TUPINAMBÁ PRACTICES OF VIOLENCE, WARFARE, AND CANNIBALISM IN SIXTEENTH CENTURY BRAZIL THROUGH ETHNOHISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY

Abstract

The Tupinambá were sedentary agriculturalists inhabiting the Eastern Coast of Brazil. Sixteenth-century European explorer accounts offer rich details of Tupinambá life and warfare practices, suggesting the presence of a highly organized violence and warfare system embedded in their daily practices, animistic and cosmological beliefs, celebrations, cannibalism, and in their ideals of honor, prestige, and revenge. Building on ethnohistoric information, this article discusses the potential to further understanding of Tupinambá warfare practices through study of material culture signatures. Because archaeological studies on Tupinambá warfare are sparse, we attempt to correlate the ethnohistoric information with the types of objects and features archaeologists could reasonably expect to recover, should the accounts be accurate and the materials preserved. We argue that by using such analogies as a starting point, future researchers will be able to better test their hypotheses against the archaeological record in efforts to augment knowledge about Tupinambá lifeways.