Bakairi people

The Bakairi are an indigenous people of Brazil. They speak the Bakairi language, one of the Cariban languages. They call themselves Kurâ, Bakairi being a Portuguese term of unknown origin. They currently live in the Santana and Bakairi Indigenous Territories of northern Mato Grosso, in the municipality of Paranatinga in the northern cerrado south of the Amazon rain forest. Like most native peoples, they were more numerous before European contact. In 1999 there were about 950 Bakairi, of whom 898 lived in the two Indigenous Territories. In 1965 only 261 were recorded.