Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
as a way to perfect their combat skills. Chieftains and the more accom-
plished warriors practiced polygamy, having extensive households of
several wives. Most men, however, had only one wife. Women faced
death if caught in adultery, though they were allowed to separate from
abusive or neglectful husbands.
Like their Brazilian cousins, the Guaraní were animistic in their reli-
gious beliefs. They identified natural forces such as the sun, sky, thun-
der, lightning, and rain as deities. Deities took on the forms of animals,
especially birds, which held sacred meanings for the forest peoples.
Shamans invoked these spirits in order to bring success in love, battle,
and the harvest. Offerings, ritual dances, chants, and charms were used
to ward off the darker forces of the universe.
Politically, the Guaraní maintained decentralized political units
within their territories. Each group inhabited a defined area of territory
throughout which its clans could fish, hunt, and engage in slash-and-
burn cultivation. Fighting between groups was not uncommon. Raiding
and stealing formed part of the struggle for survival, and individual
warriors shared political authority with shamans and chieftains. They
used bows and poison-tipped arrows, wooden clubs, and spears as the
weapons of choice for hunting and raiding. Few material possessions
seemed to separate the Guaraní leaders from the followers, for tropi-
cal agriculture yielded the same low level of surplus as intermontane
tillage did among the Diaguita. The hereditary chiefs and shamans did
enjoy some material advantage over commoners, a difference counted
in the number of wives they had since each wife represented field labor
and personal service.
The more-or-less permanent settlements of these agriculturists made
the Guaraní prey to raids and depredations of the nomadic peoples of
the Gran Chaco and boat peoples who thrived along the riverbanks.
The precariousness of life among the Guaraní explains why they later
accepted Spanish warriors, who seemed to have magical weapons, as
allies against their traditional rivals.
The Southern Hunters
In contrast to the Guaraní, the many groups of nomadic hunters and
gatherers of the vast archipelago stretching from the Gran Chaco,
through the Córdoba hills and Pampas into Patagonia, acquiesced to
neither Inca nor European encroachment. The hunter-gatherers pre-
sented no fixed target to be conquered by one another, much less by
the Inca armies or European adventurers.
