- There are places that have the name Guarani in Brazil, see Guarani, Brazil. There is also a Brazilian football club called Guarani).
The Guarani are primarily a tribal people indigenous to Paraguay, Uruguay and some regions of Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia.
The Guarani are part of a large cultural-linguistic (the tupí-guaraní) people native to a South-American civilization first encountered by the early Indo-Iberian settlers arriving in the region.
Very early, in the 1600's settlements or "Missions" supposedly established for the 'benign' engagement of the native indigenous people began... and the many historical missions were established in the area; not unlike it happened in the southwestern part of today's United States of America.
The Guarani were also later described, amongst many other historical documents in existence today, in 1903, by Croatian explorers Mirko and Stjepan Seljan.
Roland Joffe's 1986 film The Mission was about the Guarani and their role in a battle between the Jesuits and Portuguese Government over them. Though the specific battle was fictitious, it is heavily allegorical to the situation of many real Guarani throughout the ages.
Several English words can be traced to Guarani roots, such as "toucan" and "jaguar."
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Last updated: 10-11-2005 11:37:42
