Apiaka

The Apiaka are a Tupi-Guarani people of northern Mato Grosso whose language took in elements of the Lingua Geral. Their name is said to derive from a Tupi word for man, though their leaders trace it to a wasp that avenges attacks with a painful sting.

They farmed communal fields of manioc and maize and lived in villages around a large thatched communal house with cotton hammocks. Records begin in 1791, with a possible European encounter as early as 1747; in 1812 one settlement held about five hundred people, half of them warriors.

After harvest the Apiaka launched war expeditions of two or three hundred warriors against neighbours such as the Nambicuara, fighting to avenge old quarrels rather than for plunder, and ceremonially ate captured enemies. A chief marked rank with a feather diadem and a belt strung with human teeth.