RACIAL, CULTURAL AND ETHNO-HISTORICAL CHARACTERISTICS

OF THE NATIVES FROM PARAGUAY

(by Prof. Adelina Pusineri, Director of the Etnographic Museum "Andrés Barbero")

1. The natives of Paraguay belong, racially to three human types:

1.1 In Eastern Paraguay, riverside of the high and middle Paraná River, the proto-residents of this region occupied it before the scattered immigration of the Guarani. They belonged racially to the languid-melanesian human group, of low stature and dolicocefalía with high cranial vault; their representatives were the Kaingasges-Gés.

1.2 in the Chaco Region, the natives belong to the pámpido-Australian racial type, of high stature, with dolicoide head, high cranial vault, sometimes with carema formation. (The Chané-Arawak did not belong to this racial type, being Amazonian immigrant of the region of the Andean Mountain range.)

1.3 The Guarani settled in Eastern Paraguay. They were of Amazonian racial type, protomalayo-mongoloid, with typical braquicefalía, low stature and yellowish complexion.

    From the colonial time to the present, admixtures left its print. The first "earth´s youths" of the XVI century were the mestizo Hispanic-Guarani, continuing such a crossbreeding, although more limitedly. Among the Guarani survivors there are many mestizos, but living in the indigenous communities. They are considered Guarani. Among the Chaco´s people, the coexistence with the "white environment" caused a frequent crossbreeding, the proportion according to the ethnical conscience of the tribal groups. In the prehistoric time the inter-ethnical crossbreeding was frequent, and in the colonial time there were unions between Guarani and black mulattos.

2. There are three cultural areas in Paraguay.

2.1. The towns of the Chaco´s area, of paleolithic cultural pattern; subsistence is based on hunting, fishing and gathering, migratory mobility to search places to hunt, carob trees and fishing.

    Manufacturing is based on an immediate use of the natural resources, with minimum technology. The communities are in a frequent and continuous groupal fragmentation, according to the necessities of subsistence. The ethno-tribal conscience is expressed through the identity of the language and customs.

    The tribes of the Chaco prior to the Spanish conquest, maintained contacts with neighbors of neolithic culture, being hostile, peaceful or for exchange, spreading quickly the new cultural elements that integrated to the material culture. The Andean cultures also left some cultural influences. The outlying contacts with the focuses of cultural diffusion from Chiquitos, Chané-Arawak, Chiriguano-Guarani and Xarayes influenced the cultural heterogeneity of the Chaco´s ethnoses.

    The cultural contact Chaco-Hispanic gave origin in the colonial time to the formation of equestrian societies, mediating the indigenous adoption of the horse, the introduction of sheep and the development of the fabric factory. With the modern white colonization of the Chaco´s region, the environment of profitable natural resources for the natives changed substantially, beginning the acculturation process and adapting the natives to survive substantially and culturally, where important changes take place in their material culture.

2.2     Kainganges-Gé groups, of the Paraná area and interiors. They are culturally paleolithic, with cultural loans for influence of the Guarani one and for the similarity of the ecological environment.
2.3    the Guarani one and the Chané-Arawak, they belong to the neolithic cultural complex. Their main characteristics are: essentially agricultural orientation through the túberos and corn cultivation; great migratory dynamism, following the direction of rivers, in search of appropriate lands to go opening up and hunt, that is the source of provision of proteins. The cooking of the vegetables goes closely bound to the new factory: the ceramic. Their housings were big communal houses that harbored thirty or more families and they constituted cooperative units. A variety of supernatural beings guides the expression religious-ceremonial (farming Teacher - Sun - Rain)
    The funeral in funeral urns, up to the present, can identify archaeologically the limit of the old expansion of neolithic Guarani towns. The anthropophagy was generalized as part of the tribal ritual, of news corn sows, as expression of the victory on the enemy one or also like half of imposition of the partial or tribal authority.
    Socio culturally, the Guarani one prehistoric were characterized by their mobility and their indefatigable search of good earth for the cultivation, but they didn't constitute a compact cultural unit. The Avá-Guarani of the first migratory wave manifested a proto-neolithic culture: small communities with boss-chamanes, it manufactures utilitarian, funeral urns with typical decoration for digital impression. The immigrants of the second wave already attest amazon cultural influences and an open neolithic culture: communities integrist villagers, with warring bosses and leaders partner religious-chamanes, it manufactures utilitarian and ceremonial, funeral urns with colored and ornamented decoration, with production agricultural surplus and with canoeist domain of Paraná and Uruguay rivers .

   Guarani tribes that entered in contact with conquerors and with missionaries manifested all a basic neolithic cultural pattern, but each one with their own cultural variations. Emigrant Guarani of the XVI century, Chiriguanos, seated in the mountain range, arrived to a cultural symbiosis of its traditional patterns and patron Chané preandinos. In colonial time, Guarani one provincial were identified with rural culture Creole, and Guarani misionales lived inside a homogeneous reduccional culture. Guarani ones that were independent from the conquest in the not colonized forest area of Paraná river, still when they adopted the metal axe and the " canvas ", conserved their basic culture until final of XIX century. The current representatives are tribes Mbyá, Avá Guaraní, and Pay Tavyterá, although they seem outwardly acultured ones, they conserves some traditional cultural elements, clinging to their religious traditions and fighting for it earth-touches it as symbol of its ethnicity.

3.    Etno-history of Chaco's tribes: even before Spanish conquest the Guaycurú and Payaguá, chaqueños nomadic hunters, represented a constant danger for farming Guarani of eastern cost of Paraguay river, stealing its crops. When the Spaniards settled in Asuncion district, these Guaycurú and Payaguá continued periodically with their tactics of opposite hostile, with briefs "exchanging peace" periods. The Guaycurú learned the advantage of possessing horses and captive, they became equestrian and until ends of the XVIII century they constituted a true danger for the colonial Paraguay, assaulting stays and Creole towns and sowing the terror among the provincial ones, being ineffective the punitive expeditions and prisons erected in the steps of entrance of equestrian indigenous "malones".

    The Mbayá-Guaycurú occupied the northern area of East Paraguay to the river Jejuí, causing Creole and Guarani depopulation with their periodic assaults . Newly during the government of Pinedo, Melo of Portugal and Lázaro of Riverside, the Creole re-colonized the northern area forcing the Mbayá to emigrate to Matto Grosso, from where still in the time of the Dr. Francia (first third of the XIX century) they assaulted stays forming cattle thieves bands.
    The Guaycurú of the South, Abipones, Mocovíes and Tobas, also equestrian, maintained the southern area from Villeta until Corrientes under constant threat of assaults, always in search of horses and the livestock, until ends of the XVIII century, disintegrating because of their inter-ethnical fights.
    The canoeist-pirates Payaguá dominated the river Paraguay until becoming the XIX century in vigías of the river, to the service of the Creoles. While old tribes, as those Language-Cochaboth, predecessors of Remanso Castle's current Makás, and the Maskoy, they attacked the residents of the oriental region with the same end of the Guaycurú, against those that the colonial government also had to send punitive expeditions.
    Other Chaco's tribes entered newly in contact with white atmosphere in the XIX century, being the material culture of these tribes that those Museum "Andrés Barbero" exposes, still surviving and as described in this Place.

4.    Etno history of Guarani. The Avá-Guarani one prehistoric, in their advance to the south of Venezuelan Plains, excluded undoubtedly to many towns, but they would also happen racial mixtures, being formed new groups by means of linguistic imposition and social subjection "crowd that has owner."
    When the beginning of Spanish conquest, the Guarani occupied the lands among the following limits: in old Guayrá among Tieté river and Yguazú river; the area among Uruguay river and Ducks Lagoon in the Atlantic coast; the area of Uruguay river and Paraná river; the eastern area among Paraguay river and Paraná river, arriving at lake Miranda in the north, and occupying the same islands of Paraná river until "El Tigre", in the south.
    When the Spaniards established their seats in Asunción, the Guarani looked for an alliance pact, because their riverside frontier (Paraguay river) was constantly threatened by Guaycurú and Payagúa tribes. They gave their corn to Spaniards, their archers like servants and companion lent and they sought to maintain the alliance by means of the rule brother-in-law-tovayá that implied the reciprocity and solidarity with the help of matrimonial alliances.
    From 1555 Spaniards applied the regulation of the "Laws of Indias" and the "mitazgo" system was introduced, owing Guaranis to serve annually with its work to their gentlemen agents for three or more months, fulfilling this way the tribute of "the king's vassals". The Guarani one that rebelled with weapons was condemned to the status of perpetual and hereditary servants, gathered in "encomiendas de yanacona". The "encomienda" - suspended in Paraguay in 1863 - meant an oppressive economic vassalage and a deep social change of Guaranis culture; the natives reacted with several armed revolts but without success for lack of unit partner in the rebellious partialities. From the XVII century from now on, the Guarani one hispanicized constituted the main mass of laborer-peons to the service of Creoles and for public works of the county.
    With help on the premise of "incivilidad" and lack of natives' economy, the Laws of India demanded the formation of exclusive " tava-towns " for natives with ends of a quick regional acculturation. The old Guarani villages was annulled and the natives agglomerates in towns of Guarani " tava ", some of these were Yaguarón, Altos, Atyrá, Tobatí, Guarambaré, Ypané, Arecayá, Caazapá, Yuty. In these towns they lived under a communal system; the administration was in charge of the provincial government. The " tava " lasted up to 1848, when Don Carlos Antonio López proclaimed Guarani of the town as Paraguayan citizen, and for that reason, free of denigrating communal system.

    The Jesuits began their missionary action among the Guarani not colonized at the beginning of the XVIII century. Because of the threatening search of slaves of Paulista's "bandeirantes", the Jesuits had to move old Guaycurú, Tapes riograndenses and some Uruguayenses reductions, amassing reductions in the area of Paraná and Uruguay rivers. Their system of Christian acculturation was imposed and controlled, achieving a homogenous cultural relationship with the Guarani one. They rejected the Spanish system of "encomiendas", considering it attempts to the right of natural freedom of Indians; nevertheless they applied in the reductions him communal economic system, considering the Indians socioeconomic incapable. They also refused to missionary Guarani direct communication with the Creoles, living in a missional confinement, although they formed a true Guarani militia that frequently intervened in benefit of the neighboring counties.
    After Jesuits expulsion in 1767, and with the introduction of the new civil régime, Guarani missionary quick decadence began, accustomed to the absolute state control. When Don Carlos Antonio López visit in 1846, few Guarani was still in towns: the famous "Guaranítica War", the indigenous participation in the troops of Artigas and then in Argentinean fights, caused Guaraní  disperses and their final mixture with creole population.
    Liberate forest Guarani, " savages ", " Kaynguá ", constituted the third nucleus, divided in two groups: the Caremas of the area Mbarayuense and the Apyteré of the area Tarumá. They inhabited in colonial time the "yerbales" area exploded by the Creoles; they settled down with the laborer yerbatera some exchange contacts, looking for iron and canvas, appealing to violent assaults, making dangerous to travel the roads of commercial traffic.
    Guarani tribes that survives in Eastern Paraguay are the Mbyá, Chiripá-Avá and Pay Tavyterá who has narrow filiation with the Guarani mountain people.
    Among the migratory movements of Guarani should highlight two: that of the XVI century and that of the XIX century. The Itatines-Guarani of the area among Apa river and Miranda river, emigrated toward "Los Andes", constituting the nucleus of the tribe well-known as Guarayú-Itatines. While the immigrant Chiriguanos, originating of Guarani different partialities of Eastern Paraguay, was located in the pre-cordillerana area, from Guapay river to Pilcomayo river, manifesting a great ethnic conscience and fighting for their independence until 1888.
    Another migratory movement took place in the Altoparanaense area, in the XIX century, with the ideology of searching the mythical "Earth without Bad". Mbaracayuense and Amambayense three tribes Emigrated of Guarani area: Apapocuva, Tañyguá and Oguaguiva, toward the coast of sea and toward the "center of the earth", in Matto Grosso, Brazil. There were also simple migrations of the Guarani paranaenses groups.