Xingu River

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Xingu river from space.

The Xingu River in Brazil is a tributary of the Amazon River.

It was little known until it was explored in 1884 – 1887 by Karl von den Steinen from Cuyaba. Travelling east, 240 miles, he found the river Tamitatoaba, 180 feet wide, flowing from a lake 25 miles in diameter. He descended this torrential stream to the river Romero, 1300 feet wide, entering from the west, which receives the river Colisu. These three streams form the Xingu, or Parana-xingu, which, from 73 miles lower down, bounds along a succession of rapids for 400 miles. A little above the head of navigation, 105 miles from its mouth, the river makes a bend to the east to find its way across a rocky barrier. Here is the great cataract of Itamaraca, which rushes down an inclined plane for 3 miles and then gives a final leap, called the Fall of Itamaraca. Near its mouth, the Xingu expands into an immense lake, and its waters then mingle with those of the Amazon through a labyrinth of eanos (natural canals), winding in countless directions through a wooded archipelago. In the borders of thir river, the Brazilian government created in the late 1950's the first Indian Park in Brazil. This park marks the first Indian territory recognized by Brazilian government. Nowadays fourteen tribes live there, like their ancestors, surviving using natural resources, extracting from the river most that they need as food and water. These people are in great danger, because these lands and the river are menaced by uncontrolled forest exploration, the cattle and the farming growing around the park and the construction of hydroeletric power plant in the Kuluene River, the most important ascedent of the Xingu River, despite the fight of these people against this.

Original text from 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica

The name has at least one reference in literature, as the title of a humorous Edith Wharton short story from 1911.