Tupi Indians
The Tupi Indians are one of the main ethnic groups of Brazilian in the Amazon rainforest. This group of indians were the first group of any tribe to come into contact with the French, Dutch and Portuguese. They were also the target of the Jesuit missionaries and cannibals. Brazilian natives were not tolerated by the Europeans, particularly the Portuguese. They were enslaved, massacred and exploited in many ways. Many of the people died from diseases carried by the Europeans, which caused the few who survived everything to change their lives accordingly. The Tupi and other Indians suffered, largely from the diseases that the Portuguese brought: small pox, whooping cough, tuberculosis and measles. They asked why they, Maíra's chose people, were suffering so much, and they wondered whether their god Maíra had died. Missionaries provided them with an answer. They told the suffering Indians that they were being punished for their sins and that a good god in heaven might cast them to hell forever. And some Indians ran from the Portuguese and their god, into the interior - gods seen as occupying places as had once been believed by Europeans. The Tupi saw the Portuguese as grasping and perpetually distressed. The Portuguese saw the Tupi as too content and too lazy and as leading useless lives. Their solution was to force Tupi into slavery. The Fact that these people live in very remote parts of the rainforest makes it hard for even the best of all trackers to find where they reside. It doesnt help that the rainforest is really dense in most parts and it's very easy to get lost. The Tupi people were nomadic people that would move their houses every five years. Their house's normally housed five families of mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, and several small children. Their system of justice was revenge. Like other tribal people they allowed petty conflicts and imagined offenses to escalate into wars. No Tupi state had arisen to unite them and impose a stable order and peace. Tupi religion contributed to their wars by creating a demand for captives to sacrifice to their gods. The Tupi ate from the bodies of those they sacrificed to their god, believing that they were ingesting the character of the person whose flesh they were eating - a ritual cannibalism. Tupi warriors rejected eating the flesh of people for whom they had contempt, which meant that they preferred the flesh of other Tupi warriors. |
