Cambeba culture (Omaguas)

The Cambeba people (also known as the Omagua, Umana, and Kambeba) are an indigenous people in Brazil's Amazon Basin, with territory extending into Peru.

They speak the Omagua language.

The Cambeba exist today in small numbers, but they are a populous, organized society in the late Pre-Columbian era.

Their population suffers steep decline, mostly from infectious diseases, in the early years of the Columbian Exchange.The name Cambeba seems to have been applied by other neighboring tribes and refers to the Omagua custom of flattening their children's heads by binding a piece of wood to the forehead soon after birth.

Omagua women jeer at the women from other tribes, saying that their heads are "round like those of forest savages."

In the eighteenth century, the Omaguas point out to travelers that their flattened foreheads are a sign of cultural superiority over their neighbors, and for a long time they resist abandoning this custom, even under missionary pressure

No related events match the current filters.