Editing Guaraní people (section)

==History, myth and legend==
[[File:Cerâmica Tupi-Guarani 5.jpg|thumb|280px|Guarani ceramics.]]
[[File:Triunfo-25.jpg|thumb|280px|Guarani incised ceramics bowls, Museum Farroupilha, in [[Triunfo, Rio Grande do Sul|Triunfo]].]]
Early Guarani villages often consisted of communal houses for 10 to 15 families. 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]].

Equally little is known about early Guarani society and beliefs. They practiced a form of [[animism|animistic]] [[pantheism]], much of which has survived in the form of [[folklore]] and numerous [[myths]]. According to the Jesuit missionary [[Martin Dobrizhoffer]], they practiced [[Human cannibalism|cannibalism]] at one point, perhaps as a [[funeral|funerary]] ritual, but later disposed of the dead in large jars placed inverted on the ground. [[Guarani mythology]] is still widespread in rural Paraguay.

Much Guarani myth and legend 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 {{ill|Ñamandu|es|Ñamandú|vertical-align=sup}} "the true father, the first one". After him comes a pantheon of gods, chief among them '''Yporú''' who is more frequently known as [[Tupã (mythology)|Tupã]]. [[Jasy]] is another "good" deity who rules the night while {{ill|Aña|es|Añá (mitología guaraní)|vertical-align=sup}} is a malign deity who dwells at the bottom of the [[Iguazu River]].<ref>Salvo, Rosita Escalada; Zamboni, Olga. ''Myths and Legends: A journey around the Guarani lands. Anthology'' (translated by students from the Instituto Superior Lenguas Vivas, 1906), Editorial Universitaria, Universidad Nacional de Misiones, 1870, revised and corrected by Gloria Acosta, 2007. {{ISBN|978-987-9121-99-3}} pp.9-29</ref>
* Animistic mythology, that is animals, plants and minerals being animated and capable of becoming [[anthropomorphism|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 [[Luison|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 [[glowworm]]s are the reincarnated spirits of certain people, as are the '''Panambi''' ([[butterfly|butterflies]]). '''Ka'a Jarýi''' was a woman who became the sacred [[herb]] [[Yerba]]; '''Irupé''' was a woman who was turned into the [[Victoria cruziana|giant lily]] because she fell in love with the moon.<ref name="Salvo, Rosita Escalada 1906 pp.29-63">Salvo and Zammboni, pp.29-63</ref>
* [[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 (plant)|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]].<ref name="Salvo, Rosita Escalada 1906 pp.29-63"/>

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 [[swallow]]s that inhabit the falls to this day vainly search for her.<ref>Salvo and Zamboni, pp. 63-67</ref>

===European contact===
[[File:Indian Soldiers from the Coritiba Province Escorting Native Prisoners.jpg|thumb|250px|right|A Guarani family captured by slave hunters. By [[Jean Baptiste Debret]]]]
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. The [[Laws of the Indies]] forbade slavery in [[Hispanic America]].

The first two [[Society of Jesus|Jesuits]], Father Barcena and Father Angulo, came to what is now the State of [[Paraná (state)|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]] [[friar]]s. 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 [[Gran Chaco|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.<ref>"The larger portion of the population regarded it as a right, a privilege by virtue of conquest, that they should enslave the Indians" (Page, 470).</ref> The Jesuit [[Provincial (religion)|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".<ref>Page, 470</ref>

===Cultural preservation===
Today, the Guarani language is an official language of Paraguay and Bolivia.{{citation needed|date=May 2023}} As of 2012, an estimated 90% of the people in Paraguay spoke Guarani.

===Slavery===
The center depot of the slave trade was the town of [[São Paulo]]. Originally a rendezvous place for Portuguese and Dutch pirates, it later became a refuge for criminals, who mixed with Native American and African women and actively participated in the capturing and selling of Guaranis as slaves.

To oppose these armed and organized robbers, the tribes had only their bows and arrows. Many Guaranis were slain or enslaved by the slave hunters active in Brazil during those years.

===The Paraguayan Reductions===
{{Main|Jesuit Reductions}}
[[File:Xamã guarani.jpg|thumb|Contemporary Guarani shaman]]
In 1607, Spanish [[Philip III of Spain|King Philip III]] sent a letter to the governor of Rio de Plata [[Hernando Arias de Saavedra|Hernandarias de Saavedra]] to instruct him to send the newly arrived Jesuits to begin their missionary work.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Sarreal|first1=Julia J.S.|title=The Guarani and Their Missions: A Socioeconomic History|date=2014|publisher=Stanford University Press|location=Stanford, CA}}</ref> With Spanish royal protection, the first Guayrá [[Mission (Christian)|mission]], [[Nuestra Señora de Loreto|Loreto]], was established on the [[Paranapanema River|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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Montoya|first1=Antonio Ruiz de|title=The Spiritual Conquest: Accomplished by the Religious of the Society of Jesus in the Provinces of Paraguay, Uruguay, and Tape|date=1993|publisher=Institute of Jesuit Sources|location=St. Louis, MO|page=52}}</ref>  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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ganson|first1=Barbara|title=The Guarani Under Spanish Rule in the Rio de la Plata|date=2003|publisher=Stanford university Press|location=Stanford, CA|page=35}}</ref>  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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Cushner|first1=Nicholas P.|title=Jesuit Ranches and the Agrarian Development of Colonial Argentina 1650-1767|date=1983|publisher=State University of New York Press|location=Albany, NY|page=156}}</ref>
Stimulated by this success, Father [[Roque González y de Santa Cruz|González]] and two companions journeyed to the [[Banda Oriental|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.

Slave raiders saw the Guarani missions as "merely an opportunity of capturing more Indians than usual at a haul".<ref>Graham 57</ref> In 1629, an army of [[Paulistas]] surrounded the San Antonio mission, set fire to the church and other buildings, killed those who resisted or were too young or too old to travel, and carried the rest into slavery. [[São Miguel das Missões|San Miguel]] and Jesus Maria quickly met the same fate. Eventually, reinforcements gathered by Father Cataldino drove off the slavers. Within two years, all but two of the establishments were destroyed, and 60,000 Christian converts were carried off for sale to [[São Paulo]] and [[Rio de Janeiro]]. The attacks usually took place on Sunday, when the whole mission population was gathered for [[Mass (liturgy)|Mass]]. The priests were usually spared, but several were killed.

Only a few thousand natives were left of nearly 100,000 just before the Paulista invasion. Father [[Antonio Ruiz de Montoya]] purchased 10,000 cattle, and was able to convert the natives from farmers to stock raisers. Soon under Fathers Rançoncier and Romero the Uruguay missions were re-established. In 1632 the [[Mameluco]]s discovered a new line of attack from the south. In 1638, despite some successful resistance, all twelve of the missions beyond the [[Uruguay River]] were abandoned and their people consolidated with the community of the Missions Territory. In the last raid Father Alfaro was killed.

In the same year Father Montoya, after having successfully opposed the attempts of the governor and the [[bishop of Asunción]] to reduce the natives' liberties and the mission administration, sailed for Europe. On this trip he was successful in obtaining letters from [[Pope Urban VIII]] forbidding the enslavement of the missionaries under the severest church penalties, and from King [[Philip IV of Spain]], permitting Guaranis to carry firearms for defense and to be trained in their use by veteran soldiers who had become Jesuits.

When the next Paulista army, 800 strong, attacked the missions in 1641 they were met by a body of Christian Guarani armed with guns on the [[Acaray River]]. In two battles, the Paulista army suffered a defeat that warded off invasions for ten years. In 1651, the war between Spain and Portugal encouraged another Paulista attack to gain territory for Portugal. Before Spanish troops could arrive to help defend the missions, the fathers themselves led a Guarani army against the enemy. In 1732, at the time of their greatest prosperity, the Guarani missions were guarded by a well-drilled and well-equipped army of 7,000 Guaranis. On more than one occasion this mission army, accompanied by their priests, defended the Spanish colony.

In 1732, there were 30 Guarani missions with 141,252 converted Guaranis.{{Citation needed|date=May 2007}} Two years later a [[smallpox]] epidemic killed approximately 30,000 of them. In 1765, a second outbreak killed approximately 12,000 more, and then spread westward through the [[Gran Chaco people|tribes of the Chaco]].

====Uruguay missions saved====
In 1750 the [[Treaty of Madrid (13 January 1750)|Treaty of Madrid]] between Spain and Portugal transferred to Portugal the territory of the seven missions on the Uruguay River, and the Guaranis were ordered to leave; they refused, being familiar with the Portuguese as slave hunters. Seven years of [[guerrilla warfare]] killed thousands of them (see [[Guarani War]]). The Jesuits secured a royal decree restoring the disputed mission territory to Spanish jurisdiction. Two missions in 1747 and a third in 1760 were established in the sub-tribe of the [[Itatín]]es, or Tobatines, in central Paraguay, far north of the older mission group. In one of these, {{ill|San Joaquín, Paraguay|lt=San Joaquín de los Tobatines|es|San Joaquín (Paraguay)}} (founded 1747), [[Martin Dobrizhoffer]] ministered for eight years.

====Jesuits expelled====
{{further|Suppression of the Society of Jesus}}
In 1767, the Jesuits were expelled from Spanish dominions by royal edict. Fearing the outcome of this decision, [[viceroy]] [[Antonio María Bucareli y Ursúa]] entrusted the execution of the mandate in 1768 to two officers with a force of 500 troops. Despite their mission army of 14,000, the Jesuits submitted without resistance. Guarani caciques from Mission San Luis wrote a letter to the Governor of Buenos Aires on February 28, 1768, to ask for the Jesuits to stay. They wrote, "The fathers of the Company of Jesus know how to get along with us, and we with them, we are happy serving God and the King."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ganson|first1=Barbara|title=The Guarani Under Spanish Rule in the Rio de la Plata|date=2003|publisher=Stanford University Press|location=Stanford, CA|page=198}}</ref> The Guarani request was denied, but the letter highlights the value of the relationship the Jesuits and Guarani had established in the region.

====Decline of the reductions====
[[File:Ruins of the São Miguel das Missões.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Ruins of the church at [[São Miguel das Missões]], Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.]]
The missions were turned over to priests of other orders, chiefly [[Franciscans]], but under a code of regulations drawn up by the viceroy and modeled largely on the Jesuit system. Under chaotic political regulation, the missions rapidly declined. Most Guaranis returned to the countryside. According to the official census of 1801, fewer than 45,000 Guaranis remained; cattle, sheep, and horses had disappeared; the fields and orchards were overgrown or cut down, and the churches were in ruins. The long period of revolutionary struggle that followed completed the destruction. In 1814, the mission Indians numbered 8,000, and in 1848 the few who remained were declared citizens.

====Aftermath====
A 2018 study in ''[[The Quarterly Journal of Economics]]'' found that "in areas of former Jesuit presence—within the Guarani area—educational attainment was higher and remains so (by 10–15%) 250 years later. These educational differences have also translated into incomes that are 10% higher today. The identification of the positive effect of the Guarani Jesuit missions emerges after comparing them with abandoned Jesuit missions and neighboring Franciscan Guarani missions. The enduring effects observed are consistent with transmission mechanisms of structural transformation, occupational specialization, and technology adoption in agriculture."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Caicedo|first=Felipe Valencia|title=The Mission: Human Capital Transmission, Economic Persistence, and Culture in South America|journal=[[The Quarterly Journal of Economics]] |volume=134|pages=507–556|language=en|doi=10.1093/qje/qjy024|year=2019|hdl=10.1093/qje/qjy024|hdl-access=free}}</ref>

===Eastern Bolivian Guarani===
{{Further|Eastern Bolivian Guarani}}
The Guarani people in Bolivia, called Chiriguanos, lived in the foothills of the Andes and had a different history than most other Guarani people.  Noted for their warlike character, the Chiriguanos were hostile in turn to the [[Inca Empire]], the Spanish, and the independent state of Bolivia from the late 15th to the late 19th century.  The Jesuit missions had little success among the Chiriguanos, although Franciscans in the 19th century attracted numerous converts.  The Chririguanos were not finally pacified until the defeat in 1892 of forces led by their messianic leader [[Apiaguaiki Tumpa]] in the [[Battle of Kuruyuki]].<ref>Langer, Erick D. (2009), ''Expecting Pears from an Elm Tree,'' Durham: Duke University Press, pp. 11-18, 186-195</ref>