For 6000 years, at least, great part of the Brazilian coast has been inhabited by peoples who basically exploited the marine environment.
They used to fish and collect shells, but also hunt and collect edible plants species.
Usually, they settled in places which could offer a large variety of plants and animals to sustain a rich diet.
Rio
Ilha Grande, Angra dos Reis, RJ
Archeological sites, called "sambaqui" or "pile of shells", are testimonies of these peoples, and they occur along the whole coast of Brazil, specially from Cabo Frio (in the state of Rio) until Torres (in the state of Rio Grande do Sul) southwards.
They may reach up to thirty meters high and several tens of meters wide.
Some of them are still found, sometimes partially destroyed, along the shores of the Guanabara bay.
Researcher in Tubarão, Santa Catarina
Sambaqui in Angra dos Reis, RJ
Carved stone in Cabo Frio, RJ
The Tupi-Guarani Amerindians
At the beginning of our era, peoples of Guarani tradition began to leave the Paraná-Paraguay basins to gain the shore. In the fifth century, they dominated the coast, by expelling the Sambaqui peoples.
Around 1500, different tribes occupied the coast, from the delta of the Amazon river to Santa Catarina. Thus, the Guanabara Bay was inhabited by Tamoios, which were Tupinambás, and therefore belonged to the Tupi linguistic and cultural group.Carved stone in Cabo Frio, RJ
The Tupi-Guarani Amerindians
At the beginning of our era, peoples of Guarani tradition began to leave the Paraná-Paraguay basins to gain the shore. In the fifth century, they dominated the coast, by expelling the Sambaqui peoples.
On the scale of cultural evolution, the Tupi peoples took their first steps of the agricultural revolution, overcoming the Paleolithic condition.Great achievement has been the taming of the cassava (mandioca), a poisonous plant, that needed to be treated for consumption.
The Cassava flour is also essential to the the local cuisine
Tapioca is another by-product of the Cassava made into round "breads"
salty - with butter or cheese
sweet - with coconut... hummm!
and the crispy biscoito de polvilho
caju (cashew fruit) very juicy!
Trees were felled and burned to clear the area, a technique that would be adopted by the colonizer.
When there was a relative exhaustion of food in these areas, they temporarily or permanently migrated to another.
They also practiced hunting, fishing and collecting edible fruits and plants.
The economy was basically for subsistence and intended for own consumption. Each village produced enough to meet their needs, with little exchange with others.
But there were contacts between them for the exchange of women and luxury goods, such as toucan feathers and stones to make botoque.
Alliances resulted from these contacts in which groups of villages would stand against each other.
War and capturing of enemy - killed amid the celebration of a cannibalistic ritual - were components of the Tupi society.
Thus, despite the cultural and linguistic unity, even in the face of a powerful new enemy and destroyer, the Tupi nation was able to structure only ephemeral regional confederations to defend themselves. The most important of these, known as the Confederation of Tamoios, was occasioned by the alliance with Frenchmen installed in the bay, from 1563 to 1567.
The arrival of the European to the Indians was a real catastrophe.
Those who surrendered or who were submitted underwent cultural violence, epidemics and death
In 1922, an Art Movement was the beginning of a new creative and critical look into our own culture which they called the "anthropophagic look" (see The Anthropophagic Manifest)
Tarsila do Amaral "Antropofagia" (1929)
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
bibliography:
RIBEIRO, Darcy. O Povo Brasileiro
FAUSTO, Boris. História do Brasil
ENDERS, Armelle. História do Rio de Janeiro - Rio de Janeiro: Gryphus, 2009
