The Bakairi of Brazil

The Bakairi of Brazil, numbering approximately 1,000 people, are No Longer Unreached. They are a Cariban people who call themselves Kura, first recorded by Europeans in 1723 as enslaved gold-mine laborers in Brazil's Mato Grosso, later studied through Karl von den Steinen's landmark 1880s expeditions to the Xingu. They mostly adhere to Ethnoreligion and Bakairí is their primary language.

Photo by Google. (2025). Image generated by Gemini 2.5 Flash: Bakairi

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Latin American and Caribbean Peoples
Country: Brazil
People Cluster: South American Indigenous
Primary Language(s): Bakairí (bkq)
Primary Religion(s): Ethnoreligion
Population: 1,000
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): No Longer Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): 10% or Greater Evangelical
People Group ID: PG016563
View on Joshua Project

Pray for the Bakairi of Brazil

Join others around the world in praying for the lost to be saved, the gospel to advance, the global Church to grow, and for laborers to be sent out and sustained in the harvest.

Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Ethnoreligion
Religious Affiliation: Ethnoreligion

—
%
Ethnoreligion Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Bakairí
Language Family: Cariban

100%
%
Bakairí Speakers

Media Resources in Bakairí:

Films:
TitleLink
JESUSView Film

1 film

Bible Resources in Bakairí:

No Bible resources are listed for this language.

Or check out the Bakairí bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

SPI: No longer Unreached

The Bakairi are No Longer Unreached, which means there are more than 2% evangelical Christian populations and there are churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice. There is still more to be done among them.

Next steps for the Bakairi:
Empower local believers to begin praying for their own people
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting
Encourage local leaders to being leading church planting strategy and looking for Unreached and Unengaged groups nearby

Pray specifically for the Bakairi of Brazil

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.
readIsaiah 40:8

Pray that those who don't know Jesus will be freed from the emptiness of fading hopes and find lasting life and truth in the unchanging Word of God.

"You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet."
readMatthew 5:13

Pray that the lost will have the opportunity to hear a Christian witness of how the gospel can bring hope and that they will put their faith in Christ.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
readJames 1:2-3

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will consider it pure joy when they face trials of many kinds, trusting in God's promise that the testing of their faith produces perseverance.

I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessing.
read1 Corinthians 9:23

Ask God to give believers a deep desire to share the gospel with those who don't know the truth about God's redemption plan, and to provide them with opportunities to do so cross-culturally.

Bakairi Across Countries (ROP3 - 100813) reported in the following countries:

Strategic Progress Index
All

1 people group

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

Peoplegroups.org relies on updates from the field and other organizations for much of our data, so if you have any updates, please contact us. We use various international naming standards. For a list of these standards and fields, visit our Data Standards section.

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