Índios and Índias – the Native Brazilians

Tupinambá Indians, the hosts to the Portuguese Explorers

Brazil’s first colonizers were met by Tupinamba Indians, one group in the vast array of the continent’s native population. In the first years of contact with the Portuguese, the Tupinambás lived in the whole Eastern coast of Brazil, and the name was also applied to other Tupi-speaking groups such as the Tupiniquim, Potiguara, Tupinambá, Temiminó, Caeté, Tabajara, Tamoio, Tupinaé among others. In an exclusive sense, it can be applied to the Tupinambá peoples who once inhabited the right shore of the São Francisco river in the Recôncavo Baiano and from the Cabo de São Tomé in Rio de Janeiro to the town of São Sebastião in São Paulo. Their language survives today in the form of Nheengatu.
The Tupinambá lived in unusually large patrilineal villages that numbered from 400 to 1,600 persons. They supplemented farming with ocean fishing. Cassava and corn (maize) were among their staple foods. The Portuguese tried to enslave Indians, but, unaccustomed to toiling long hours in fields and overcome by European diseases, many natives either fled far inland or died.

When Cabral arrived, the indigenous population was believed to have been more than 3 million; today the number is scarcely more than 200,000.
Warfare among the Tupinambá groups was constant, and indeed their religious and social values centred upon warfare and, it was alleged, on cannibalism. Ordinary Tupinambá social relations, on the other hand, were marked by gentleness and cooperation. The Tupinambá believed in demons and also in a great many ghosts who haunted dark places and often caused harm. They had shamans who communicated with spirits and were able to cure sickness.
Initially, local groups forged alliances with Portuguese and French interests in order to gain the upper hand against traditional enemies. But the Europeans were interested mainly in slaves, which distorted the traditional goals of warfare and moved the Tupinambá to resist colonial rule. The Tupinambá’s refusal to abandon ritual sacrifice and cannibalism led the Portuguese to launch brutal military campaigns in Bahia and Rio de Janeiro, especially during Mem de Sá’s tenure as governor general (1557–1572). This policy resulted in the enslavement of many and the confinement of others in Jesuit missions.
Following their military defeat, which was exacerbated by epidemic disease, several Tupinambá groups embarked on long migrations, led by charismatic prophets. The majority settled on the northern coast of Maranhão and in the middle Amazon Valley, while one small contingent reached Spanish Peru. Another prophetic resistance movement, known as the Santidade, flourished closer to Bahia during the second half of the sixteenth century. By the mid-seventeenth century, the coastal Tupinambá no longer existed as an independent indigenous society.

Guaibimpará, aka Catarina Álvares Paraguaçú, the first Christian Brazilian

Catarina Álvares Paraguaçu, also known as Catarina do Brasil (baptized June 1528 – 1586), was a Brazilian Tupinambá Indian. She was born in what is today the state of Bahia (dates unknown) and was married to Portuguese sailor Diogo Álvares Correia, also known as “Caramuru”. She and Caramuru would become the first Brazilian Christian family.
Her father, the cacique of the Tupinambás, offered her as a wife to Correia, since he was a prominent figure to the Indians. Correia travelled to France in 1526, taking his wife with him, and in 1528, in Saint-Malo, Catarina was baptised, receiving the name Catarina do Brasil (French: Catherine du Brésil; English: Catherine of Brazil).
A legend says that Catarina would dream constantly about castaways dying of cold and hunger. In one of those dreams, she saw a woman carrying a baby in her arms. Trusting in the mystic qualities of her dreams, Caramuru told the people to search everywhere around the shores. Many castaways were found, but no woman among them. Days later, Catarina would dream again with the same woman, who told her to build a house for her in her village. Soon after, a statue of the Virgin Mary carrying Child Jesus was found. The statue can now be found at the altar of the Igreja da Graça. Catarina died in 1586. Her possessions were all donated to the Benedictine monks. She is buried at the Church of Our Lady of Grace (Igreja da Graça), in Salvador, Bahia.

City of St. Malo, Brittany, France, received the first Native Brazilian

St. Malo – the Walled City

Saint-Malo is a historic French port in Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany on the English Channel coast. The walled city had a long history of piracy, earning much wealth from local extortion and overseas adventures. In 1944, the Allies heavily bombarded Saint-Malo, which was garrisoned by German troops. The city changed into a popular tourist centre, with a ferry terminal serving the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey, as well as the Southern English settlements of Portsmouth, Hampshire and Poole, Dorset.