Tupi
Encyclopedia
Amazon Rainforest
The Amazon Rainforest , also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America...
, but 2,900 years ago they started to spread southward and gradually occupied the Atlantic coast.
History
The Tupi people inhabited almost all of Brazil's coast when the Portuguese first arrived there. In 1500, their population was estimated at 1 million people, nearly equal to the population of PortugalPortugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
at the time. They were divided into tribes, each tribe
Tribe
A tribe, viewed historically or developmentally, consists of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states.Many anthropologists use the term tribal society to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent groups .Some theorists...
numbering from 300 to 2,000 people.Some examples of these tribes are: Tupiniquim
Tupiniquim
Tupiniquim is the name of an Amerindian tribe who now only live in three reservations . All three are located in the municipality of Aracruz in northern Espírito Santo state, southeastern Brazil. As of 1997 their population was 1,386...
, Tupinambá, Potiguara
Potiguara
The Potiguara are a nation of indigenous people in Brazil. The Potiguara live in the state of Paraíba, in the municipalities of Marcação, Baía da Traição and Rio Tinto. Their population are 12000 Indians and occupied 26 villages at 3 reservations : Potiguara, Jacaré de São Domingos e Potiguara de...
, Tabajara
Tabajara
Tabajara is a nation of indigenous people, who had lived in interior of the Ceará, specially in Serra da Ibiapaba. This name means lord of village from taba village, and jara lord; according to José de Alencar....
, Caetés
Caetés
The Caetés were an indigenous people of Brazil, linguistically belonging to the Tupi people.During the 16th Century, this tribe inhabited the Brazilian coast from the mouth of river São Francisco to the island of Itamaracá, by the River Paraíba, in an area limited, in the north, by the land of the...
, Temiminó, Tamoios. The Tupi utilised agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
and therefore satisfied a Palaeolithic condition. They grew cassava
Cassava
Cassava , also called yuca or manioc, a woody shrub of the Euphorbiaceae native to South America, is extensively cultivated as an annual crop in tropical and subtropical regions for its edible starchy tuberous root, a major source of carbohydrates...
, corn
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
, sweet potato
Sweet potato
The sweet potato is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the family Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting, tuberous roots are an important root vegetable. The young leaves and shoots are sometimes eaten as greens. Of the approximately 50 genera and more than 1,000 species of...
es, beans, peanuts
Peanuts
Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz, which ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000, continuing in reruns afterward...
, tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
, squash, cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
and many others. There was not a unified Tupi identity despite the fact that they were a single ethnic group that spoke a common language. The Tupi were divided into several tribes which were constantly engaged in war with one another. In these wars the Tupi normally tried to capture their enemies to later kill them in cannibalistic
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
rituals.
Cannibalism
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
was part of their ritual
Ritual
A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....
after a war. The warrior
Warrior
A warrior is a person skilled in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal or clan-based society that recognizes a separate warrior class.-Warrior classes in tribal culture:...
s captured from other Tupi tribes were eaten as they believed they were absorbing their strength. The practice of cannibalism among the Tupi was known in Europe by Hans Staden
Hans Staden
Hans Staden was a German soldier and mariner who voyaged to South America. On one voyage, he was captured by the Tupinambá people of Brazil whom he claimed practiced cannibalism...
, a German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
soldier and mariner who was captured by the Tupi. They carried him to their village where he claimed he was to be devoured at the next festivity. He allegedly won the friendship of a powerful chief, whom he cured of a disease, and his life was spared. Back in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Staden published a book about his experience among the Brazilian Indians, which was published in 1557.
European colonization
From the 16th century onward the Tupi, like other natives from the region, were assimilatedCultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
, enslaved
Slavery in Brazil
Slavery in Brazil shaped the country's social structure and ethnic landscape. During the colonial epoch and for over six decades after the 1822 independence, slavery was a mainstay of the Brazilian economy, especially in mining, cotton, and sugar cane production.Brazil obtained an estimated 35% of...
or simply exterminated by Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
settlers and Bandeirantes (colonial Brazil
Colonial Brazil
In the history of Brazil, Colonial Brazil, officially the Viceroyalty of Brazil comprises the period from 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese, until 1815, when Brazil was elevated to kingdom alongside Portugal as the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves.During the over 300 years...
scouts
Reconnaissance
Reconnaissance is the military term for exploring beyond the area occupied by friendly forces to gain information about enemy forces or features of the environment....
), nearly leading to their complete annihilation, with the exception of a few isolated communities. The remnants of these tribes are today confined to Indian reservations or acculturated to some degree into the dominant society.
Race-mixing and Cunhadismo
Many indigenous peoples were important for the formation of the Brazilian people, but the main group was the Tupi. When the Portuguese explorers arrived in Brazil in the 16th century, the Tupi were the first Amerindian group to have contact with them. Soon, a process of miscegenationMiscegenation
Miscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation....
between Portuguese settlers and indigenous women started. The Portuguese colonists rarely brought women, making the Indian women the "breeding matrix of the Brazilian people". When the first Europeans arrived, the phenomenon of "cunhadismo" (from Portuguese cunhado, "brother in law") began to spread by the colony. Cunhadismo was an old Indian tradition of incorporating strangers to their community. The Indians offered the Portuguese an Indian girl as wife
Wife
A wife is a female partner in a marriage. The rights and obligations of the wife regarding her spouse and others, and her status in the community and in law, varies between cultures and has varied over time.-Origin and etymology:...
. Once he agreed, he formed a bond of kinship with all the Indians of the tribe. Polygyny
Polygyny
Polygyny is a form of marriage in which a man has two or more wives at the same time. In countries where the practice is illegal, the man is referred to as a bigamist or a polygamist...
, a common practice among South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
n Indians, was quickly adopted by European settlers. This way, a single European man could have dozens of Indian wives (temericós).
Mameluco
Mameluco the word is believed to be of Arabic origin. The word in Arabic is Mamluk or Mamluka مملوك or مملوكة...
) population was formed, which in fact occupied Brazil. Without the practice of cunhadismo, the Portuguese colonization was impractical. The number of Portuguese men in Brazil was very small and Portuguese women were even fewer in number. The proliferation of mixed-race people in the wombs of Indian women provided for the occupation of the territory and the consolidation of the Portuguese presence in the region.
Influence in Brazil
Although the Tupi population was exterminated because of slavery or because of European diseaseDisease
A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune...
s to which they had no resistance, a large population of maternal Tupi ancestry occupied much of the Brazilian territory, taking the ancient traditions to several points of the country. Darcy Ribeiro wrote that the features of the first Brazilians were much more Tupi than Portuguese, and even the language that they spoke was a Tupi-based language, named Nheengatu
Nheengatu
The Nheengatu language , often spelled Nhengatu, is an Amerindian language of a Tupi–Guarani family. It is also known by the Portuguese names língua geral da Amazônia and língua geral amazônica, both meaning "Amazonian General Language," or even by the Latin lingua brasilica...
or Língua geral
Língua Geral
Língua Geral is the name of two distinct linguae francae spoken in Brazil, the língua geral paulista , now extinct; and the língua geral amazônica , whose modern descendant is Nheengatu....
, a lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
in Brazil until the 18th century. The region of São Paulo
São Paulo (state)
São Paulo is a state in Brazil. It is the major industrial and economic powerhouse of the Brazilian economy. Named after Saint Paul, São Paulo has the largest population, industrial complex, and economic production in the country. It is the richest state in Brazil...
was the biggest in the proliferation of Mamelucos, who in the 17th century under the name of Bandeirantes, spread throughout the Brazilian territory, from the Amazon rainforest
Amazon Rainforest
The Amazon Rainforest , also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America...
to the extreme South. They were responsible for the major expansion of the Iberia
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
n culture in the interior of Brazil. They acculturated the Indian tribes who lived isolated, and took the language of the colonizer, which was not Portuguese yet, but Nheengatu itself, to the most inhospitable corners of the colony. Interestingly, the Nheengatu is still spoken in certain regions of the Amazon, although the Tupi-speaking Indians did not live there. The Nheengatu language, as in other regions of the country, was introduced there by Bandeirantes from São Paulo in the 17th century. The way of life of the Old Paulistas
Paulistas
Paulistas are the inhabitants of the state of São Paulo, Brazil, and of its antecessor the Capitaincy of São Vicente, whose capital early shifted from the village of São Vicente to the one of São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga....
could almost be confused with the Indians. In family only Nheengatu was spoken. Agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
, hunting, fishing and gathering of fruits were also based on Indian traditions. What differentiated the Tupi from the Old Paulistas was the use of clothes, salt
Salt
In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...
, metal tools, weapons and other European items.
Market economy
A market economy is an economy in which the prices of goods and services are determined in a free price system. This is often contrasted with a state-directed or planned economy. Market economies can range from hypothetically pure laissez-faire variants to an assortment of real-world mixed...
, the Brazilian society, gradually, started to lose its Tupi characteristics . The Portuguese language became dominant and Língua Geral virtually disappeared. The rustic Indian techniques of productions were replaced by European ones, in order to elevate the capacity of exportation. From Tupi, Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay....
absorbed many word
Word
In language, a word is the smallest free form that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content . This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own...
s. Some examples of Portuguese words that came from Tupi are: mingau, mirim, soco, cutucar, tiquinho, perereca, tatu. The names of several local fauna
Fauna
Fauna or faunæ is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora.Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess shale fauna"...
– such as arara ("macaw
Macaw
Macaws are small to large, often colourful New World parrots. Of the many different Psittacidae genera, six are classified as macaws: Ara, Anodorhynchus, Cyanopsitta, Primolius, Orthopsittaca, and Diopsittaca...
"), jacaré ("South American alligator
Alligator
An alligator is a crocodilian in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae. There are two extant alligator species: the American alligator and the Chinese alligator ....
"), tucano ("toucan
Toucan
Toucans are members of the family Ramphastidae of near passerine birds from the Neotropics. The family is most closely related to the American barbets. They are brightly marked and have large, often colorful bills. The family includes five genera and about forty different species...
") – and flora
Flora
Flora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animals is fauna.-Etymology:...
– e.g. mandioca ("manioc") and abacaxi ("pineapple
Pineapple
Pineapple is the common name for a tropical plant and its edible fruit, which is actually a multiple fruit consisting of coalesced berries. It was given the name pineapple due to its resemblance to a pine cone. The pineapple is by far the most economically important plant in the Bromeliaceae...
" –, are also derived from the Tupi language. A number of places and cities in modern Brazil are named in Tupi (Itaquaquecetuba
Itaquaquecetuba
Itaquaquecetuba is a municipality in the state of São Paulo, in Brazil. The estimated population in 2006 is 352,755, the density is 4,313.46/km² and the area is 82 km². The elevation is 790 m...
, Pindamonhangaba
Pindamonhangaba
Pindamonhangaba is a municipality in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, located in the Paraíba valley, between the two most active production and consumption regions in the country, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. It is accessed to the Via Dutra at the 99th km...
, Caruaru
Caruaru
Caruaru is a Brazilian city in the Pernambuco state. The most populous city in the interior of the state, it's located in the zone named Agreste and because of its cultural importance, it's known by its people as the Capital do Agreste and Princesinha do Agreste.130 kilometers from...
, Ipanema
Ipanema
For other uses, see Ipanema . For the British rock band, see Ipanema .Ipanema is a neighborhood located in the southern region of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, between Leblon and Arpoador...
). Anthroponyms include Ubirajara, Ubiratã, Moema, Jussara, Jurema, Janaína. Tupi surnames do exist, but they do not imply any real Tupi ancestry; rather they were adopted as a manner to display Brazilian nationalism.
The Tupinambá tribe is fictitiously portrayed in Nelson Pereira dos Santos' satirical 1971 film, How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman
How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman
How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman is a Brazilian black comedy directed by Nelson Pereira dos Santos released in 1971.Almost all of the dialogue in the film was written in the Tupi language...
(Como Era Gostoso o Meu Francês); its name is also adapted by science (as Tupinambis) for the tegus, arguably the best-known lizards of Brazil.
A large offshore Tupi oil field
Tupi oil field
Tupi oil field is a large oil field located in the Santos Basin, off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The field was named in honor of the Tupi people and is considered to be Western Hemisphere's largest oil discovery of the last 30 years.-History:...
discovered off the coast of Brazil in 2006 was named in honor of Tupi people.
The Guarani are a different native group which inhabits southern Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and northern Argentina and speaks the distinct Guaraní languages
Guaraní languages
The Guaraní languages are a group of half a dozen or so languages in the Tupí–Guaraní language family. The best known language in this family is Guaraní, the national language of Paraguay.The Guaraní languages are:...
, but these are in the same language family
Language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...
as Tupi.
See also
- De Gestis Meni de SaaDe Gestis Meni de SaaDe Gestis Meni de Saa is a poem written about 1560 by José de Anchieta, a 16th century Portuguese Jesuit missionary in Brazil, who was called the "Apostle of Brazil." The poem describes the "heroic deeds" of Portuguese soldiers "fighting in the immense wilderness."The wars referred to were...
- Guarani WarGuarani WarThe Guarani War of 1756, also called the War of the Seven Reductions, took place between the Guaraní tribes of seven Jesuit Reductions and joint Spanish-Portuguese forces...
- José de AnchietaJosé de AnchietaJosé de Anchieta was a Canarian Jesuit missionary to Brazil in the second half of the 16th century. A highly influential figure in Brazil's history in the 1st century after its discovery on April 22, 1500 by a Portuguese fleet commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral, Anchieta was one of the founders of...
- Língua GeralLíngua GeralLíngua Geral is the name of two distinct linguae francae spoken in Brazil, the língua geral paulista , now extinct; and the língua geral amazônica , whose modern descendant is Nheengatu....
- Manuel da NóbregaManuel da NóbregaManuel da Nóbrega was a Portuguese Jesuit priest and first Provincial of the Society of Jesus in colonial Brazil...
- Tupian languagesTupian languagesThe Tupi or Tupian language family comprises some 70 languages spoken in South America, of which the best known are Tupi proper and Guarani.-History, members and classification:...