Native Americans of Middle and South America

Article Outline

Introduction; Culture Areas; History; Native Americans Today

Settlement and Housing

Many villages in the western Brazilian Highlands had separate housing for women and men. Women and children lived in thatched houses around a central plaza, while the men lived in a separate structure in the middle of the plaza. The houses around the circle were further grouped according to moiety and clan affiliation. As recently as the late 19th century, many Brazilian Highlands peoples lived in villages only during the times of the year when food was plentiful. During the dry season, they would break up into smaller bands that trekked in search of game far from the village.

Transportation

In contrast to the extensive waterways of the Amazon Basin, the Brazilian Highlands have fewer major rivers. Thus, highland peoples did not use canoes much, although both men and women were excellent swimmers and easily crossed most rivers. Most people lived on the savannas away from the rivers and transported loads by foot on roads and trails. The Ge-speaking peoples of the southern highlands constructed roadways that extended out in straight lines up to 16 km (10 mi) from their villages. Smaller roads were used to travel to nearby farming plots and hunting grounds. The larger roads were used for a favorite game of Ge peoples—relay racing with heavy logs, in which the two moieties competed against each other. Each contestant sprinted with a heavy log on his shoulder until he was worn out, then passed it on to a teammate.

Clothing and Ornamentation

In the warm climate of the Brazilian Highlands, most people wore minimal clothing. Both men and women decorated themselves on the arms, legs, and chest with dyes from native plants called genipa and urucú. Many individuals wore earplugs, as well as labrets, or ornaments worn through a pierced lower lip. The Bororo attached bird feathers to their arms with a sticky resin, although this was done not as a decoration but to cure sores. Like the people of the Amazon Basin, men commonly wore fancy feather headdresses.

Religious Beliefs and Practices

Religious systems throughout the Brazilian Highlands were oriented especially toward prayers or supplications to the gods, such as the Sun and the Moon. Villagers prayed for rain, for plentiful harvests, and for success in hunting. For example, the Kaingang believed in a “Master of the Animals” spirit who controlled the number of game animals and could take offense if the men overhunted these animals. The Kaingang also had a ceremony of the dead that took place when the maize crop had ripened. Among other purposes, the ceremony served to sever connections between the dead and the living so the spirits of the dead could not harm people. Shamans were less common among most of the highland groups, in contrast to many Amazonian groups.

Post-Contact History

The Portuguese, led by Pedro Álvares Cabral, arrived on the eastern coast of Brazil in 1500. At first the Portuguese made only a half-hearted attempt at colonization, using Brazil principally as a source of brazilwood, which supplied a red dye, and as a way station for trade. But in the mid-1500s colonization increased, the Tupinambá villages were captured one by one, and the native inhabitants were enslaved and put to work on coastal sugar plantations. In a few decades, Native Americans who did not die of European diseases and forced labor fled to the interior and largely disappeared from the coastal areas occupied by the Portuguese. Slave raids on indigenous groups encouraged them to flee all the faster, and soon African slaves imported by the Portuguese outnumbered the Native Americans on the plantations.

Many indigenous peoples have nearly disappeared from the Brazilian Highlands since the beginning of the 20th century. For example, the Apinayé, Sherente and Shavante were estimated to number 12,000 people in the early 19th century, but European diseases and contact had reduced their numbers to a few hundred by the mid-20th century. Because the poor land in the interior is generally unattractive to the nonindigenous population, scattered indigenous groups still live along the western edges of the Brazilian Highlands.