Raoni Metuktire, also known as Chief Raoni or Ropni, is an Indigenous Brazilian leader and environmentalist. He is a chief of the Kayapo people, a Brazilian Indigenous group from the plain lands of the Mato Grosso and Pará in Brazil, south of the Amazon River and along Xingu River and its tributaries. He is internationally famous as a living symbol of the fight for the preservation of the Amazon rainforest and indigenous culture.
Raoni in 2023
Raoni with Sting in 1989 in Paris
Raoni in a conference in Brazil in April 2006
Raoni and French President Jacques Chirac in May 2000 at The Élysée Palace.
The Kayapo people are the indigenous people in Brazil who inhabit a vast area spreading across the states of Pará and Mato Grosso, south of the Amazon River and along the Xingu River and its tributaries. This pattern has given rise to the nickname the Xingu tribe. They are one of the various subgroups of the great Mebêngôkre nation. The term "Kayapo" is used by neighbouring groups rather than the Kayapo themselves. They refer to outsiders as "Poanjos".
Kayapo
Kayapo women, Pará State, Brazil
Kayapó headdress, or ákkápa-ri, ca. 1910, National Museum of the American Indian