Guarani peoples

The Guarani are culturally related peoples of the South American heartland, some 280,000 strong across Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia, distinguished from Tupi cousins by the Guarani language. Their old country lay between the Parana and lower Paraguay rivers, through Misiones and southern Brazil once east to Rio de Janeiro, into Uruguay and Bolivia. Swidden farmers of maize and manioc living in great longhouses, they met the Spanish with the alliance system of guaras under rival caciques. The Jesuit missions of the 17th and 18th centuries gathered tens of thousands into the famous reductions, then the Guarani War and expulsions scattered them. Colonisation shrank their dominance as mestizo nations rose, but the language won: Guarani is an official language of Paraguay, learned in every school and street. Kaiowa, Mbya, Nandeva and western bands keep the prayer-houses, the maize rites and the land struggle alive. Paraguayan schoolchildren still learn Guarani rhymes before Spanish verbs.