Indigenous peoples in Brazil (Portuguese: povos indígenas no Brasil), or Native Brazilians (Portuguese: nativos brasileiros), comprise a large number of distinct ethnic groups who have inhabited what is now the country of Brazil since prior to the European exploration around 1500. Unlike Christopher Columbus, who thought he had reached the East Indies, the Portuguese, most notably Vasco da Gama, had already reached India via the Indian Ocean route when they reached Brazil....read more: Amazon Tribes Episode 1
Nevertheless, the word índios ("Indians") was by then established to designate the people of the New World and continues to be used today in the Portuguese language to designate these peoples, while the people of India are called indianos in order to distinguish the two....read nore:Amazon Tribes Episode 1
Ethnicity is often used synonymously with ambiguous terms such as nation or people. At the time of European contact, some of the indigenous peoples were traditionally mostly semi-nomadic tribes who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, and migrant agriculture. Many of the estimated 2,000 nations and tribes which existed in the 16th century suffered genocide as a consequence of the European settlement, and many were assimilated into the Brazilian population
