Guaraní people
The Guaraní are an indigenous people native to South America, primarily residing in countries such as Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, and Uruguay. Historically, their population was in the millions before European contact in the early 1500s, when they established a semi-nomadic, agricultural society based on extended family groups. With the arrival of Spanish and Portuguese explorers, the Guaraní initially sought alliances but soon faced exploitation and forced labor. Many Guaraní found refuge with Jesuit missionaries, forming mission communities that became cultural centers for over a century.
By the twenty-first century, the Guaraní population had significantly declined and faced numerous challenges, including loss of traditional lands and severe poverty. In Paraguay, the Guaraní language holds official status, marking a significant recognition of indigenous culture, and is spoken by a large portion of the population. However, the Guaraní people continue to deal with discrimination, especially in Brazil, where issues like land seizure and deforestation have exacerbated their struggles, leading to alarming rates of poverty and mental health crises. Their rich cultural heritage, including traditional beliefs and practices centered around nature and spirituality, remains an essential aspect of their identity.
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Guaraní people
The Guaraní are an Indigenous people from South America who reside in Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, and Uruguay. At the time of contact with European explorers in the early sixteenth century, the Guaraní population numbered in the millions. While many suffered years of exploitation and slavery under Spanish and Portuguese rule, others sought shelter with Jesuit missionaries and formed mission communities that survived for more than 150 years. By the twenty-first century, the Guaraní population had declined significantly, and the people faced hardships such as loss of their traditional homeland and severe poverty.
Early History
Little is known of the origins of the Guaraní people. Researchers studying the Guaraní language theorize that their ancestors may have lived in northern Brazil about 5,000 years ago before migrating southward to modern-day Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay, and southern Brazil. At the time of contact with Europeans in the sixteenth century, the Guaraní were estimated to have numbered about two million and had established a semi-nomadic, agricultural-based society. They lived in extended family groups in large communal houses. These groups were called a teýy and often banded together with other families for protection in a village, or an amunda. The Guaraní planted crops using a form of slash-and-burn agriculture, which used up the nutrients in the soil after a time, forcing them to relocate their settlements every few years.
Guaraní mythology held that their supreme god, Tupa, descended from the sky to a hilltop in Paraguay and created the earth, humans, and all the world's creatures. Their religion was shamanistic, the belief that nature was inhabited by spirits that communicated to humans through a holy person called a shaman. Shamans were considered powerful figures in Guaraní society, on par with the leaders of a teýy. They were thought to be magical healers who could forecast and control the weather. The Guaraní also believed in a mythical paradise they called the "land without evil." Led by their shamans, the Guaraní occasionally set off on migrations searching for this land where people did not die, and life was filled with singing and dancing.
Overview
The first Europeans to make contact with the Guaraní were the Portuguese about 1524. The Spanish and Portuguese began to permanently settle in the region a decade later, and in 1537, the Spanish established the Paraguayan capital of Asunción. At first, the Guaraní sought to form alliances with the Spanish, believing that the Europeans' superior weapons would aid them in battle with their enemies. Within decades, however, the Spanish began treating the Guaraní as subordinates. The Spanish took many Guaraní women as concubines and conscripted the men into a tribute system of forced labor called encomienda. For the Guaraní living in Portuguese territory, the situation was worse. Slavery was legal in Portugal, and many Guaraní were captured and sold by Portuguese and Dutch traders to become enslaved peoples.
In the early seventeenth century, Jesuit missionaries arrived in South America and established a series of missions for the region's Indigenous populations. Many Guaraní voluntarily left their villages for the perceived safety of these missions, believing they would avoid the traders in enslaved peoples and the Spanish oppressors. Across South America, hundreds of thousands of Indigenous peoples moved to the Jesuit missions, where they learned Spanish and were converted to Christianity. The first Guaraní missions were established in 1609, and by 1732, their populations had grown to an estimated 140,000 people. To the Jesuits, the missions were a way to spread Christianity; to the Guaraní, they became important religious and cultural centers. Spanish leaders allowed them as a means to manage the Guaraní population, while the Portuguese occasionally raided missions in their territory for enslaved peoples.
In 1750, Spain and Portugal signed a treaty redistributing their lands in South America. Much of the Guaraní mission land that had been under Spanish rule was to be transferred to the Portuguese. Knowing that slavery was allowed under Portuguese law, the Jesuits and Guaraní fought the move. After years of resistance, the Jesuits were expelled from South America in 1767, opening the way for Portugal to finally control the Spanish missions. Many Guaraní were killed in the rebellion, some were captured and made enslaved peoples, and others escaped into the jungle. A weakened mission system continued in Spanish territory until it was discontinued in the nineteenth century.
Many Guaraní eventually became assimilated into the societies of the South American nations where they lived. In the twenty-first century, the Guaraní were spread out over parts of Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, and Uruguay. Their culture is most felt in Paraguay, where the Guaraní language is one of two official national languages. When the language was officially recognized in 1992, it marked the first Indigenous South American dialect to achieve that status. Although Spanish is the primary language of government and business in Paraguay, the Guaraní language is taught in schools and used by an estimated 90 percent of Paraguayans. Because the Guaraní live in several countries and many reside in rural or forest areas, determining an exact population figure is difficult. In the 2020s, many estimates put the South American Guaraní population over five million people.
In Brazil, with an estimated Guaraní population of about fifty thousand, the Guaraní are divided into three groups: Kaiowá, Ñandeva, and M'byá. The Kaiowá, which means "forest people," is the largest of the groups. While the Guaraní across South America face numerous hardships in the modern era, in Brazil especially, they have been the victims of discrimination and the destruction and theft of their ancestral land. Deforestation and land seizures by wealthy ranch owners have pushed many Guaraní into smaller living spaces and resulted in conditions of severe poverty. According to the Guardian of London, the suicide rate among Guaraní in Brazil is very high, with hundreds of people estimated to have taken their own lives since the start of the twenty-first century.
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