Tarairiú

Tarairiú, whose speakers called themselves Otxukayana, is the extinct and unclassified language of the Tarairiú nation, once heard between the Assú and Apodi rivers in Rio Grande do Norte and across the dry sertão of north-eastern Brazil. It survives only in a few word lists. The nation united more than twenty peoples under paramount chiefs such as Draruk and his son Kanindé.

Dutch visitors in the 1630s, including the painter Albert Eckhout, described and portrayed these Tapuia warriors. Allied with the Dutch against Portuguese rule, the Tarairiú fought frontier wars from 1630 to 1730 over the Assú valley, among the largest indigenous wars in Brazil.

Their seasonal moves followed the floods of the sacred Piranhas-Açu. They combined hunting and honey gathering with maize and cassava farming.