Unreached people group Frontier
Kabixi
UnreachedThe Kabixi, also spelled Cabixi, are a small indigenous people who inhabit the southwestern region of the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, near the headwaters that flow toward the Guaporé Valley and the Chapada dos Parecis, a historic border area between Mato Grosso and Rondônia. The name Cabixi was long used broadly to refer to different indigenous groups from this part of Brazilian territory, and it is associated with the memory of the ancient peoples who once occupied the grasslands and highlands between the region’s rivers.
Today the Kabixi form a very small community, estimated at around a hundred people. They are a people who have gone through a long process of contact and pressure on their lands and traditional way of life, which has deeply affected the transmission of their identity to new generations. Because of this history, most of the community has adopted Portuguese as its everyday language.
Although small in number, the Kabixi maintain ties to the land where they live and to the history of the families who came before them. They remain a distinct people within the mosaic of ethnic groups of western Mato Grosso, even though many aspects of their original culture are now known only in fragmented form and depend on the memory of the elders.
| Country | Share of the people | Population |
|---|---|---|
Brazil Unreached
|
100%
|
100 |
The Kabixi live in small communities in the interior of Mato Grosso, in a region marked by grasslands, savanna and areas of transition with the forest. Families typically make their living through a combination of subsistence farming, growing crops such as cassava, corn and other foods, along with hunting, fishing and gathering, depending on what the land and the seasons provide, as well as occasional work tied to rural life in the surrounding area.
Like many small and vulnerable peoples, the Kabixi face concrete challenges: pressure on their traditional lands, the advance of economic activities nearby, limited access to health care and education, and the risk of losing their language and ancestral customs. The group’s continuity depends heavily on the cohesion of families and the care given to children, who grow up between the indigenous world of their ancestors and the surrounding society.
The predominant religion among the Kabixi is of ethnic tradition, that is, a worldview inherited from their ancestors, in which the world is understood as inhabited by spiritual forces and beings tied to nature, to the rivers, to the forest and to the places where the people dwell. In this worldview, daily life, health, hunting and harvests are intertwined with respect for these spirits and with the rites and knowledge passed down by the elders.
According to available data, there is no established Christian presence among the Kabixi, who remain practically without contact with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Even though Portuguese is now the language used by the community, which would make the Bible accessible in written form, the message has not yet been understood or embraced by the people in a living way, and the hope of the Savior remains, for the Kabixi, good news yet to be announced.
The Kabixi need, above all, to know the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ, as they remain among the peoples of Brazil who have not yet clearly received the gospel. As a very small and exposed community, they also carry urgent practical needs: the guarantee and respect of their territory, dignified access to health care and education, and the preservation of their identity in the face of pressures from the surrounding area. In intercession, we can ask that God’s care reach every family, that they be protected in body and spirit, and that doors open for the Word to reach them with sensitivity and respect for who they are.
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