Guarani

1
Guarani

• Presented by
• Isaac Ogle, Andrew Masterson, and Lee Xixis

2
General Overview
3
Orientation and Settlements

• Lowland South America
• Andes to the Atlantic
• 50,000 total
• Common Guarani language
• Large households of extended families

4
Economic Institution

• Gardening
• Gathering
• Creating Forest Products

5
Economic Institution

• Guarani oils and other resources are sold
  internationally
• Extensive trading networks with other indigenous
  groups
• Gender is the primary division of labor
• Land tenure is based on kinship and labor

6
Sociopolitical Institution

• (Social Organization)
• Relationships between kin become the structure
  for allocating rights, responsibilities, and
  authority
• Community consists of kin groups
• Group membership remains unchanged as members
  shift residence between kin groups

7
Sociopolitical Organization

• (Political Organization)
• Political structures are organized around kin
  leaders
• Religious leaders integrate politics with the
  community and ethics
• Religious ceremony is the primary arena for the
  legitimization and reinforcement of political
  claims
• Recent Conflict forestry companies invading
  Guarani territory

8
Sociopolitical Organization

• Social Control
• Leadership within a kin group naturally appears
  with age
• Leaders do not assert power over other
  individuals, but they offer advise to
  individuals, factions, and the community.

9
Marriage

• Guarani do not recognize strict marriage
  prescriptions.
• Male joins female in the home of her parents and
  is expected to help her male kin.
• Permanence of a marriage is judged by the labor
  they invest in a house, garden, and children.
• Marriage not an act or ceremony. Progresses
  slowly.

10
Family

• Domestic Units
• Couples construct own houses and plant own
  fields, for benefit of themselves and their
  children.
• Guarani families live near kin and maintain
• extensive networks that share labor and
  production with relatives.
• Mostly nuclear families.
• Large Guarani households dispersed by disease,
  slavers, wage labor, and commercial involvement.

11
Kinship Structure

• Kin groups organized by
• bilateral descent do not
• emphasize either the father
• or mothers side.
• Individuals kin relations
• are limited

12
Religion

• Sun rises every morning from a heavenly realm
  known as The Land Without Evil.
• Sun makes a trek across the sky.
• World is headed to destruction.

13
Religion cont.

• Recognize variety of deities, but the primary god
  is male evident in sun and a parallel feminine
  deity is manifest in the moon. Secondary set of
  deities.
• Individuals receive religious power in chants
  while asleep.
• Ceremony- usually performed at night in house of
  religious leader.
• Medicine
• Death and Afterlife- Tapirs Path

14
Rank Society

• Differences in prestige based on kinship
• Access to resources is not restricted
• Gardening is the primary productive activity
• Everyone must labor

15
Rank Society

• Leadership
• Political structures organized around kin leaders
• Authority from religious knowledge
• Exercises influence through rituals
• Ranked Kin Groups
• Kin groups vary in size, status, and power
• Power determined by ability to mobilize nuclear
  families through kin lines

16
Rank Society

• Inherit right to manage resources
• Kin relations confer the right to use resources
• Do not actually own land
• What they farm is their property, and the fruits
  are theirs
• Inherit symbolic resources
• Kinship ties are the basis for allocating rights,
  responsibilities, and authorities
• Kin leaders perform religious ceremonies