Atikum

The Atikum, also called Huamuê or Uamué, are an Indigenous people of the Serra do Umã in the Pernambuco sertão, near Carnaubeira da Penha, known to colonial records as the Umãs.

Documents of 1801 show the Umãs settled with other tribes in an official aldeia in these hills; they remained until 1819, when repeated conflicts drove them out, and in 1825 dispersed across the backlands, some taking refuge in the Serra Negra. Their own tradition calls Umã the father of Atikum, founder of the Olho d'Água do Padre village; the community also absorbed fugitive Black slaves in the mountains.

Their old language, sometimes speculated to belong to the Kariri family but too scantily recorded to classify, survives only in scattered words such as toê for fire, kept alive in Toré chants learned from Tuxá neighbours; otherwise the Atikum speak Portuguese.