Tupi people
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Tupi people are one of the main ethnic groups of Brazilian indigenous people, together with the related Guaraní. They first inhabited the Amazon rainforest, then spread southward and gradually occupied the Atlantic coast. From the sixteenth century onward the Tupis, like other natives from the region, were assimilated, enslaved or simply exterminated by Portuguese and Spanish settlers, nearly leading to their complete annihilation as a culture, with the exception of a few isolated communities. The remnants of these tribes are today confined to indigenous reservations or acculturated to some degree into the dominant society. In southeastern Brazil they are an important presence in the genetic pool, while constituting a considerable portion of the lower classes in the North, Northeast, and Center-West.
The Tupinambá tribe is ficticiously portrayed in Nelson Pereira dos Santos' satirical 1971 film, Como Era Gostoso o Meu Francêsin (How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman).
