BOTOCUDOS, the foreign name for a tribe of South Ameri can Indians of eastern Brazil, also known as the Aimores or Aim bores. They appear to have no collective tribal name for them selves. Some are called Nacnanuk or Nac-poruk, "sons of the soil." The name Botocudos (from Port. botoque, a plug, owing to their practice of wearing wooden plugs in their lips and ears), can not be traced much farther back than the writings of Prince Maximilian von Neuwied (Reise nach Bresilien, Frankfort-on Main, 182o).
The original home of the tribe comprised most of the present province of Espirito Santo, and reached inland to the headwaters of Rio Grande (Belmonte) and Rio Doce on the eastern slopes of the Serra do Espinhacau, but the Botocudos are now mainly confined to the country between Rio Pardo and Rio Doce.
The Botocudos are nomads, wandering naked in the woods and living on forest products. They are below the medium height, but broad-shouldered. They are Mongolian in appearance, having flat faces, high cheekbones and light, yellowish-brown skin. (See BRAZIL ; SOUTH AMERICA : Ethnology.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.-A. R. Wallace, Travels on the Amazon (1853-1900) ; Bibliography.-A. R. Wallace, Travels on the Amazon (1853-1900) ; H. H. Bancroft, Hist. of Pacific States (San Francisco, 1882), vol. i., p. 211; A. H. Keane, "On the Botocudos" in Journ. Anthrop. Instit. vol. xiii. (1884) ; J. R. Peixoto, Novos Estudios Craniologicos sobre os Botocuds (Rio de Janeiro, 1882) ; Prof. C. F. Hartt, Geology and Physical Geography of Brazil (Boston, 1870), pp.