Location: middle of the Atlantic region of Brazil
History: The Tupinamba, or better known as the Tupi, were important in the initial formation of Brazilian culture because it was with them that the Portuguese, French, and Dutch first made contact. The Tupinamba were also the focus of the Jesuit missionaries. The Jesuits learned to speak lingua geral, an invented language based on a mixture of Tupi-Guarani languages, in order to preach Christianity to several different tribes. The natives of Brazil were not tolerated by the Europeans, in particular the Portuguese. They were enslaved, massacred, and exploited in many ways. The aborigines quickly died from diseases carried by the Europeans and those that lived were forced to change their ways of life.
Language: Tupi- various dialects, the most important being Tupi-Guarani, Carib, Arawak, and Ge.
Daily Life: The natives of Brazil consisted of hundreds of greatly differing tribes. These tribes can be divided into two groups based on life styles. There is that of the Tropical Forest peoples, who were mainly horticulturist and fishermen of the rain forest, and that of the marginal or semimarginal peoples, who depended on hunting, gathering and some horticulture. The coastal Tupi were Tropical Forest peoples. Each year they cleared a section of the forest by hacking the trunks then slowly burning away at the base of the trees. Their crops consisted of manioc, yams, cotton, gourds, tobacco, maize, pepper, beans, squash, pineapple, and sweet potato.
Most tribes lacked political formation and few had a tribal cheiftain. Each tribe consisted of several villages united by a common language, common customs, and intervillage marriages. The material life the Tupi was simple. Both sexes wore little or no clothing. They slept in hammocks made of cotton. Their houses were long thatched huts, sometimes 250 to 300 feet long, and 30 to 50 feet wide in which as many as thirty families lived. The longhouse was not divided into rooms but rather each family group had its own section of the house. Those that inhabited the house were kinsmen, usually related on the maternal side. The headman and the young men married to the daughters of the house made up the village council. The strongest of them was made the village chief.
Tupi religion was loosely organized. The origins of natural phenomena were ascribed to mythical heroes. One such hero was Tupan, the controller of lightning and thunder whom the missionaries identified as the Christian God. The religious leaders of the Tupi were called Shamans. Shamans had wide medicinal knowledge and could communicate with the forest demons and ghosts by going into trances.
One aspect of Tupi culture that horrified the Europeans the most is cannibalism. Cannibalism was the result of warfare. A prisoner of war would be kept for several months, well treated and sometimes given a wife. But on an appointed day he would be killed then prepared for a feast. Old women drank the blood and mothers smeared blood over their breasts. The body was roasted and eaten by the entire village and their guests. Some body parts such as fingers and the grease around the heart were saved for important guests. It the prisoner had been given a wife, she wept for him, but then she too joined the feast. Only the executioner was forbidden to feast. He had to go into seclusion to protect himself and the village from the prisoner’s ghost.
Best Known Features: The Tupi are best known for their interaction with the Europeans and their influence on Brazilian culture.
Though this page has been carefully researched, the author does not claim expertise on the Tupinamba.
Please send questions, comments, and corrections to emuseum@mnsu.edu and include the URL.
If you are Tupinamba, your feedback is much appreciated.
Strauss, Claude-Levi. Triste Tropique. New York: Atheneum, 1974.
Wagley, Charles. An Introduction to Brazil. New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1971
Author: Jinnie Hinderscheit