Goitacá people

The Goitacá (or Goytacazes, among other variant spellings "Waytaquazes" "Ouetacá", "Waitaká") were an indigenous people of Brazil. They are now extinct.

The Goitacá were a "Tapuia" (i.e. non-Tupi) people, one of the few that still remained on the Tupi-dominated coast. They were said to be taller and lighter-skinned than the Tupi. Their name may stem from guatá, the Tupi word for "wayfarer" or "runner".

In the 16th century, the Goitacá inhabited a large stretch of the eastern Brazilian coast, from the São Mateus River to the Paraíba do Sul River, encompassing what is now the state of Espírito Santo and part of Rio de Janeiro state. They are estimated to have numbered 12,000.

Unlike their Tupi neighbors, the Goitacá were a hunter-gatherer people. Their diet consisted primarily of fruits, roots, honey and engaged in a substantial amount of hunting (they were said to be masters of the bow-and-arrow). They were also one of the few coastal indigenous populations to also engage in fishing as a major activity, and were renowned for their skill in capturing sharks in shallows. They were alleged to be superstitious about water sources, drinking water only from freshly-dug wells, and never from streams or rivers.

The Goitacá painted themselves with dyes from the genipapo fruit and adorned themselves and their objects with bird feathers, but otherwise went around naked. They did not cut their hair, but let it grow into long manes, shaving only a small circle in the front. They had a degree of crafsmanship in clay and bamboo, made bow-and-arrows, stone axes, rafts and fishing nets made of fiber and coir.

The Goitacá were divided into three general rival hordes, the Goitacá-guassu, the Goitacá-moppi and the Goitacá-jacoritô. They are said to have fought each other incessantly, and that the "guassu" (meaning "great") were the more numerous and dominant of the three.

The Goitacá had a fearsome reputation as fierce and cruel warriors, characterized by English adventurer Anthony Knivet (c. 1597) as "the most odious people of the Universe". They also engaged in cannibalism. But contemporary commentators claimed that while the Tupi ate purely out of ritual, the Goitacá ate for pleasure, having acquired a taste for human flesh.

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