History

Native of the Pantanal

The first residents of the region, the Indians, left an inheritance which, certainly today, is found again in the regional art and culture in the dance and in the music in the typical regional cooking and in other manifestos of the folklore. The Latin-American Indian tribes Guaicuru, Terena, Paiaguá and Xané lived in places nearby flows at the feet of the edge mountains - they formed different tribe groups with different languages. It was common to Allen in a universe in which the table was always set richly for her that they found her food in principle by hunting and fishing. To horse or in the canoe the Latin-American Indians conquered the distance of the Pantanal and they left the evidence of her existence everywhere: her connection ways found out rivers and smaller arid ones, if paths laid out, and showed the white ones some tribes cared which for peaceful contact.  

As the first white men into the Pantanal everyone however almost penetrated - they found different Indian tribes at the beginning of the 16th century, every people with his personal peculiarities - with one single language, the "Guarani".  As outstanding riders the "Guaicurus" dominated the complete south of the Pantanal - of the Serra since Bodoquena to after postage Murtinho. You fetched her horses from Paraguay and moved fast and surprisingly in her sovereign territory, having been afraid by all her neighbours. With the Guaicurus generations the "Guaná", the "Guachi" and the "Kadiweu" mixed more differently in the run, an essential participation in the "Paraguayan war" in which they fenced on the side of the Brazilians befits the latter.

The Paiaguás are another tribe from the Pantanal which is of great importance, one was afraid of it as a "canoe Indian" because they penetrated on the innumerable channels of the Pantanal into the sovereign territories of her neighbours again and again and delivered battles to himself with them. They penetrated from the Paraguay river into the rivers Miranda and Negro. Both Paiaguás and Guaicurus stood out as warlike tribes which defended her floor against intruders more than three centuries. One can the Paiaguás by her perfect adjustment to the inundation cycle as the most characteristic tribe of the Pantanal bezeichnen. as good fishermen and excellent swimmers!

The Xanés and the Xaray, also good canoeists, were - conquered by the Paiaguás her nature and more were less numerous of peaceful. Rio Paraguai lived nomad tribe, the Guatô, the only one the and travelled around in the complete region of the Paiaguá-Pantanal, they built modest huts during the rain period, on the right side. You were respected as excellent hunters because they could handle arrow and bows how or else nobody. They were but when integrated by the warlike Paiaguá and the Guaicurú into the tribes zahlenmässig small people, they served them as hunters from this time on.

The Terena lived, till up in the heights of the Serra de Maracaju to the two sides of the rivers Aquidauana and Miranda. As a peaceable tribe tolerated her, that Spaniards and Portuguese passed through her estates. In the year 1580 they founded the settlement "Santiago de Xerez". Her descendants are found in rest groupings in the places "Cachoeirinha" and "ban anal" in the districts of Miranda and Aquidauana today. One hits her on the edge of the over-country marked-out routes where they sell her ceramics.

Certain features were common to all peoples of this area because regional typical: Your economy consisted of the harvest of wilderness products from the hunting and her products from the fishing and the farming - the latter though still in her rudimentary beginnings. Private property was unknown and all work was finished in the collective, also the distribution of the goods. The boundaries between the individual tribe areas were not defined and it happened to regular that the individual communes therefore got into dispute, pounced upon each other and the winners enslaved the inferiors.  

The origin of the Pantanal Indians was always regarded as an association by most tribes with a certain animal. This potential of the nature together with the strength of the sky forged man together with nature. Her existence for the Guaicurú, for example explained itself typical prä Colombian legend from one: the oldest of the tribe said that a Caracará falcon would have swallowed a handful fish once and the Guaicurú crept from his eggs later. Therefore this tribe never either tracked the mentioned falcon, a keeping which is found again in all primitive peoples in the one or other way.

The Paiaguá, however, thought that they would be the descendants of a certain fish, the "Pacú". And like all Indians of the Pantanal they looked at himself when being descended from a raised spirit, among other things this one also had awarded the right to them to make all other peoples for her servants.  

Native in the Pantanal of today

Spare for not ending times, the natives of Brazil live also in the Pantanal in an exemplary harmony with her environment. How everywhere they have been put pressure on, hurt and decimated of the white also here - have had to retire always further in front of the acquisitive greed and profit seeking of the white race. Illnesses were protracted over the highways, the rivers and the line to them and completely wiped out many trunks. But these unspeakable sufferings, victims and injustices have made the survivors strong resistantly and also formed primarily: they have learned not only the language the white one today, many Indians study and defend the rights of her people also in the government.

They have himself vehemently against the plan of a "Hydrovia Paraguai Paraná" for example below in the south, definite - a water marked-out route, this one between "Cáceres" at the Rio Paraguai, and the Rio Paraná, deep shall arise. One also an artificial canalization of the up till now too shallow bed plans the Rio Paraguay and by this regulation again once on the pretext of economic interests, however, which can damage the Pantanal since inundation cycle could essential the complete one, for nature for this be disturbed definitely. The domiciled Indians, have combined forces and worked out a manifesto together with environmentalists from the whole country which was spread and discussed on the entire Internet on 29 January 1996 with the result that one has made a mistake from government side to examine the complete project for his consequences for the sensitive environment once again. The official result is open.

The first people in the Pantanal

Archaeological examinations have shown that the human occupation of the Pantanal was started at least 8,000 years ago. The archaeological finds of these first primitive groups prove that the production of clay containers and gefässen was still unknown to them for example. They were specialized in the hunting against this on collecting wild fruits and the fishing, and came in the region a kind of symbiosis with the inundated areas so to speak.

The first populations which penetrated into the Pantanal occupied areas which was concerned by the annual inundations of some mountains - area hill (like the one of Caracará in the region of Poconé) also isolated particularly the slopes at the Fuss of the surrounding mountains (like in Corumbá-Ladário), the banks of rivers (like in Caracará and in São Lourenço) and lagoons (like the "black lagoon" in Corumbá), and other into immediate proximity of edge (such as the Serra do Amolar). The settlements of these populations were also always laid out nearby permanent rivers. Therefore absolutely seem logically that water mussels also belonged to her menu already since this time.

And one can prove this fact by archaeological finds both inside and in the coastal regions of the South American continent like at the example of the known "Sambaquis" in the south and in the southeast of Brazil.  The different find places prove that a number of all sorts of cultures had sat down from Amazonia, from the Andengebieten and from the Chaco in the Pantanal level in times before the settlement of Brazil. The part flooded, which was occupied by the tribe of the Xaray, the first mentioned Spaniards who reached here after this people: One named this area "Pantanal" "Mar de Xarayés" -- only much later. Those first Spanish expeditions mentioned the Xaray which one, in the year 1541 Ausser took up the Rio Paraguai, also the coincidence with other native groups, as under others the "Orejones", the "Guaren-Cocie", the "Guaxarapatos" and this one, " Xerebacane ". With the beginning of the 17th century the scenario then changed at the upper Rio Paraguai: The groups of Xaray and Orejone disappeared, wiped out by the Spaniards almost completely. The region became a housing area of the Guató and Boróros now which for their part then were the victim of the Portuguese.

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