Ofaie

The Ofayé, who call themselves Ofaié or Opaié, are a Macro-Jê people of central Brazil, once spread in small mobile bands along the Paraná River. Non-indigenous travelers named them Xavante, meaning savanna dwellers, although they have no link with the Xavante of the Rio das Mortes; their language forms an independent Macro-Jê branch.

The first written mention of them dates from 1617, and between 1716 and 1748 gold-rush expeditions found them between the Serra do Maracaju and the upper Paraná. Hunter-gatherers, they fished in the dry season and hunted and gathered honey in the rains.

They built circular villages of palm-thatched houses and crossed the Paraná to hunt, sharing its far bank with their enemies the Kaingang. The spread of cattle ranches in the nineteenth century drove them from the Vacaria campos, the heart of their territory, toward remoter streams.