Some Ka’apor say their true shamans died during a cosmic flood, but shamanism remains a reality in certain villages, though it appears to have been adopted from the Tembé. Modern Ka’apor shamans invoke the “ancestors” (yande ramui) and various deities, such as Ïrïwar (glossed as "Mother of Water"), believed to help predict the future, replenish depleted hunting supplies, and diagnose and cure illnesses.
There is evident Afro-Brazilian influence in Ka’apor shamanism. One of the deities they seek to appease is Kurupïr (Curupira), a malevolent dwarf with deformed feet and black skin, sometimes referred to as "the little black one." Rituals involve singing, dancing, tobacco smoking, and shamans entering a trance. Apprentices assist with chanting and sometimes enter a trance themselves.
Shamanism is a public performance attended by villagers of all ages. Ka’apor shamans claim to have been spiritually called to this role after being "thrown" (ombor) into a stream by the Mother of Water.
The specter of death manifests through ghostly apparitions of ancestors called angã, inducing an incurable, morbid fear. Violations of “taboos” can subject individuals to supernatural penalties. Many purification rituals involve human blood (awa ruwï) and bloodletting. Men who have killed others, including outsiders (karaí), traditionally mortify their bodies with agouti teeth and follow strict diets, akin to those observed during confinement (resguardo).
At the first menstruation (menarche), a girl is confined in a closed enclosure for about 12 days. Upon emerging, her caretakers shave her head, wrap her waist and chest with live tapií ants (Pachycondyla commutata), and scarify her legs with agouti teeth, causing them to bleed.
The idea that menstrual blood (yaï) pollutes society is reinforced by food taboos (menstruating women can only eat tortoise meat among terrestrial animals), activity restrictions (they cannot work in the fields, cook, feed others, or bathe in the communal river), and numerous remedies for "excessive menstrual flow" (yaï-hu). During the resguardo (nino-rahã), both the mother and her husband are limited to dietary restrictions for months, believing that consuming other foods harms the newborn.
The most positive ceremony in Ka’apor culture is the child-naming ritual. It symbolizes Ka’apor fertility and reaffirms exogamous ties between residential groups that ensure population survival and growth. Having survived birth and the parental dietary and isolation restrictions (resguardo), a child becomes eligible for naming. This typically happens once the child can sit and crawl independently but may occur a year or more after birth. Several children aged one or older are often named simultaneously. Each child must have godparents (ipai-anhang) in addition to their parents, making this ceremony the largest group celebration in Ka’apor society.
One of the child’s parents acts as the “host” (-yar) of the event, preparing the traditional caxiri drink made from fermented cassava, cashew, or banana. All adults and older children must drink it overnight. At dawn, everyone hangs their hammocks in the village's largest house, where men recline and smoke long cigars. Outside, the mothers of the children to be named sit on mats made of bacaba palm, holding their children in cotton slings. All adults and many youths adorn themselves with feather ornaments, and the vibrant red, yellow, green, and black plumage brightens even the darkest clouds on the horizon.
A godparent begins the ritual by shouting the name they have chosen for the child, repeated many times by the gathered men and women. Next, the child’s parents announce a second name, which is also repeated by the audience. The godparent then lifts the child, blows a hawk bone whistle adorned with red, blue, and black feathers, and dances back and forth with the crying child, announcing the arrival of a new Ka’apor individual.
This process is repeated for each child until the new names are firmly embedded in the collective memory. The godparent is often an in-law or an opposite-sex sibling of one parent, making it conceivable that the godchild might marry the godparent’s child in the future. In essence, Ka’apor society projects itself into the future through the solemn conferral of names.
