Guaraní

[KraVseR]

Hello.
This is picture of Sepé Tiaraju, the leader of Guaraní. I have the question: what is it, that highlighted in red? War club or belt?

[fernando]

Surely no more than the longer one of the two ends of his cloth belt, in a manner stylized by the artist (Danubio Gonçalves).


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[KraVseR]

Ok, thanks.
Then what clubs was used by these tribes? Maybe somebody have the photos?

[Tim Simmons]

This club was on show in the Berlin Ethnographic museum when I visited 2011. It was labelled as being Northern Argentina. Northern Argentina is in The Guarani language sphere.

[fernando]

If you browse the net (at least in portuguese ) you will see that it depends on which tribes you are talking about. Guaranis are from the vast group Guarani/Tupi.
One type of club (porrete) is the Ibirapema or Tacape, made of wood with over 2 meters length, painted and decorated with feathers.
You may also call these clubs Bordunas, which englobes the Tacapa used by Chief Tibiriça (16th century), exhibited at the Historic Museum:
http://www.armasbrasil.com/Indio/bordunas.htm
Or the ones used by the Tukano ethny, with 1 meter length, made of heavy wood, used to crack the enemies skull.

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[Tim Simmons]

These are clubs of the BraziIan Amazon. I got this one from a lady that works for the Brazil government (funai) a department for Indian affairs. She got this club from the Ikpeng. I believe the form is found among other near by indigenous groups. I think they are not part of the people that is the main concern of this thread?

[fernando]

You are right Tim. I just felt like showing a real Amerindian club example, instead of just drawings. As i said, it is a club from the Tukano tribes, which in fact are not from the Guarani/Tupi group.
On the other hand, the Guaranis are a large native people family, present in six different Brazilian States.
http://www.suapesquisa.com/musicacultura/povos_indigenas.htm
In any case, the hero quoted in the thread was born in the 7 missions (situated in nowadays Rio Grande do Sul); thus the name attributed to such group being the Guaranis Missioneiros.
Probably such natives, being strongly influenced by Jesuits, adopted a more 'modern' type of weaponry, although the clubs relative to their ancestors would have been the Ibirapemas, as per above stilyzed drawings/paints.

[Tim Simmons]

The example from Berlin could be seen to relate to the forms in the drawings. Wish I had one.