South American forest Indian, indigenous inhabitants of the tropical forests of South America.
The tribal cultures of South America are so various that they cannot be adequately summarized in a brief space. The mosaic is baffling in its complexity: the cultures have interpenetrated one another as a result of constant migratory movements and through intertribal relations, leading to the obliteration of formerly significant differences, and to new cultural systems made up of elements of heterogeneous origin. Hundreds of languages, in very irregular geographic distribution, with innumerable dialects, are or have been spoken in the tropical area of South America. Thus, only the broadest generalizations can be made; one can mention certain cultural manifestations that are present in a great number of groups, even though varying in their actual expression, and illustrate them with specific examples—but always with the qualification that in a neighbouring tribe or group a distinctly contrasting idea or institution may exist.
The innumerable native peoples differ in their patterns of adaptation to their natural environment. Whether they live in the rainforest, in the gallery forests lining the rivers, in the arid savannas, or in the swamps, however, they share a common cultural background; they often combine hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plant foods with rudimentary farming. Most are relatively sedentary, but some are nomadic or seminomadic. Greater differences are sometimes found among neighbouring groups living in the same forest than between some forest and savanna peoples. And some tribes, when migrating to open areas, maintain to a great extent the forest characteristics of their culture.
On the banks of the great rivers and in zones between the forest and the savanna live tribes who gain their subsistence from farming and fishing. Hunters and gatherers, almost all of whom also practice some farming, have settled near the heads of rivers, in open land, or in gallery forests.
Tribes speaking related languages are scattered over a large part of the continent. The tribes of the Arawak and the Carib linguistic families are most numerous in the Guianas (French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, and the adjacent regions of Venezuela and Brazil) as well as in other parts of the northern Amazon, but the former have representatives as far south as the Chaco and the latter as far south as the upper Xingu. The Tupí tribes extend to the south of the Amazon valley.
The Ge family includes groups most of which are located in the semi-arid lands of central Brazil. In the extreme northwest of Brazil and in the jungles of eastern Peru and Bolivia live the Pano tribes. The Jívaro of Ecuador are famous headhunters. They cut off the enemy’s head, separate the soft part from the skull, and, with the help of hot sand, reduce it to the size of a fist without altering the physiognomy. They attribute great magical power to these trophies, or tsantsa.
Traditional culture patterns
A characteristic feature of the tropical forest cultures is their combination of farming with hunting, fishing, and gathering. Before the arrival of Europeans, the Indians of the tropical forest had no domestic animals except the dog. As is typical of most farmer-foragers, these people did not write or erect stone buildings as did the Indians of Middle America, form states with centralized political organizations, or have castes of warriors or priests. Their utensils and instruments were almost all of vegetable or animal origin, since in large sections of the area stones for making axes, arrowheads, and other objects were quite scarce. One finds evidence of metalwork only in the regions near the Andean civilizations, although objects of copper and other metals occasionally found their way across the continent, through channels of trade.
In almost all of the tropical forest area the population density was low, probably averaging less than one person per square mile.
Populous centres existed only along the coast and the main rivers, particularly the Amazon; the latter, according to reports by early European explorers, was fringed with Indian villages. For the most part, however, the Indians were dispersed throughout the vast territory in innumerable tribes and tribelets. This is why a classification by languages and cultures gives only a vague idea of the complex picture of the forest populations. Peoples having the same dialect and culture might exist as separate groups, even as enemies. While some Indians considered themselves primarily members of their local group, others, like the Xerente (Sherenté), gave greater value to a common language and culture than to village divisions. But differences in dialect and culture often imposed obstacles to the recognition of tribal solidarity.
There were no permanent political associations or confederations encompassing tribes of different languages and cultures. From time to time tribes might form ephemeral confederations for warfare against a common enemy. Certain close relations sometimes existed between groups of diverse origin, especially through tribal intermarriage. The best known examples are along the Río Negro in northwest Brazil, where numerous populations, mostly Arawak and Tucano, are united in a vast network of interethnic relations. At the headwaters of the Xingu, a complex system of intertribal institutions also exists among formerly autonomous groups.
Few tropical forest tribes are strictly monogamous. Polygyny with two or more women is usually restricted, however, to chiefs and other men of prestige. It is perhaps most accentuated among the Jívaro, where headhunting once killed off many of the men; it frequently takes the form of marriage with two or more sisters. Examples of polyandry are rare.
The choice of a partner is sometimes limited by the division of the tribe into clans and segments to which an individual belongs by heredity and within which marriage is prohibited. In some cases, for example in the Guianas and in the Río Negro region, the individual must find a mate outside his village or even outside his tribe (exogamy). The Terena of the southern Mato Grosso divide themselves into endogamous groups: the man and wife must come from the same group, called by ethnologists a moiety. Marriage between cross cousins, that is, between children of siblings of different sex, is considered ideal in many tribes; that of parallel cousins, children of siblings of the same sex, is frequently prohibited.
Kinship groups and household communities are based predominantly on the principle of lineage, that is, on relation through either the male or female line. Communities of extended patrilineal families were typical of the Tupí-Guaraní. In many Amazon tribes and in others farther north, the lineages or groups of lineages are patrilineal exogamous clans. Tribes with matrilineal clans, although less numerous, can be found throughout South America. In some tribes the clans number 40 or more, as among the Mundurukú; they are generally organized into two groups so that the whole tribe comprises two exogamous moieties. The dual divisions of the Ge Indians, often not related to kinship and marriage, are mainly ceremonial.
In general, the tropical forest cultures do not exhibit much social stratification. When there is inequality, it is normally made up of ethnic outsiders who do not constitute a class as such. War captives may be reduced to slavery, as among the northern Carib and Arawak, the Huitoto, and the Mundurukú. Among the extinct Tupí of the Brazilian coast, slavery was the fate of those destined for ritual sacrifice. In many cases, chiefly among the northern Carib, slavery had primarily an economic function: the captives form a servile group known as peito—the same term applied to a fiancé during the period in which he is obliged to work for his future father-in-law. The Rucuyen, a Carib tribe of French Guiana, for some time maintained in servitude a great number of the Oyampī, their Tupí neighbours. In the northwest Amazon, Arawak and Tucano tribes hunt and enslave Makú men, who are forced to work in their gardens; the Makú women and children are used as domestic servants.
A tendency to form a class of nobility has been found in many Arawak groups, who not uncommonly impose themselves over other tribes by means of intermarriage, especially among families of chiefs. In some regions, relatives of chiefs constitute a kind of nobility. In tribes divided into clans, it is common to attribute superior status to a certain clan or even to scale them in hierarchic order. Nevertheless, the local or tribal community is essentially egalitarian.
The children learn through play and imitation. Boys acquire skill in the use of weapons by practicing with small bows or blowguns made by their fathers. Girls learn to cook in little clay pots and to weave on small looms; they help their mothers in the preparation of manioc flour. The young also participate in the general religious life. The transmission of moral standards is rarely of a formal nature, and there is little punishment or repression.
The institution of the couvade is found throughout the forest culture. The father of a newborn infant must observe a rigorous diet for a week or so after the infant’s birth. It is based on the idea of a mystical relation between the father and the child.
Puberty rites are often quite elaborate. In many tribes, such as the Guaraní, the symbol of masculine maturity is the labret, an ornament worn in a perforation of the lip; the ritual is preceded by an instruction period during which the boys, isolated from the community, learn the religious chants and dances, and it culminates with the perforation of their lower lips. Initiation rites may be limited to boys or to girls or may be for both sexes. The initiation of the boys is generally done collectively for those who have reached the eve of sexual maturity, while that of the girls is normally held individually on the occasion of the first menstruation.
In many of the Indian cultures these rites take a central position among other important ceremonies such as funerals and fertility rites. In the Guianas and the northwest Amazon region, the initiation of the boys is very complex. The Yurupary celebration inducts the boys into the secret society of mature men. Special rites are revealed to them; they are shown the sacred trumpets or the masks representing ancestral spirits. They are subjected to violent whippings, which they must tolerate without the least expression of pain. In the Guianas, the ritual torture consists of the stings of hornets or the bites of poisonous ants. The girls’ initiation, generally more developed in the Amazon area near the Andes, is also frequently accompanied by difficult tests. Among the Tikuna (Tucuna) and other Amazonian groups, all the hair of the girl is pulled out; its regrowth symbolizes the emergence of a new adult personality.
The initiation of the boys assumes great importance in the social structure of some Ge groups of central Brazil, whose complex of rites begins at ten years of age and continues in cycles until 20. In one such tribe, the Xerente, candidates spend three years isolated from community life preparing themselves for manhood. In these Ge groups, those who have been initiated together form a distinct set of persons who feel united the rest of their lives.
Most of the tropical forest Indians are neither entirely sedentary nor entirely nomadic. Some wandering bands do not remain in the same place for more than a few days. Some farming populations are more or less attached to specific locales. But even the latter make seasonal moves, especially those in semi-arid regions. The seminomadic tribes live in villages during the rainy season and go hunting in dry spells—e.g., the Xavante and other Ge—or break up into little bands for gathering, as do the Nambicuara. The Karajá (Carajá) of the Araguaia build their villages in rows of houses on high ground near the river, but in the dry season they move down to the long beaches. Most of the villages of the tropical forest farmers are not permanent; after some years they have to move because of soil exhaustion.
While the bands of gatherers rarely exceed a few dozen individuals, the farmers’ villages have been known to include as many as 2,000. As a rule they are much smaller, dividing whenever the population becomes too large. A characteristic arrangement is the circular village of houses placed around a central plaza. This is found, for example, in the upper Xingu, in various Ge tribes, and among the Bororo of the Mato Grosso. The plan of the Bororo village, like that of the Ge, is a real map of the social structure. Each household represents a particular segment of the local group, such as an extended family or a patrilineal or matrilineal clan. The centre of the plaza is often occupied by the men’s house, where the men spend the night and the greater part of the day, and which is at times the locus of ceremonial activities.
The house reflects the economic organization and social structure. Designs range from the simple shelter of the Guayakí and the wind screens of the Nambicuara up to large communal houses containing 200 or more individuals, even the entire tribe. The latter, known as malocas, have been found in the Guianas, northwestern Amazonia, and in some regions farther to the south in the area of the Purus and the Guaporé rivers. The Tupinamba houses are reported to have measured up to 20 metres in length. Houses on piles are found in marshy and swampy locations, for example among the Warao (Warrau) and other Indians of Venezuela but sometimes also among tribes that inhabit dry lands and savannas. The Mura, who live on the Madeira and Purus rivers, and the Guató of the upper Paraguay River, who spend a good part of the year on rivers and lagoons, fishing and hunting aquatic animals, have made their canoes into dwellings. At other times they live in small shacks at the water’s edge.
Most houses are made of rough wood, covered with palm leaves or grass. The great circular malocas with conical roofs in southeastern Venezuela merit special attention for their size and solidity. Although there are no walls in the malocas, the space is customarily divided according to social distinctions, giving a specific place to each family and sometimes even to each of its members. The furniture is very rudimentary. Some Indians sleep on mats or on platform beds, but more of them use hammocks which are found throughout the tropical region.
A great variety of economic systems is found in the tropical forest. The tribes cannot accurately be classified as hunters and gatherers on the one hand or as farmers on the other. The differences lie in the emphasis given to agriculture rather than in the presence or lack of it. The Guayakí of the forests of eastern Paraguay are one of the few tribes without any agriculture; they feed on wild honey and larvae, catch fish with arrows, and hunt jaguars and armadillos. The Sirionó of Bolivia and most of the Makú (a denomination that comprises rather heterogeneous Amazonian groups) are nomads who hunt, fish, and gather. A few Makú groups, however, influenced by their neighbours, have become more or less sedentary farmers. The same holds for the Shirianá and Waica of the Orinoco–Amazon headwaters.
The crops are chiefly bitter manioc as well as other tubers and roots, and, in the western regions, maize (corn). Some Ge tribes grow mainly sweet potatoes and yams. The forest is cleared by felling the trees (the stone axe has now been everywhere replaced by the iron axe) and, when the underbrush is dry, setting fire to it. The same plot is used for several (but never more than six) consecutive crops and then left fallow for several years until it is covered by new vegetation. The group must therefore move periodically. The slash-and-burn system does not, except in the more fertile lowlands, permit the growth of dense populations. It does, however, provide a seasonal food surplus that might in many cases, considering the available techniques, be increased. But the Indian has no incentive to store up goods in a generally egalitarian society, since goods are not a source of prestige.
The tropical forest Indians are highly inventive. They have developed many types of harpoons, arrows, traps, snares, and blowguns. In fishing they employ a variety of drugs that stun or kill the fish without making them inedible. The bow and arrow are today known everywhere; in some Amazon regions they have replaced the spear thrower, a device still in use in certain western tribes. The bow and arrow are the principal weapons of warfare, although some groups fight with clubs and lances.
The techniques of basketry have a wealth of variations, mainly in the Guianas, the northwest Amazon region, and among the Ge peoples. Along with many kinds of baskets and hampers, these folk plait sifters, traps, fans, mats, and other household articles out of palm leaves and shafts of taquara, or bamboo.
The potter’s wheel was traditionally unknown, but coiled ceramics reached a high degree of development, particularly among the Arawak and Pano tribes. Among nomadic groups pottery is either nonexistent or very rudimentary; instead, the nomads use gourds, calabashes, baskets, and fibre pouches.
Spinning and weaving, though well-known, remain at an elementary level since most tropical forest Indians, instead of dressing, prefer to paint the body and to embellish it with all sorts of adornments. From cotton, growing wild or planted, they make tunics, as well as belts of various types, skirts, and particularly hammocks. They use simple spindles, which they whirl like tops. The most common loom is the heddle loom: the threads of the weft, separated by heddles, are wound around a vertical frame. In regions close to the Andes, especially in eastern Bolivia, the Indians make cloth of beaten bark.
The roots of the manioc or cassava plant is a staple of the Indian diet, and its processing requires a number of implements including baskets and sifters, graters made of planks with little stones embedded in them, the tipiti (a plaited cylinder used to squeeze the prussic acid from the grated pulp), great clay pots for preparing the flour, and earthen fryers for making flat cakes.
Land is generally owned by the group occupying or exploiting it—a band, a village, or a clan—and parcelled out to families or other small units for hunting, fishing, or planting. Collective tribal land or territory exists only in rare cases, when the solidarity between the various groups of a people is particularly strong. There are rigorous norms for the distribution of game among the hunter’s family and among other families to which he is associated by certain ties; the hunter himself may receive a rather small share. Cleared land almost always belongs to the family using it, but when necessary others may have access to its products. Generosity is greatly valued. This also holds for intertribal relations, when gifts are exchanged on the occasion of visits or celebrations.
Weapons and household utensils are the property of individual men and women, but canoes and other objects used collectively are not. Body adornments generally belong to the wearer. Intangible property may belong to the clan or other social unit, but it may also be individually owned, as in the case of the name or ritual functions among Ge tribes, and magical–religious chants among the Guaraní.
Brisk trade among tribes is carried on in parts of the Guianas, in northwest Amazonia, and in upper Xingu. Indians of the upper Orinoco export urucu, a red dye, to groups living downriver. The Arawak frequently trade ceramic wares produced by their women; they also supply blowguns in exchange for poisonous curare and barter manioc graters. Carib tribes often trade cotton products. Some groups specialize in the manufacture of canoes, which are much in demand by neighbouring groups. The most complex trading system is that of the upper Xingu; it includes a dozen tribes, each with its own products. Commerce contributes significantly toward reducing cultural differences among the tribes, the more so because it is accompanied at times by ceremonial activities through which religious ideas and practices, as well as elements of social organization, are transmitted.
Belief and aesthetic systems
The tropical forest Indians believe that their well-being depends on being able to control innumerable supernatural powers, which in personal or impersonal form permeate or inhabit objects, living beings, and nature in general. Through shamanistic rites or collective ceremonies, humans must encourage and maintain their harmonious integration in the universe, controlling the forces that govern it; their beneficial or harmful effects are largely determined by human action. In most of the cultures, magical measures and precautions are more important than the religious cult as such. The strength and health of the body, the normal growth of children, the capacity to procreate, and even psychic qualities are obtained by magical means. For the individual these means may include the perforation of the lips, nasal septum, or ear lobes, the painting of the body, and the use of various adornments. A little stick passed through the nasal septum, such as that used by the Pawumwa of the Guaporé River, prevents sickness. The hunter or fisherman, in order to be successful and not to be panema (unlucky), as they say in many Amazonian regions, takes precautions such as scarring his arms or abstaining from certain foods. The magical devices of the hunter, the fisherman, and the warrior are considered much more important than their ability. Arrows must be treated by rubbing with a certain drug, since their magical attributes are believed to be more effective than their technical properties.
Stimulants and narcotics are of great importance in the magic and religious practices of most tropical forest Indians. Secular use of drugs is much rarer. Tobacco is known by almost all tribes. The Tupinamba shaman fumigates his rattle with tobacco, which he believes contains an animating principle that confers on the rattle the faculty of “speaking,” that is, of revealing the future. Alcoholic beverages, consumed mainly in religious festivals, are obtained by fermentation of manioc, corn, and other plants. They are unknown among the Ge, in the upper Xingu, and in some regions of Bolivia and Ecuador. Coca leaves are chewed, especially in the sub-Andean regions. Infusion of maté is taken in the Paraguay area, as well as by the Jívaro and other groups of Ecuador. Hallucinogens are used mainly in the Amazon–Orinoco area; they include species of Banisteriopsis (a tropical liana), from which is made a potion that produces visions. In certain tribes the use of this drug is restricted to shamanistic practices; in others, as in the Uaupés River area, it is an essential element in religious festivals in which the community revives its mythic tradition. Other narcotics in ritual use, among them the yopo, or paricá (Piptadenia), known among many northern groups, are often breathed in the form of snuff, which partners blow into one another’s nostrils; the Omagua of the upper Amazon used it as an enema.
Some magical practices are reserved for the shaman, who acquires status by natural endowment, by inspiration, by apprenticeship, or by painful initiation. The shaman may practice medicine, perform magic rites, and lead religious ceremonies. Rarely, however, is he a priest in the usual sense of the term. In many groups his influence is superior to that of the political chief; in some, as among the Guaraní, the two roles may coincide. Not uncommonly, his influence continues even after his death: in the Guianas and elsewhere, his soul becomes an auxiliary spirit of his living colleagues, helping them in their curing practices and in the control of harmful spirits; among the Rucuyen, the bodies of common individuals were cremated, while that of the shaman was kept in a special place so that his soul might live on.
In curing the sick, the shaman must remove the object causing the sickness: a small stone, a leaf, an insect, any substance that has been sent through the black magic of an evildoer. The cure consists of massages, suction, blowing, and fumigation. If the illness comes from loss of the soul, the shaman must search for and recover it. If it comes from a bad spirit, he tries to overcome the evil influence with the help of one or more auxiliary spirits.
The soul has its seat in the bones, the heart, the wrist, or in other parts of the body. Some Indians believe that two or more souls are responsible for various vital functions. One finds also the idea of a purely spiritual soul. The Guaraní believe that man has an animal soul governing his temperament and his instinctive reactions but that he also has a second, spiritual one, sent by a divinity at the moment of conception. Thanks to his second soul, man thinks, speaks, and is capable of noble sentiments. After death this second soul returns to live among the gods, while the other soul wanders the Earth as a ghost menacing the living.
Nature is believed to be peopled by demons and spirits that are beneficial or malevolent, depending on man’s behaviour. Besides the soul that gives life to every living thing, many plants and animals have a “mother” or “master,” as do manioc, maize, and game animals.
The mythology of almost all tribes includes a creator of the universe and of people. This creator seldom sustains interest in his handiwork, and thus there is usually no cult attached to him. Social institutions, customs, knowledge, techniques, and cultivated plants are deeds or gifts of a culture hero or a pair of them, sometimes twin brothers who may represent the Sun and Moon. A number of myths are told about these figures; sometimes the pair consists of a hero and a trickster who opposes him.
Ceremonial practices vary, depending on the tribe and its way of life. Some great collective ceremonies have been associated with war, as among the northern Carib and the coastal Tupí, both famous for cannibalism, and the headhunting Mundurukú and Jívaro. Ceremonies are often believed to be indispensable for regulating the course of the Sun and the Moon, the sequence of the seasons, the fertility of plants, the procreation of animals, and the very continuity of human life. Their objective may also be to commune with the dead or with mythical ancestors; when they are connected with the disposal of the dead, they are at the same time passage rites, by means of which the spirits of the dead are made harmless. Among the Guaraní, most religious ceremonies mean profound spiritual communion with the gods.
Corpses are commonly disposed of by ground burial within or without the house. Urn burial has also been known, especially among Tupí groups; some groups have been known to unearth bones, clean them, and then rebury them. The Tarariu (Tarairiu) of northeastern Brazil and some Pano broiled the flesh of their dead and mixed the pulverized bones and hair with water or with a manioc-base beverage that they drank. Tribes of the Caribbean coast, after drying the body by fire, allowed it to decompose and later added the powder to a drink. In other northern regions, one still finds the custom of cremating the cadaver and consuming the charred and crushed bones in a banana mush.
Artistic efforts are most commonly applied to decoration, whether of the human body, objects of practical or ritual use, or even houses. The most common body adornments are paint and feather ornaments. Tattooing has also been practiced, especially among the Mundurukú and many Arawak tribes. Magical and religious ideas are usually expressed in these adornments. The Carib tribes of the Guianas and some Tupí were outstanding in featherwork. The plumed mantles of the Tupinamba, the delicate and elaborate adornments of the Caapor of Maranhão state, and the rich and varied ones of the Mundurukú are much celebrated.
The design of ornaments is almost always geometrical, with characteristic patterns for particular tribes; the styles vary with the cultural areas.
Masks, generally used in ceremonial dances, are restricted to the tribes of certain areas: the Guartegaya and Amniapé (Amniepe) of the upper Madeira, the tribes of the upper Xingu, the Karajá and the Tapirapé of the Araguáia River area, some Ge of central Brazil, and the Guaraní of southern Bolivia. The masks represent the spirits of plants, fish, and other animals, as well as mythical heroes and divinities. They are highly stylized in form but, on occasion, naturalistic in expression.
The Waurá women of the upper Xingu are famous for their pots and animal-shaped bowls. Of the historic tribes, the Tapajó of the Amazon had the richest style in ceramics, excelled only by the archaeological remains of the Ilha de Marajó. Among some groups in the Guianas and western Amazonia, artistic activity includes wood carving.