The Kanamari of Brazil

The Kanamari of Brazil, numbering approximately 3,700 people, are No Longer Unreached. They are described as a Katukinan-speaking Amazonian people descended from groups of the upper Jurua River, now settled along the Itaquai, Javari, and Japura rivers within demarcated indigenous reservations, still relying on slash-and-burn farming, hunting, and fishing They are an Indigenous people, with Kanamari as their ethnic/kinship group and are in the South American Indigenous people cluster of the Latin American and Caribbean Peoples. They mostly adhere to Animism and Kanamarí is their primary language.

Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 2.5 Flash: Kanamari

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Latin American and Caribbean Peoples
Country: Brazil
People Cluster: South American Indigenous
Primary Language(s): Kanamarí (knm)
Primary Religion(s): Animism
Population: 3,700
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): No Longer Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): 2% or Greater but Less than 5% Evangelical
People Group ID: PG016941
View on Joshua Project

Pray for the Kanamari 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: Animism
Religious Affiliation: Ethnoreligion

70%
%
Animism Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Kanamarí
Language Family: Katukinan

100%
%
Kanamarí Speakers

Media Resources in Kanamarí:

Films:

No film resources are listed for this language.

Bible Resources in Kanamarí:

No Bible resources are listed for this language.

Or check out the Kanamarí bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

SPI: No longer Unreached

The Kanamari 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 Kanamari:
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 Kanamari of Brazil

Claiming to be wise, they became fools.
readRomans 1:22

Ask God to pour out His mercy and bring those who are walking in their own wisdom to faith in Jesus.

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
readLamentations 3:23-23

Pray that they will have hope in the Lord, knowing that His compassions never fails and that His mercies are new every morning.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
readPsalm 23:4

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will trust in the Lord's presence, even in the darkest valleys.

There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.
readMark 7:15

Pray for Christians to take any opportunity to share the hope of Jesus with lost people here, praying they will be wise like Jesus as they share the truth about what can defile people and what can make them clean.

Kanamari Across Countries (ROP3 - 104554) 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.

Scroll to Top