The Guarani are a group of culturally-related indigenous peoples of South America. They are distinguished from the related Tupi by their use of the Guarani language. The traditional range of the Guarani people is in what is now Paraguay between the Paraná River and lower Paraguay River, the Misiones Province of Argentina, southern Brazil once as far east as Rio de Janeiro, and parts of Uruguay and Bolivia.
The Guarani number around 280,000 and are primarily concerned in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay. Their demographic dominance of the region has been reduced by European colonisation and the commensurate rise of mestizoss.
Most notably, the Guarani language, still widely spoken across traditional Guarani homelands, is one of the two official languages in Paraguay, the other one being Spanish. The Paraguayan population learns Guarani both informally from social interaction and formally in public schools. In modern Spanish, Guaraní also refers to any Paraguayan national in the same way that the French are sometimes called Gauls.
Name The history and meaning of the name Guaraní are subject to dispute. Before they encountered Europeans, the Guarani referred to themselves simply as Abá, meaning "men" or "people". The term Guarani was originally applied by early Jesuit missionaries to refer to natives who had accepted conversion to the Christian religion; Cayua or Caingua (ka'aguygua) was used to refer to those who had refused it. Cayua is roughly translated as "the ones from the jungle". While the term Cayua is sometimes still used to refer to settlements of Indigenous peoples who have not well integrated into the dominant society, the modern usage of the name Guarani is generally extended to include all people of native origin regardless of societal status. Barbara Ganson writes that the name Guaraní was given by the Spanish since it means "warrior" in the Tupi-Guaraní dialect spoken there. Guarinĩ is attested in 16th-century Old Tupi, by Jesuit sources, as "war, warrior, to wage war, warlord".Eduardo de Almeida Navarro. Dicionário de tupi antigo. . Global Editora, 2013.
History, myth and legend
Early Guarani villages often consisted of communal houses (malocas, or ocas), with each house housing several families under the leadership of a chief. Communities were united by common interest and language, and tended to form tribal groups by dialect. It is estimated that the Guarani numbered some 400,000 people when they were first encountered by Europeans. At that time, they were sedentary and agricultural, subsisting largely on manioc, maize, wild game, and honey.
Polygamy was practiced. Cannibalism was practiced on captives.
Equally little is known about early Guarani society and beliefs. They practiced a form of animistic pantheism, much of which has survived in the form of folklore and numerous myths. According to the Jesuit missionary Martin Dobrizhoffer, they practiced cannibalism at one point, perhaps as a funerary ritual, but later disposed of the dead in large jars placed inverted on the ground. Guarani mythology is still widespread in rural Paraguay.
Guarani myths and legends were compiled by the Universidad Nacional de Misiones in northern Argentina and published as Myths and Legends: A Journey around the Guarani Lands, Anthology in 1870 (translated into the English language in 1906). Guarani myth and legend can roughly be divided into the following broad categories:
Cosmogonic and eschatological myths; the creation and destruction of all things as dictated by "the true father, the first one". After him comes a pantheon of gods, chief among them Yporú who is more frequently known as Tupã. (or Jaci) is another "good" deity who rules the night while is a malign deity who dwells at the bottom of the Iguazu River. Animistic mythology, that is animals, plants and minerals being animated and capable of becoming anthropomorphic beings or in reverse the transmuted souls of people, either born or unborn, who have become animals, plants and minerals. The course of such anthropomorphism appears dictated by the pantheon of god-like deities because of their virtues or vices. Such animistic legends include that of the Lobizón, a werewolf-type being, and the Mainumby or hummingbird who transports good spirits that are resident in flowers back to Tupá "so he can cherish them". Isondú or glowworms are the reincarnated spirits of certain people, as are the Panambi (butterflies). Ka'a Jarýi was a woman who became the sacred herb Yerba; Irupé was a woman who was turned into the giant lily because she fell in love with the moon. Pombero are goblin or elf-like spirits who dwell in the forest and must be appeased. They have never been human. Principal among these is Jasy Jatere who has never been human and like all Pombero is from a different realm. His characteristics are vague and uncertain, and his powers are badly defined as is the place where he resides. He is described in one legend as a "handsome, thickly bearded, blond dwarf" who is naked and lives in tree trunks. Other versions say he loves honey, his feet are backward, and he is an "ugly, lame, old man". Most legends agree that he snatches children and "licks them", wrapping them in climbing plants or drowning them in rivers. To appease him gifts, such as honey, are left in places in the forest associated with him. Another Pombero is Kuarahy Jára who whistles like birds and is their protector. He can be your friend but is known for abducting young boys who are alone and trying to catch birds. If necessary he can take the form of a person, a tree or a hyacinth. Finally, Kurupi is a phallic mythological figure who will copulate with young women. He has scaly skin like a lizard, hypnotic eyes, and an enormous penis.
The Iguazu Falls, considered sacred by the Guarani, hold special significance and are the inspiration for numerous myths and legends. They reveal the sound of ancient battles at certain times, they are also the place where I-Yara—a malign Pomboro spirit—abducted Angá—a fair maiden—and hid her. The swallows that inhabit the falls to this day vainly search for her.
European contact
A Spanish expedition led by Juan Diaz de Solis was the first Spaniard to reach Rio de la Plata. After his forces were defeated by natives in 1516, a surviving force led by Alejo Garcia continued inland with a Guarani band.
In 1537, Gonzalo de Mendoza traversed through Paraguay to about the present Brazilian frontier. On his return, he made acquaintance with the Guarani and founded the city of Asunción, later the capital of Paraguay. The first governor of the Spanish territory of Guayrá initiated a policy of intermarriage between European men and Indigenous women; the descendants of these matches characterize the Paraguayan nation today. Modern historians, however, characterise this process as one of sexual and economic coercion rather than voluntary union: the initial Guaraní practice of the cuñadazgo — by which caciques gave women to newcomers to cement alliances — was supplanted after 1541 by the violent rancheadas, mass seizures of women who were bought, sold, and exported as slaves to Portuguese settlements on the Atlantic coast. The Laws of the Indies forbade slavery in Hispanic America. However, the conquistadors and settlers of Asunción continued to act without respecting the new legislation, as denounced by the priest Francisco González de Paniagua in a letter written on 3 March 1545:
In 1542, a Guarani group rebelled against the Spanish. Aracare, chief of a Guarani group from the Jejuy River, refused to serve a Spanish expedition, which prompted the Spanish governor Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca to issue an order to apprehend Aracare. Aracare was subsequently hanged by the Spanish. This prompted an unsuccessful rebellion by Tabare and Guarani against the Spanish.
The first two Jesuits, Father Barcena and Father Angulo, came to what is now the State of Paraná, Southern Brazil, in 1585, by land from the west. Others soon followed, and a Jesuit college was established at Asunción. In 1608, as a result of the Jesuit protest against the enslavement of the Indigenous population, King Philip III of Spain gave authority to the Jesuits to convert and colonize the tribes of Guayrá. In the early period, the name Paraguay was loosely used to designate the entire river basin, including parts of what are now Uruguay, Argentina, Bolivia, and Brazil.
Exploring expeditions were accompanied by Franciscan friars. Early in the history of Asunción, Father Luis de Bolaños translated the catechism into the Guarani language and preached to Guarani people who resided in the area around the settlement. In 1588–89 St. Francis Solanus crossed the Chaco wilderness from Peru and stopped at Asunción, but gave no attention to the Guarani. His departure left the Jesuits alone with their missionary work, and to defend the natives against slave dealers.: "The larger portion of the population regarded it as a right, a privilege by virtue of conquest, that they should enslave the Indians." The Jesuit provincial Torres arrived in 1607, and "immediately placed himself at the head of those who had opposed the cruelties at all times exercised over the natives".
The Jesuits The arrival of the Jesuits to Guaraní territory in the seventeenth century resulted in a re-organization of the social, political and economic structures of the Guaraní peoples. The communities (commonly referred to as "missions") that the Jesuits established amassed a total population that surpassed 100 000 Guaraní peoples. The subjugation of the Guaraní people to one social, economic, political, and spiritual order in the missions contributed to a false construction of the Guaraní as a homogeneous people. Wilde articulated it well in his assertion that:The missions constituted an "imagined community" that over the course of 150 years incorporated very diverse populations that had to adapt to a single pattern of spatial and temporal organization.Initially, the Spaniards recognized the differences amongst the indigenous people of the Guaraní territory; yet, Spanish documentation failed to adequately recognize this diversity.
The Paraguayan Reductions
In 1607, Spanish King Philip III sent a letter to the governor of Rio de Plata Hernandarias de Saavedra to instruct him to send the newly arrived Jesuits to begin their missionary work. With Spanish royal protection, the first Guayrá mission, Loreto, was established on the Paranapanema by Father Joseph Cataldino and Father Simon Macerata in 1610. The Jesuit priest Father Ruiz de Montoya discussed the difficulties of spreading the missions and his interactions with the Guarani in his book The Spiritual Conquest. Ruiz de Montoya wrote that one of the Guarani caciques Miguel Artiguaye initially refused to join the missions until threatened by another Indigenous group. Artiguaye then returned to the mission and begged for protection. As the mission provided the only real possible protection against enslavement, the Guarani flocked there in such numbers that twelve more missions were created in rapid succession, containing all 40,000 Guaranis. The Jesuits were seen as intermediaries between the Spanish authorities and the Guarani caciques. The Jesuit missions needed new converts and required workers to assist in the maintenance of the missions. The Guarani helped grow the crops to sustain the missions' populations and also produce goods to sell and trade to fund the missions. Stimulated by this success, Father González and two companions journeyed to the east bank of the Uruguay River (now the country of Uruguay) and established two or three small missions in 1627. The local tribes killed the priests and the neophytes and burned the missions.