SHAVANTE

also spelled Xavante, Brazilian Indian group speaking Shavante, a language of the Macro-Ge language family. The Shavante, who number about 3,000, live in the southeastern corner of Mato Grosso state, between the Rio das Mortes and the Araguaia River, in a region of upland savannah laced with narrow bands of forest running alongside the rivers. The Shavante and the closely related Sherente (q.v.) at one time lived along the Tocantins River in Goias state, but pressure from Brazilian settlers in the 1840s caused the Shavante to move to their present home. The Shavante successfully defended their new territory against outsiders and lived in relative isolation until the 1930s, when they gained sudden notoriety in the wake of their fierce resistance to the new wave of settlers and government agents who were trying to bring central Brazil into the mainstream of Brazilian culture and economy. Traditionally, the Shavante were nomadic hunters and gatherers who lived in temporary horseshoe-shaped villages on the savannah and cultivated corn (maize), beans, and pumpkins on seasonally visited garden plots. They hunted tapir, deer, wild pigs, and birds and gathered roots, nuts, and honey.