Conversion to Christianity

On 6 Sept., 1909, a law was passed providing for the conversion of Indians to Christianity and civilization. As a benefit of this law, the President of the Republic was authorized to grant public lands to individuals or companies organized for the purpose of converting the tribes. On these lands the concessionaire established a reduction with the necessary churches, houses, schools etc.

Other ethnic groups

Aside from the indigenous peoples in Paraguay there are also other ethnic groups that reside in Paraguay. For the most part they are immigrant from neighboring countries and other parts of the world. Most immigrants have blened to Paraguayian population but some maintain distinct identities and cultures. These groups include Mennonites, who settled in Chaco and the northern regions early in the early twentieth century; Japanese, who settled in agricultural colonies during the 1950s and 1960s; and more recent Korean, Lebanese, and ethnic Chinese immigrants, who have settled in the urban centers of Asunción since the 1970s. Then in the 1960s and 1970s, many Brazilian immigrant farmers moved to the eastern frontier region and became the backbone of the soybean export sector. By the 1990s, a second generation of Brazilians had been born and raised in Paraguay, and some intermarried with the local population making the brasiguayos, a distinct subgroup.

Guarani heritage

After the departure of the Jesuits, most of the natives who had been integrated into the missions continued with the communitarian and autonomous work methods that they had developed, and slowly became integrated into the society of the Province of Paraguay. On the other hand, other indians returned to the forests when the Jesuits left them. Surviving Guaraní continue to practice communal agriculture in some rural areas and Guaraní culture has had a strong influence on present-day Paraguayan musical folklore. The descendants of Guaraní women and Spanish ranchers are today Paraguay's rural population which as called mestizo. Only a few scattered communities of “pure” Guaraní remain, but Paraguay claims a strong Guaraní heritage, and most of the people living along the Paraguay River near Asunción speak Guaraní, yet with a Spanish influence. Guaraní are proud of their heritage and often define themselves by three aspects of their culture: speaking Guaraní, drinking yerba (herb) tea, and eating mandioca (cassava).

The Guarani tribe

 The Guarani are primarily a tribal people indigenous to Paraguay and some regions of Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia. Paraguay consisted of numerous seminomadic, Guarani-speaking tribes of Indians, who were recognized for their fierce warrior traditions. They practiced a mythical polytheistic religion, which later blended with Christianity. These peoples are generally classified as short and stoutly built, averaging but little over five feet, and are rather light in colour. The men wear only the G-string, with labrets on the lower lip, and feather crowns. The women wore woven garments covering the whole body. The Guarani were hunter-gatherers, they depended primarily on intensive agriculture supplemented by fishing, hunting, and gathering; the staple crops were corn and manioc. Their housings were big communal houses that harbored thirty or more families in which they had no social classes and they existed based on cooperation and mutual help.

Colonization and the Indigenous

The original people living in what is now Paraguay were Guaraní Amerindians of the Tupi-Guaraní language family among many other indigenous groups. At the time of the European arrival it is said that there were as many as 150,000 Amerindians living in present day Paraguay. Sebastian Cabot is the first known European to explore Paraguay from 1526 to 1530 under the Spanish order. The first permanent Spanish settlement, Nuestra Señora de la Asunción (Our Lady of the Assumption, which the capital), was founded where the Paraguay and Pilcomayo rivers meet on Assumption Day, 15 August 1537. Then in the following two centuries Paraguay was dominated by the Jesuit Missions, these Jesuit missionaries were there to protect the natives from Portuguese slave trade and the Spanish colonist. Priests organized Guaraní families in mission villages ( reducciones ) designed as self-sufficient communities in which they were taught trades, improved methods of cultivation, and the fine arts, as well as religion. Eventually the colonist became jealous of the growing communities and therefore expelled the Jesuit from the New World. After the expulsion of the Jesuit the reducciones were taken over by civil authorities and the mismanagement caused their population to decline. The survivors either were assimilated into the rural mestizo population or fled to the hinterland.