ofayé retreated southward away from the confluence of the Sucuriú and Paraná rivers, permanently establishing settlements south of the Verde River by 1901, where modern-day Brasilândia is located.

To the west, beginning in the mid-1880s, landowners from Miranda expanded into the Serra de Maracaju and the Campos de Vacaria (the southern-central plain of the former Mato Grosso province, spanning between present-day Campo Grande and Três Lagoas). The Ofayé living there were forced southward to the banks of the Samambaia River, while a smaller contingent sought refuge in the wetlands of the Taboco River.

Ofayé communities around modern-day Rio Brilhante faced persecution starting in 1886 and subsequently merged with groups along the Samambaia, Três Barras, and Quiterói rivers. Similarly, populations along the Anhanduí and Ivinhema rivers were driven out by ranchers.

20th century and displacement

By the 1890s, many Ofayé were coerced into working as farm laborers on regional cattle ranches. In 1903, General Cândido Rondon established peaceful contact with an estimated two thousand Ofayé in the grasslands of the Rio Negro. In 1907, the Geographic and Geological Commission of São Paulo noted Ofayé presence along the Peixe River, a left-bank tributary of the Paraná River. In 1911, the Indian Protection Service (SPI) stressed the urgency of settling the group—erroneously labeling them "Xavante"—proposing reserves between the Taquaruçu, Pardo, and Verde rivers. In 1912, Capuchin missionaries petitioned the São Paulo State Congress for land in the Ribeirão das Marrecas valley along the Paraná River to proselytize the Ofayé and Kaiowá. By the time railway engineers founded the camp that became Três Lagoas near Lagoa Maior in 1909 for the Estrada de Ferro Noroeste do Brasil, the Ofayé had already vacated the area nearly two decades prior.

Following the closure of the SPI posts in Peixinho and Laranjalzinho in 1924, surviving Ofayé along the Samambaia and Ivinhema rivers reunited with the community at the Verde River on land that became the Boa Esperança ranch. Originally state land leased to the Boa Esperança Comércio, Terras e Pecuária S.A. (COTERP), the estate was later auctioned to rancher Arthur Hoffig. Hoffig relocated the Indigenous population to unfavorable plots along the Verde River; unable to adapt, they returned to Boa Esperança, living in fragmented groups.

Diaspora, misidentification, and land rights

Displaced from the Verde River, many Ofayé succumbed to introduced diseases. Some crossed the Paraná River into São Paulo state, others became low-wage agricultural laborers, while some migrated west toward the Serra de Maracaju or stayed along the Verde River.

Those who crossed into São Paulo came into conflict with local Indigenous groups and were frequently misidentified. When American linguist Sarah Gudschinsky studied an Ofayé survivor in São Paulo state, she erroneously described her informant as the "last living Ofayé" and declared the Ofayé language extinct. Another surviving Ofayé woman in São Paulo gained national attention on TV Globo's news magazine Fantástico, where she was shown speaking to a tape recorder believing it played the voices of her deceased parents; the broadcast incorrectly identified her as belonging to a local São Paulo ethnic group.

Those who migrated to the Serra de Maracaju faced starvation, epidemics, inter-tribal clashes, and violence from ranchers and corrupt SPI agents, prompting survivors to return toward Brasilândia. Conditions on the Verde River remained severe: the Hoffig family consolidated landholdings across the region, destroyed Ofayé burial grounds with heavy machinery, and established the town of Brasilândia south of the river.

In 1978, with the acquiescence of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), the Ofayé were expelled from Brasilândia and relocated to Bodoquena, Mato Grosso do Sul. They returned to Brasilândia in 1986, setting up makeshift camps along the Verde River. Through the mediation of the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) and FUNAI, entrepreneur Luigi Cantone temporarily granted the group land along the Paraná River. The community suffered from tuberculosis, malnutrition, and river pollution caused by neighboring estates.

Following the development of another hydroelectric plant on the Paraná River, the community organized the political movement *Ofaié: Nós ainda estamos vivos* ("Ofayé: We Are Still Alive"), staging protests in Campo Grande and gaining national media coverage. Under international pressure, INCRA, FUNAI, and the Mato Grosso do Sul state government formally recognized Ofayé land rights and ethnic survival.

Present day

Today, the Ofayé reside on a small reserve in Brasilândia, acquired for them by the São Paulo Energy Company (CESP) and transferred to FUNAI, where hunting and fishing are not feasible. From an original population of approximately five thousand, the group has dwindled to around sixty individuals, many of whom belong to other Indigenous ethnicities or no longer speak the Ofayé language.

Supported by researcher and attorney Carlos Alberto Santos Dutra, the Ofayé continue legal and political efforts to reclaim ancestral lands originally appropriated by Arthur Hoffig.