flu and measles killed around 15 people in the 1960s. After that, the Mehinaku relocated to a nearby area. The Mehinaku moved again in 1981 but did not go far from their original community. The proximity of a post where they could receive medical care gave them little incentive to relocate to their ancestral homeland, although the risks from the Ikpeng were gone by that time. Culture The Mehinaku have no provision for privacy in their social arrangements, and live with a striking degree of transparency. Huts that house families of ten or twelve people have no internal walls, and are situated around an open area that is in constant view. On the rare occasions when members of the group are out of sight, their activities can be inferred by their curious fellow villagers, who are able to recognize (and draw from memory) each other's footprints. Gregor sums up the situation by writing: "Each individual's whereabouts and activities are generally known to his relatives and often to the community as a whole. A Mehinaku has little chance of staying out of the public eye for any length of time." Subsistence The Mehinaku hunt, fish, and farm to provide for themselves. Their primary crops are manioc and maize. Notes References Gregor, Thomas. The Mehinaku: The Drama of Daily Life in a Brazilian Indian Village. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980. Gregor, Thomas. "Exposure and Seclusion: A Study of Institutionalized Isolation among the Mehinacu Indians of Brazil," Ethnology, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Jul., 1970), pp. 234-250. External links Mehinako: History of occupation in the upper Xingu Mehináku artwork, National Museum of the American Indian Le nostre radici - 02 Antropologia - I Mehinacu dell'Amazzonia, Antica Saggezza di una Tribù Felice Xingu peoples Indigenous peoples in Brazil Indigenous peoples of the Amazon