Tumbalala

The Tumbalalá are an Indigenous people of the Pambú sertão, the dry backlands along the Bahia bank of the São Francisco River. They trace their origins to the old mission settlement of Pambú near Rodelas, and are historically linked to the Kariri and Procá peoples.

From the seventeenth century Portuguese cattle ranches and river-island missions transformed the region. The Capuchin Martin de Nantes, whose mission account was printed in 1706, served the Dzubukuá Kariri of the Pambú island mission. In 1749 the river islands still held ten missions, including Nossa Senhora da Conceição on Pambú island.

The Tumbalalá came to speak Portuguese, preserving only ritual words from the old Cariri tongue. That language belonged neither to the Jê nor to the Tupi family.