Indigenous peoples of Brasil

The Tupiniquim nation, struggling to keep its identity

The Tupiniquim nation is located in the state of Espirito Santo in coastal Brazil and it is composed of the remnants of a much larger ethnic group, perhaps of several hundred thousand people. Now they are about 3,000, have lost their language, but keep awareness of their history and traditional culture.

Recent history of Tupiniquim

The few authors who wrote about the Tupiniquim note that the 1960s were decisive in the alteration of the land panorama, marking the arrival of the Aracruz Florestal in the region, followed by the progressive expulsion of the Indians. The ordeal of the Tupiniquim gave rise to a few protests. When studying the different eco-systems of the State of Espírito Santo in 1954, the biologist Augusto Ruschi saw in Caieiras Velhas, on the left bank of the Piraquê-Açu River, "80 Tupi-Guarani Indians" living in an area of 30,000 hectares of virgin forest. In 1971, Ruschi deplored the manner in which the flora and the fauna was being destroyed, with the deforestation affecting the Indians, since more than 700 families, among Indians and posseiros, had been removed from the region that had been ‘reforested’ by the Aracruz Florestal. Ancient Tupiniquim villages such as Araribá, Amarelo, Areal, Batinga, Braço Morto, Cantagalo, Guaxindiba, Lancha, Macaco, Olho d'Água and Piranema were destroyed. Today the Indians still recall the scenes of violence and disrespect that they were submitted to in the areas Aracruz Florestal wanted.

In 1975, Funai – Fundação Nacional do Índio (National Foundation for the Indian), the successor of the SPI – recognized the presence of the Tupiniquim in Espírito Santo. The administrative process of identification of the indigenous lands had plenty of conflicts, giving rise to several denunciations by Indians, associations and various other organs. The complaints referred to the losses caused by a 1980 agreement between Funai and Aracruz Celulose (an affiliated of Aracruz Florestal), when the limits of the three Indigenous Lands were established; they reached their highest point in 1983, when the areas were homologated.

The Drum dance

Even the older Tupiniquim cannot remember matrimonial rules or any other norm of kinship different from the present ones, whose prescriptions are identical to those of the rural, non-indigenous regional population. Of their ancestors, they inherited the fear of using the ‘indigenous language’, totally lost in scattered reminiscences. The grandparents of the present-day Tupiniquim ‘knew the language’, but did not use it because they were threatened if they did; thus in the beginning of the 20th Century it stopped being taught to the young. The older Indians still mention the língua, the Indian who, because he was able to speak well both Portuguese and the indigenous language, was a translator and thus received the guests and talked to the forest Indians who came to the village to take part in the Dança do Tambor, or Banda de Congo (Drum Dance, or Congo Band), in the religious celebrations.

In 1951, the researcher Guilherme Neves identified, among several Congo bands, the members of the Caieiras Velhas band, made up of descendants of the Indians who founded them in Santa Cruz back in the 19th Century.

The religious celebrations took place on the days of São Benedito (St. Benedict), Santa Catarina (St. Catherine), São Sebastião (St. Sebastian) and Nossa Senhora da Conceição (Our Lady of the Conception), and last two or three days. The Indians cut a tree in the forest to made a post and the Capitão do Tambor (Drum Captain), decorated with a stick and a headdress, commanded the band, which went from house to house inviting the Indians for the dance. At the occasion, the women prepared a beverage, coaba, made of fermented cassava, while the men played, as percussion instruments, the cassaca (an anthropomorphic reco-reco, a musical instrument consisting of a length of bamboo with transverse notches cut into it and over which a wand is rubbed to produce a rhythmic sound) and the tambor (drum) proper, made of hollow wood covered with leather.

These rituals used to place in Caieiras Velhas, Pau-Brasil and Comboios, and there was an exchange between the first two, since the Indians crossed the forest to participate in the festivities. Today the Dança do Tambor is performed only in Caieiras Velhas.

In the old times, the Capitão do Tambor had prestige and was also regarded as a curandeiro or rezador – shaman or quack healer - by the other Indians. The Tupiniquim declared themselves Catholic; the Pentecostal churches came to the region recently, but attracted several Indian families to their denomination. Only the local Capitão do Tambor had ascendance over the families of a given village, being responsible for passing on their cultural traditions. The Dança do Tambor reinforced the exchanges and the symbolic integration among the Tupiniquim. It was the ‘residual culture’ that gave support to their resurgence, enabling the Indians to establish a cultural distinctiveness that identified them against the regional population not as ‘wild’ Indians, a representation that used to be quite common, but rather as caboclos (‘civilized’ Indian) Tupiniquim.

From the struggle for the demarcation of the Tupiniquim indigenous lands in the 1970s comes to the scene the cacique (chief), a social category that expresses the new articulations established among the Indians, who before recognized only the Capitão do Tambor. The figure of the Conselho Comunitário (Community Council) appears at the same time as the cacique. The councils of the villages, through the Tupiniquim and Guarani leaders, along with the respective caciques, had an active participation in the demarcation works of the Indigenous Lands. The struggle for the increase of their territories has produced a formal political organization, called Comissão de Articulação Tupiniquim e Guarani (Tupiniquim and Guarani Articulation Commission), but it is the daily, immediate problems – deforestation, depleted soils, planting, lack of assistance – that maintain the cohesion between the communities and their leaders, strengthening the disposition for demands in all villages.

The Terena nation survives in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil

Mato Grosso do Sul is home to one of the largest indigenous populations in Brazil. 

The Terena, because they have a very large population (more than 17,000) and maintain an intense contact with the Brazilian society and political system are the indigenous people whose presence in the state is revealed more explicitly. This takes place either through the women vendors in the streets of Campo Grande or the legions of sugarcane cutters that periodically move to the distilleries for changa, temporary work in the haciendas and sugar and alcohol factories.

This intense participation in the daily South-Matogrossense life favors the attribution to the Terena of stereotypes such as "acculturated" and "urban Indians". These statements serve to mask the resistance of a people who, over the centuries, struggle to keep their culture alive, knowing how to positivize adverse situations linked to the old contact, as well as abrupt changes in the landscape, ecological and social, that the colonial power and then the Brazilian State reserved them.

The last remnants of the Guaná nation in Brazil, the Terena speak an Arawak language and have essentially Chaco cultural characteristics (of peoples coming from the Chaco region). The dominance of the Arawak language groups among the various indigenous peoples of the Chaco was due to the fact that these groups were, for a long time, predominantly farmers - and on this economic basis they organize themselves socially into more populated local groups (villages), expansionists and warriors.

Scholars of the Chaco towns affirm that the Chané or Guaná had a much more sophisticated social base than their Mbayá neighbors. They were stratified into hierarchical layers: the "nobles" or "captains" (the Naati or "those who rule") and the "plebe" or "soldiers" (Wahêrê-xané, or "those who obey"). The Guaná-Mbayá alliance relations were based on marriage: the Guana chiefs yielded to women of their caste to marry the "mayorales" Mbayá. The relations between the two groups, in this way, consolidated a complex social structure over time: on the one hand, an autonomous social segment in the position of provider of women and food; on the other, a warrior caste that takes women and is responsible for the security of local groups and suppliers of iron instruments and horses.

In the 1760s, the increasing pressure of Spaniards on the Mbayá territories located on the western fringes of Paraguay, coupled with internal disputes for warrior prestige, would force the migration of innumerable Mbayá and Guaná subgroups to the eastern side of the river. This migration probably extended until the first decades of the 19th century. The Guanja - Terena, Echoaladi, Layana and Kinikinau subgroups - which settled in the east of the Chaco, maintained in the new territory the traditional form of organization in endogamous social strata and strata, their rozas and also the alliance with the Mbayá-Guaykuru .

The current Terena still keep the memory of this migration and the crossing of the Paraguay River:

I have the story with me, my father's story. There was no one here in Cachoeirinha ... My father is from here. His great-grandfather came from the Ejexiwa [region between the right bank of the Paraguay river and the so-called "morrería" of Albuquerque - today Corumbá - on the left bank of the same river], my father counted. They had been attacked by other different Indians beyond the Ejexiwa. Then they came from there, they crossed the Paraguay River to Port Hope, they came from Morraria ... They were something near Corumbá and then they made a village here in Miranda ... At that time there was no purutuyé [whites, Portuguese], in the same way the Indian Terena, Laiana, Kiniquinao, Echoaladi, Caduveo ... (Felix, elderly inhabitant of the village Cachoeirinha).

Another Terena  describes the way in which the crossing of the Paraguay River was made:

My grandmother, my grandfather came from Ejexiwa. (...) (...) (...) (...) (...) (...) (...) (...).

The resistance of the Mbayá-Guaykuru against the advance of the Paulistas who were heading to the region of Cuiabá kept the Guaná distant from relations with Europeans. This situation was maintained until the last decade of the eighteenth century, when, in 1791, the peace treaty between Portugal and Mbayá-guaicurú was signed.

This treaty allowed the Portuguese rule, although incipient, on the right bank of Paraguay, at the same time it would mean the wearing down of the guaná-mbayá alliance. One of the pillars of this association, as we have seen, was the supply of iron tools to guana by the Mbaba - and that the first would begin to obtain independently through trade with the Portuguese.

In the last century the Terena became more integrated with urban life in Mato Grosso do Sul but they have preserved their culture and tradicions more than other native peoples of Mato Grosso.

They probably will survive the new rules for indian lands demarcations that is implementing the new Brasilian government.

The Terena nation of Brazil, survivors of invarios, wars and discrimination

The state of Mato Grosso do Sul contains the second largest indigenous population of the country, second only to Amazonas. Because they have a very large population and because they have intense contact with the regional population, the Terena are a people whose presence in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul is more visible, as saleswomen on the streets of Campo Grande or the legions of sugarcane cutters who periodically move to the distilleries for the changa, temporary work on the ranches and sugar and alcohol producing plants. This intense participation in the daily life of Mato Grosso do Sul contributes to the stereotype of the Terena as “acculturated” and “urban Indians”. Such statements serve to mask the resistance of a people who, over the centuries, have struggled to maintain their culture alive, knowing how to make positive changes out of adverse situations resulting from an age-old contact, besides rapid changes in the ecological and social landscape which the colonial powers and later, the Brazilian state have forced on them.

With a population of approximately 17 thousand people, the Terena, an Arawak-speaking people, presently live in a discontinuous territory, fragmented into small “islands” surrounded by ranches and scattered over six municipalities of Mato Grosso do Sul – Miranda, Aquidauana, Anastácio, Dois Irmãos do Buriti, Sidrolândia, Nioaque and Rochedo. There are also Terena families living in Porto Murtinho (Kadiweu Indigenous Land), Dourados (Guarani Indigenous Land) and in the state of São Paulo (TI "Araribá" Indigenous Land). In the last two places mentioned, Terena families were taken there during the administration of the Indian Protection Service (SPI) to serve as an “example” for the local Indians (an example of diligence in agriculture and also of “obedience” to the control system imposed by the employees of the agency).

The present-day Terena indigenous reserves were “requested” from the state of Mato Grosso by the SPI in the 1920s and ‘30s; two of them, however, (Cachoeirinha and Taunay/Ipegue) were “granted” by the state government at the beginning of the century.

The total Terena population in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul is around 16,000 people. Of this total, 13,629 still live on the indigenous lands cited above, or around 2,400 families.

The sizes of the lots which were granted and are actually demarcated are the following:

Last survivors of the Guaná nation in Brazil, the Terena speak an Arawak language and have essentially Chaco culture traits (people from the region of the Chaco). The dominion of the Arawak language groups over the various other indigenous peoples of the Chaco, all of groups which, from ancient times, were predominantly agriculturalists – and with this economic base they were organized socially into more populous local groups (villages) which were both expansionist and warlike.

All the chroniclers who had contact with the Guaná in the 16th and 17th centuries noted the existence of “captives” among them – prisoners of wars with other ethnic groups of the Chaco, such as the Chamacoco, Chiquito and Guató, mainly. They also noted that these “captives” were treated with kindness and were not humiliated, revealing that they were at the same time employed in domestic and non-agricultural tasks and that they represented social prestige for their masters, more than any economic value strictly speaking (Cardoso de Oliveira, 1968). This observation is supported by the fact that the captives were treated as “foreigners” and the term "kauti" – which is still used today by the Terena – is a corruption of the Spanish-Portuguese term “captive”. That is to say: they were "captives" because the Westerners saw them as such.

These considerations are important because they provide elements for understanding the ethos of the present-day Terena and, above all, the social and political meaning of the alliance of the Guaná with the Mbayá-Guaycuru, an alliance which was responsible for the great Guaná migration to the eastern banks of the Paraguai River in the last two decades of the 18th Century.