GUARANI, gwa'ra-nof. One of the most im portant of all the groups of Indian tribes in America. The term has two meanings, applying (1) to the Guarani proper (warriors), living between the Parana River and the Atlantic, and (2) to the immense linguistic family called Tupi - Guarani, spread formerly over Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil, with ramifications in Bo livia and Peru. Their numbers have been greatly exaggerated, running up into the millions. The population of Paraguay and Uruguay is largely Guarani, or has the blood of that people in its veins. They are not tall (average height, inches). They are dolichocephalic, and are also said to be light in color and to lack the coarse features of the average American tribes. The Guarani, were not, at the time of the discovery, altogether dependent upon hunting, but had de veloped peaceful arts and sedentary life. In one sense this made them an easy prey to both Span iards and Portuguese, but it saved their lives and taught them new industries. The more vigorous, after enduring their oppressors for a century, moved up the branches of the Parana into Bolivia, where they mingled with the Span iards, learned their language, and developed a fine-looking breed. The Guarani of Brazil, under the Portuguese Government, were settled on res ervations, and have married with the whites, the mixed progeny being called Mamelucos. These are industrious and progressive in agriculture and arts. The manioc is their staple vegetable food, along with many wild roots and fruits. They hunt also a great variety of wild animals and catch fish. Poultry is reared, and besides dogs they have tamed parrots, swine, and os triches. The villages are surrounded with a double line of palisades, and consist of a number of large communal clan houses, in which each family has its fire; in many of these houses there are no partitions.
Some of the tribes wear skin or network cloaks, and others a waist garment of feathers like a Scotch kilt. Their weapons are the bow
and arrow and clubs. The bow when straightened is also used as a lance. The tribes on the wide streams make dugout canoes 20 or 30 feet long, capable of carrying 30 persons. They have a simple upright loom, and make netted hammocks. For bodily decoration they apply colored juice or tlay, on which rude patterns are drawn; feathers of tropical birds are also used as orna ments. Drums, trumpets, and flageolets are their musical instruments.
The Tupf-Guaranf, scattered over the immense drainage area of the Rio de la Plata and the southern effluents of the Lower Amazon, had no political solidarity. They are most of them now either distinct tribes or groups, or settled down under different conditions with the white popula tions. If the stock originated in Central Brazil, it is easy to see how the Tupfan portion followed the Amazon affluents to the northward, and the Guarani portion moved southward along the Parana.
The languages of the Gurani, as well as their faces, are said to have Mongolian characteristics.
Instead of the long, compact groups of sounds in which a whole thought is wrapped up, monosyl lables abound, which have various meanings ac cording to the intonation. But the most interest ing fact about the Guarani language is the importance which it early acquired through its adoption by the missionaries as the lingoa geral (general language), a kind of Chinook jargon, by means of which they put themselves into communication with tribes over an immense area.
In their religion the Guarani do not differ from their kindred in both continents. Vicarious tabu is alleged to have been practiced; that is, if a child became sick, the relatives abstained from food which they thought would be injurious to the child. Eclipses were thought to be caused by a dog and jaguar trying to eat the planet. Consult: Martius, Ethnographic and Sprachen kunde Amerikas (Leipzig, 1867) ; Brinton, The American Race (New York, 1891).