Tupí-Guaraní

Tupí-Guaraní, group of Native American tribes from central and eastern South America. The tribes inhabiting Paraguay and southern Brazil are called Guaraní; those in the Amazon Basin are of the Tupí, or Tupinabá, stock. Practitioners of ritual cannibalism in ancient times, they developed into farmers, hunters, fishers, and fruit gatherers. Under Spanish and Portuguese rule, which began in the 16th century, Jesuit missionaries organized the Tupí-Guaraní people into agricultural settlements, where many of them were converted to Christianity and assimilated into the Western cultural mainstream. Guaraní is still one of the major languages spoken in Paraguay today.