Guarani Research Articles

Yams (Dioscorea spp.) in shellmounds and swiddens: ancient history in Babitonga Bay, Santa Catarina State, southern Brazil

BackgroundIn Babitonga Bay, southern Brazil, records of yam consumption exist among shellmound builders from at least 4000 years ago. Shellmounds (sambaquis) are anthropogenic structures in the form of mounds with layers of shells associated with other faunal remains, as well as with charcoal, artefacts and burial. Larger sambaquis are considered to be funerary monuments. The indigenous Jê and Guarani people also lived in the region before the European invasion and cultivated yams. Currently, exotic and domesticated yams are cultivated in the region by farmers. Our aim is to describe the long-term history between the people and Dioscorea in the Babitonga Bay region based on its consumption and occurrence in shellmounds and swiddens.MethodsSurveys of Dioscorea spp. and host were carried out in the vegetation of shellmounds and in the surrounding area using visual detection through intensive searches in transects using the walking method. The survey of Dioscorea species used and cultivated in the precolonial, colonial and current periods was carried out based on the literature. In the present study, only Dioscorea trifida cultivations were recorded.ResultsDioscorea cayennensis, Dioscorea chondrocarpa, Dioscorea dodecaneura, Dioscorea laxiflora, Dioscorea olfersiana, and Dioscorea scabra, all recorded in associated vegetation of shellmounds, in different combinations of the species. In swiddens, D. trifida is most common, followed by Dioscorea alata and, to a lesser extent, Dioscorea bulbifera and D. cayennensis. Records of food use prevail, but they are used as medicinal plants. Yams are integrated on anthropogenic soils of shellmounds and in swiddens in monoculture systems or in intercropping with Zea mays or Colocasia esculenta. The presence of exotic food trees and D. cayennensis in some shellmounds indicates the influence of colonizers on the composition of the vegetation. In sambaquis, there are overlapping processes of construction of cultural niches by different human groups at different times.ConclusionsThe sambaquis and the associated vegetation and swiddens form part of a domesticated landscape. The native species of Dioscorea recorded in shellmounds and surrounding vegetation do not depend on human action to perpetuate themselves in the environment. However, this does not rule out human influence in the past, but it does not indicate horticulture among the Sambaquianos. Greater investment in genetic, archaeobotanical and ethnobotanical research can contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between people and yams over thousands of years.

Antropología y misión en las comunidades Mbya guarani

Si entendemos que la misión de nuestra iglesia es la evangelización y no la culturización, necesitamos tomar conceptos propios de los pueblos originarios sin caer en el sincretismo, la misión en estos términos seria lograr que un nativo pueda ser completamente adventista sin perder su identidad cultural. El presente artículo analiza 3 formas de evangelización, 1) el evangelismo de la conquista, que se realizó bajo el concepto de aculturación, donde se ignoró y desecho la cultura de los nativos y se les impuso la cultura cristiana europea, 2) la transculturación, donde se tomó parte de su cultura y se las revistió de cristianismo produciendo una religión sincrética, 3) nuestra propuesta es la interculturalidad, donde proponemos mantener aspectos culturales que no van en contra de los principios bíblicos y reemplazar aquellas que armonizan con la palabra de Dios.

Anemia and intestinal parasites in Mbya Guarani children, Misiones, Argentina.

This study aimed to assess the prevalence of anemia in children of two Guarani communities in Misiones, Argentina, and to analyze its association with socioenvironmental and parasitic factors. This cross-sectional study took place in two villages, Koen Ju and Kaa Poty, and included Mbya Guarani children aged 6 months to 14 years. A multivariable analysis was performed to evaluate the association of anemia with the presence of intestinal parasites. Altogether, 162 children were included in the study: 53.1% were boys, 32.7% had low weight-for-age, and 22.2% low height-for-age. Nearly half (46.9%, n=76) had anemia, which was mainly mild (92.1%), with a few moderate cases (7.9%). Of the 109 children who underwent testing for intestinal parasites, 89 (81.7%) had at least one, and 53 (59.5%) had more than one. The main parasite was Blastocystis hominis (49.5%), followed by Entamoeba coli (47.7%), hookworms (36.7%), and Ascaris lumbricoides (31.5%). In the multivariable analysis, anemia was associated with intestinal parasitosis (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 4.24, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.08-16.5; p=0.038) and male sex (adjusted OR 2.66; 95% CI 1.08-6.47; p= 0.01). Overall, we found that both anemia and intestinal parasites are common in the pediatric population of the Guarani ethnic group. Intestinal parasites and male sex were associated with the presence of anemia.

Sustaining (Dis)Embodied Inequalities in the(ir) Eurocene: Ancient Microbes, Racial Anthropometry, and Life Choices

Racialisation and colonialism are central to sustaining (dis)embodied inequalities. We bring together our distinct ethnographic projects to explore this. The first project accompanied a microbiome expedition involving Amazonian Indigenous non/human communities, whereas the second project focussed on medical professional’ encounters with Mbya Guarani communities in the Atlantic Forest region. Both projects explore racialised assumptions of human difference and colonial extractive practices. In the case of medical intervention with the Mbya, and their forms of life, this is perpetuated through the imposition of anthropometric growth standards. With the human microbiome initiatives, identifying Indigenous Peoples as potential reservoirs for novel probiotics also ultimately amplifies racialised (dis)embodied inequalities. Rather than these interventions addressing such disembodied equalities, we draw parallels between the two, to show that they perpetuate them. Finally, we propose that part of ceasing to reproduce these (dis)embodied inequalities requires ‘us’ to challenge the racialised and colonial histories of the life and geological sciences, to recognise their embodied consequences in the present, as well as how they are implicated in emergent proposals for new geological ‘-cenes’.

Rethinking Latin American Archaeology: "Affective Alliances" and Traditional Community-Engagement

The integration of archaeology and community engagement in Latin America remains a new challenge, largely because the multiple social configurations, practices, and theories intrinsic in each need to be considered instead of creating a  unified pattern. In Brazil, there are more than 16,000 communities of Indigenous, Maroon, and traditional membership, all with many demands that test the collaborative capacity of researchers. Seeking a basis for action within a decolonization perspective, this paper provides the theoretical background that outlines some benefits of an affective alliance and collaboration based on the equivalence of knowledge and practices from different epistemes. This paper also offers regional cases of the persistence of agroforestry communities that require the re-evaluation of academic and bureaucratic erasure. On one side, the Tupi Guarani of Peruíbe that manifest interest in recovering the language and practices of their ancestors. On the other side, the persistence of social and cultural practices that started in Indigenous contexts but extended beyond them, with people from different places and times joining the communities of women potters.

Artist's Statement

The cover for this issue is centered on Guarani territory, in Jaraguá Peak. This work was part of a collaborative effort, indebted to many, as part of the Master of Environmental Design thesis project at Yale School of Architecture, by Laura Pappalardo (a juruá—the term for non-Indigenous, white, in Guarani Mbya—and visitor in Guarani territory, in the region today known as São Paulo). The project was produced on the traditional lands of the Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill Paugussett, Niantic, and the Quinnipiac and other Algonquian-speaking peoples, in what is now the state of Connecticut, United States. This work honors the past, present, and future relationships between these nations and their lands.Sectional maps reveal ground change not perceptible in “top-down” maps. Sectional maps unravel how infrastructural impacts keep unfolding over long periods of time and appear in different scales exposing the history of deforestation, ground perforation, and extraction caused by roads, telecommunication towers, and power line construction. Each infrastructural layer served as an instrument for land dispossession and fragmentation, disrupting both human and other-than-human environments.This analysis is incomplete and carries limitations. Maps carry limits of translation, and are not completely accurate. This work questions ideas of “data impartiality” or “data accuracy.” Instead of aiming for accuracy and fixture, this sectional map, which illustrates the cover for this issue, foregrounds contradictory, uncertain, and ever-shifting ground relations.

Mapping Grounds for Infrastructural Reparations in Jaraguá Peak

Abstract For the Guarani Mbya, ka'aguy (Atlantic Forest) is sacred. Yet, only 12 percent of the Atlantic Forest's original coverage remains. A portion of that is in Jaraguá Peak. Two hundred years ago, São Paulo was ka'aguy. São Paulo's urban growth and the expansion of infrastructural networks (roads, power lines, dams) have disrupted Guarani infrastructures (the presence of Atlantic Forest, the continuity of paths between Guarani villages, access to clean water). Nonetheless, Guarani communities in São Paulo remake Guarani geographies every day, resisting Atlantic Forest encroachment and circumventing colonial networks. Guarani communities in the north and south of São Paulo hold a crucial infrastructural and environmental role for the entire city, increasing São Paulo's environmental security by recovering degraded soils and recuperating Atlantic Forest areas. This project maps the history of infrastructural dispossession in Jaraguá Peak. It represents the history of each infrastructural layer (roads, telecommunication towers, power lines) in sectional maps that expose long-term changes on the ground.

A new sound change for Guarani(an): glottal prothesis, internal classification, and the explanation of synchronic irregularities

Abstract A so far overlooked sound change in the historical phonology of the Guaranian branch of the Tupi-Guarani language family is discussed in the present paper. The sound change in question, which accounts for certain synchronic morphological irregularities, consists of the insertion of the glottal fricative h in word-initial position any time the next (right-adjacent) syllable has a glottal stop ʔ as its onset consonant. Allomorphy resulting from this change is shown to affect verbal, nominal, and postpositional prefixes, as well as monomorphemic lexemes, thus unifying the treatment of synchronic patterns which are often addressed as an exclusive trait of certain verb forms. The paper ends by discussing the issue of internal classification, pointing a few limitations in past attempts to ground the subgrouping of Tupi-Guarani languages on phonological grounds, and highlighting the status of glottal prothesis as the first known phonological isogloss exclusively shared by the Guaranian varieties.

Jesuits in the New World: A Contrast in Conversion of North and South America

This paper contrasts the methodologies of French Jesuits in New France of North America against the Spanish Jesuits in the Rio de la Plata region of South America to explain differences of conversion rates of the indigenous peoples to Christianity. Several significant differences allow for diverging experiences between the two. Ultimately, this research proposes that it is the Brazilian slave trade that is the largest driving factor in the comparative success that the Spanish Jesuits achieved in the reductions amongst the Guarani people.

On Syntactic Integration and Semantico-Pragmatic Distribution of Mbya Guarani Purpose Coding Strategies

The aim of this paper is to describe the available strategies for coding purpose relations in Mbya, focusing on their semantico-pragmatic distribution. According to Dooley, Mbya Guarani presents two main different strategies involved in the coding of purpose relations: aguã nominalizations and vy-dependent clauses, and among the latter a motion-cum-purpose (MCP) construction subtype is included. These strategies differ in regard to the semantic class of the main verb, referential continuity between the dependent and the main unit, and the fact that the dependent form can be negated independently from the main clause—thus, establishing different degrees of integration within the main unit in each case—, but overlap in same-subject contexts that involve a directed motion verb. However, according to our data, speakers do not use these constructions interchangeably, whereas aguã nominalizations portray an intended hypothetical outcome of the event or state-of-affair (hereafter SoA) expressed in the matrix clause; vy-dependent clauses and motion-cum-purpose constructions consistently trigger a result interpretation, entailing that the intended SoA was successfully accomplished.

Antimicrobial and Cytotoxic Effect of Herbal Mouthwash Prepared Using Ethanolic Extract of Ficus benghalensis and stevia

Ficus benghalensis, commonly known as the banyan, banyan fig and they belong to the family monsaceae. Around 750 species of plants occurring in tropical and subtropical forests belong to the genus Ficus. These have been found to possess medicinal properties. Stevia also known as stevia rebaudiana belongs to the family Chrysanthemum. This plant was called caá-êhê, meaning “sweet herb” by Guarani Indians of the Paraguayan highlands as they are nonnutritive sweeteners. The main aim is to study the Antimicrobial and cytotoxic effect of herbal mouthwash prepared using ethanolic extract of Ficus benghalensis and stevia. 0.5g stevia and 0.5g Ficus benghalensis plant extract powder was measured and transferred into the conical flask. Mouthwash was prepared using ethanolic extract of stevia and Ficus benghalensis and the cytotoxicity and anti microbial activity was determined. Inorder to determine whether the prepared bioactive compound is toxic to cells, evaluation of cytotoxicity is useful which is done using hatched nauplii. A clean ELISA plate was taken and the wells were marked with the concentration of 5μl, 10μl, 20μl, 40μl, 80μl, control respectively. Each well was filled with 3ml of salt water and 10 hatched nauplii or brine shrimp were collected and added to the wells. Mouthwash was pipetted with respective concentration into the wells with nauplii and kept for 24hrs. To analyse the toxicity of ethanol extract mouthwash, the count of nauplii was taken after 24 hrs excluding the dead nauplius. The mueller Hinton agar and nutrient broth were purchased from Hi-media, India. By agar well-diffusion method, the antimicrobial activity of prepared stevia and Ficus benghalensis ethanol extract based mouthwash was tested. Pathogenic isolates S.mutans and Lactobacillus were the culture used for bactericidal activity. Three different concentrations (25μl, 50μl, 100μl) of mouthwash solution were poured into each well on plates using sterile micropipette and were kept in an incubator at 37 degree Celsius for 24hrs. The bacterial zone of inhibition was observed and measured after incubation. Cytotoxicity and anti microbial activity was determined. As the concentration increased the cytotoxicity of the herbal mouthwash prepared using ethanolic extract increased. The highest percentage of death of nauplii was at 80 µl concentration of ethanolic extract mouthwash. As the concentration of the mouthwash increased, the mean zone of inhibition (ZOI) was found to increase. Herbal mouth rinse showed antimicrobial activity which is as effective as antibiotics against Lactobacillus and has a superior effect on S.mutans. Findings from the study suggest that herbal mouthwash prepared using ethanolic extract of Ficus benghalensis and stevia have a potential cytotoxic and antimicrobial effect and can be used as an alternative to commercially available products.

Worlding a Mbya-Guarani heritage: from dissonant heritage to ontological conflicts

ABSTRACT The article analyses the ontological conflicts implicit but not addressed during the process that registered the ruins of the Jesuit-Guarani Mission in São Miguel (Brazil) as intangible cultural heritage: ‘Tava, Place of Reference for the Guarani People’. The process can be understood as an appropriation of the tools of modernity that provides an indigenous and dissonant narrative of the missions, counters discrimination and affirms the Mbya-Guarani when they negotiate with the state. However, the research also revealed that the conceptualisation of tava is based on a different ontology from modernity – on which the category of heritage is still based – that is related to the importance for the Mbya-Guarani of building good and beautiful bodies and social relations by wandering through the land left to them by the gods and following the precepts and signs of the latter. Instead of perpetuating the hierarchies between ontologies, the article brings to light the ontological conflicts with the objectives of overcoming the limitations of the policies of recognition and enhancing the perspective of heritage as a regime of care not only for objects, places and practices, but also for the people and worlds for whom these things are heritage.

A Proteção da Diversidade do Patrimônio Cultural da Filosofia de Cooperação Social do Nhandereko e do Teko Porã como Expressão do Bem-Viver

Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo analisar a filosofia da cooperação social do Nhandereko e do Teko Porã do bem viver como concepção de interculturalidade no tratamento da diversidade cultural e o direito do povo guarani ter em sua cultura a marca de sua própria existência. A hipótese levantada é no sentido de se averiguar sobre a possibilidade desse diálogo no plano interno e internacional com o rol de direitos culturais reconhecidos na Constituição Federal de 1988. O texto propõe, fazendo-se uso do método indutivo e de pesquisa bibliográfica, uma nova concepção de interculturalidade no tratamento da diversidade cultural que pode ser caracterizada como o interrelacionamento entre culturas em situação de igualdade em um constante processo de aprendizagem e comunicação entre pessoas, valores e tradições.

Narrar la cultura para los visitantes. Infancia indígena y turismo internacional en el norte de Iguazú (Misiones, Argentina)

The north of the province of Misiones (Argentina) is characterized by the strong impact of international tourism on local economies and on the organization and use of the environment. In the city of Puerto Iguazu, the epicenter of these activities, the Mbya Guarani communities present their own proposals regarding tourism as well as the environment. Within this, Mbya boys and girls carry out specific activities such as making and selling handicrafts, performing territorial tourism guides or singing in choirs. The realization of these activities, especially those that take place in the public arena, presents tensions for the communities, families and government agents. In this article, we propose to analyze the way in which children are included in such activities and experiences, and how both Mbya children and their families debate the hegemonic significance of tourism, the environment and childhood.

Notes on current Mby\xe1-Guarani medicinal plant exchanges in southern Brazil

BackgroundExperts in the Atlantic Forest, the Guarani people have the habit of transporting and exchanging plants due to their mobility throughout the territory. Historically, this habit contributed to the species composition and diversification among different phytophysiognomies that comprise the Atlantic Forest. Medicine and spirituality are traits that stand out within the Guarani culture, which is based on a holistic understanding of physical and spiritual well-being for the person’s health. To achieve this balance, they use a range of native and adapted plant species. Our goal is to understand some of the Guarani contributions to the cultural landscape in the Atlantic Forest.MethodsWe conducted semi-structured interviews with key persons asking about the importance of forest environments for Guarani health and about visits to other Guarani villages and plants exchanged. Data analysis was qualitative, and through a bipartite network of exchanged plants to show current plant exchanges between villages.ResultsWe visited seven Guarani Indigenous Territories in south Brazil, and with the participation of 12 respondents, we registered 27 species that were exchanged through different phytophysiognomies in the Atlantic Forest. These results show an intense movement of plants currently occurring between villages and the importance of these movements for both individual health and the integrity of the environments in which the Guarani villages are inserted.ConclusionsWe observed a search for the maintenance of traditional species in the Guarani medical system, and we highlight the fundamental role of Guarani management in the conservation of the southern Atlantic Forest in indigenous territories.

Object Sharing in Mbya Guarani: A Case of Asymmetrical Verbal Serialization?

In this paper, we intend to describe and discuss the grammatical status of the V1-V2 (Cy/vy) constructions found in Mbya Guarani which can express simultaneous events, among other meanings, and which involve a single clause. We suggest here that this verbal complex can be treated as a case of asymmetrical verbal serialization because it contains verbs from a major lexical class, occupying the V1 slot, followed by a more restricted intransitive verbal class, such as movement, postural, or stative verbs, which stands in the V2 position. The curious property of these constructions is that V2 can be transitivized through the attachment of applicative or causative morphemes and “share” its object with transitive V1. “Object sharing” is another property attributed to serialization, as suggested by Baker and Baker and Stewart, which may be seen as a strong argument in favor of the present hypothesis. We will also provide evidence to distinguish Mbya Guarani V1-V2 (Cy/vy) complex from other constructions, such as temporal and purpose subordinate clauses, involving the particle vy.

SÍTIOS ARQUEOLÓGICOS DE PEQUENO PORTE DO BAIXO RIO AGUAPEÍ

The present study focused on the analysis of the context of small archaeological sites, located in the area of the Lower Aguapeí River, left bank, focusing on the case, the Archaeological Site Aldeia I, located in the municipality of Junqueirópolis, SP. The study was carried out by the bias of the landscape concept, stimulated by the theoretical contributions of Cultural Geography. The Archaeological Site Aldeia I consists of 38 fragments of ceramic canisters, characteristic of the archaeological tradition Tupi Guarani, whose archaeological ceramics identified are fragments of canisters, with predominance of smooth surface treatment, average thickness of up to 2 cm, and mineral antiplastic with ground caco, constituting a site associated with the Regional System of Guarani Occupation. The Archaeological Site Aldeia I, as to its implementation and material characteristics, presents similarities in relation to the archaeological sites evidenced in the region.

Anatomical study of Orchidaceae epiphytes species occurring in indigenous territory in the Parque Estadual da Serra do Tabuleiro (P.E.S.T.), Santa Catarina, Brazil

Abstract Besides their ecological importance, epiphytic species of Orchidaceae play economic and social roles through their commercialization and some are at great risk of extinction. The objectives of this study were to characterize the leaf and root anatomy of fourteen epiphytic Orchidaceae species, which occur in indigenous territory in the Parque Estadual da Serra do Tabuleiro (P.E.S.T.), Santa Catarina, Brazil and to identify adaptive anatomical characteristics related to the epiphytic habit. The species are commercialized by the Guarani and were collected during interviews and guided tours with Guarani in the indigenous territory. The results reveal the species have many morphoanatomical structures that are useful during water shortages resulting from the epiphytic habit. Notable characteristics are related to reserving water (i.e., pseudobulbs and a hypodermis with water-storage cells) and resistance to desiccation in the leaf (i.e., conspicuous cuticle, suprastomatic chamber and extraxylary and pericyclic fibers) and root (i.e., tilosomes and/or exodermal thickening and cortex cells with phi thickenings or sclereids). Descriptions and the identification of adaptive characteristics of epiphytic plant species are useful for conservation and cultivation studies, especially for plants commercially used by the Guarani Indians.

Bolivia in the Age of Gas by Bret Gustafson

Reviewed by: Bolivia in the Age of Gas by Bret Gustafson Nicole Fabricant Bret Gustafson Bolivia in the Age of Gas. Durham, Duke University Press. 2020 309 pp; 22 b&w photos, notes, bibliography, index. $27.95 paper (ISBN 978-14-78010-999); $121 hardcover (ISBN 978-14-7800-931). Bret gustafson has been working on Indigenous movements in Bolivia since the 1990s focusing on questions of land and language rights in the Chaco region of lowland Bolivia. This book is a testament to decades of friendship, comradery, and commitment to the Guarani people and grew out of ongoing research collaborations. Perhaps this book surfaced out of Gustafson’s own excitement for the rise of a political party like MAS (Movement toward Socialism), a political party that promised to nationalize resource industries and redistribute wealth to Indigenous and poor people. Gustafson watched from afar as the MAS party came to power in 2006 out of series of popular mobilizations, from the “Water Wars” in Cochabamba in the early 2000s to the “Gas Wars” in 2003 in El Alto. Movement cries for nationalization of gas, radical land redistribution and a new constitution shaped his first year in office; yet very quickly Morales scaled back on some of his more radical proposals due to opposition from agrarian elites in Eastern Bolivia. Perhaps gas was one of them which went from nationalization (to a form of semi-nationalization, or what Gustafson calls nationalization-lite). While the government did not expropriate or expel the big foreign companies, instead they worked as “partners”. For example, the government bought back significant parts of the hydrocarbon infrastructure—filling stations, pipelines, and distributors—or at least reclaimed them while working alongside private investors. Furthermore, the expansion of the gas industry in Guarani territory has not brought the “development dreams” Indigenous peoples hoped for but rather brought new geopolitical, cultural, environmental, and territorial conflicts.1 Gustafson’s Bolivia in the Age of Gas examines the historical and contemporary cultural politics of Bolivia’s complex and often troubled relationship with natural gas. Bolivia’s fossil fuel resources – and the quest to extract and export them from this land-locked country – have entangled Bolivia in complicated international relationships, most notably with the United States. These conflicts date back more than a century when Standard Oil bullied Bolivia amid nationalist fever in the early 1920s. In the neoliberal era, as transnational corporations expropriated natural resources, Bolivians increasingly called for sovereignty in the form of national and territorial control over resource wealth. The popular challenge to neoliberal privatization peaked with the “Gas War” in the early 2000s, but fossil fuel resources have continued to be at the heart of Bolivia’s ever unfinished and conflictive project of nation-state formation and perhaps in the future there will need to be a clean break. Gustafson’s book is organized into three parts: time, space, and excess. The first section presents the longue durée of oil and gas extraction; the second hones in on questions [End Page 217] tied to national, regional, and indigenous territorialities; and the third addresses “the gaseous state’s interlocking struggles over different forms of excess—excess violence, excess work, and excess money” (p. 21). In the tradition of the great Bolivian sociologist and philosopher, René Zavaleta Mercado, Gustafson draws distinctions and makes connections between the past and present and juxtaposes historical events to deploy them in new ways. He brings a humanistic lens to the study of fossil fuel economies by unpacking the everyday toxicities tied to this industry, from the misogynistic and patriarchal relationships in the gas-rich Chaco region to the incessant machista humor and gossip that fills the oil camps. Beyond confronting climactic crisis, he aims to reveal how fossil economies reproduce the patriarchal, hetero-normative, racialized regimes which leave layers of “toxicit(ies) arrayed both against our own bodies and those of the natural world” (p. 13). Gustafson’s sharp analysis also seeks to “help North American readers understand the problem of ‘fossil capital’ and fossil fuel dependency in the U.S. as well as in Bolivia.” (p. 13). Perhaps, our own addictions to consumption and excess in the North (and in more industrialized...

Founder effect in tupian languages

Since Mayr (1954, 1963), it has been observed that territorial expansions may cause founder effects , reducing the genetic variability of the founder population. A similar effect has been reported within linguistic typology, as the phonemic inventory size of a language is reduced due to territorial dispersal of its speakers. Atkinson (2011) analyzes global present-day phoneme inventory size as a reflection of a serial found effect caused by human exodus out of Africa during the Paleolithic period: the further a language is from eastern-southern Africa, the smaller its phonemic inventory is. Recent studies have shown that this founder effect may interact with other factors such as population size and language contact and isolation. In the present study, we analyze the phonemic effects of the dispersal of Tupi-Guarani people. Taking the basins of Madeira and Guaporé rivers to be the birthplace of Proto-Tupi (RODRIGUES, 1964), we investigated whether physical distance from Madeira- Guaporé is related with phonemic clines within Tupi-Guarani languages located in the southwest region of South America. We also analyzed whether population size is a significant factor, but it did not interact with phonemic inventory size. A variance test, however, showed that languages in the Madeira-Guaporé region present, among themselves, more vocalic variation than southwest Tupi-Guarani languages. This result is compatible with a founder effect. Contrasting with Tupi languages spoken in Madeira-Guaporé, southwest Tupi-Guarani languages are quite harmonious with respect to vowels, presenting two symmetrical series of nasal and oral vowels. This result and the general discursion we present here converse with studies on reconstruction of Proto Tupian languages, and with investigations on the mental representation of vowels and consonants (NESPOR et al., 2003). If vowels are markers of structural relations, we predict that there is more structural cohesion (less parametric variation) among Southwest Tupi-Guarani than among Tupi languages at Madeira-Guaporé.