The Pauserna are an indigenous people in

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

and

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

who live along the upper Río Guaporé. Most of them live in the southeastern part of the department of

Beni is a Japanese R&B singer, who debuted in 2004 under the Avex Trax label. In 2008, Arashiro left Avex Trax and transferred to Universal Music Japan where she started to perform as simply Beni (stylized as BENI). She was initially best known fo ...

, in Bolivia. The people derive their name from the fact that the pao cerne tree is abundant in their area. Only a few of the older people speak the

Pauserna language The Pauserna are an indigenous people in Bolivia and Brazil who live along the upper Río Guaporé. Most of them live in the southeastern part of the department of Beni, in Bolivia. The people derive their name from the fact that the pao cerne ...

, which is closely related to

Guaraní Guarani, Guaraní or Guarany may refer to Ethnography * Guaraní people, an indigenous people from South America's interior (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia) * Guaraní language, or Paraguayan Guarani, an official language of Paraguay * ...

and is a member of the Tupí language family.

History

Most likely the Pauserna migrated to Bolivia from Paraguay centuries before when the

attacked the frontiers of the

Incan empire The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, (Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The admin ...

. The Pauserna's ancestors are believed to be the Guaraní.

Guarayos The Guarayos are an indigenous group living in their ancestral land in eastern Bolivia. They are located north of the department of Santa Cruz. The current population of the Guarayo group in Bolivia is 12,000. They primarily speak Guarayu, and 7 ...

and Pauserna once made up a single group; one part of that group, the ancestors of the Guarayu, was moved into missions, and the other part remained independent and is known as the Pauserna. Their first significant contact with outside people came in the 1880s, when rubber tappers came to the area. When

Erland Nordenskiöld Baron Nils Erland Herbert Nordenskiöld (19 July 1877 – 5 July 1932) was a Swedish archeologist and anthropologist. Nordenskiöld's research focused on the ethnography and prehistory of South America. Biography He was born in Stockholm, th ...

visited them during his expedition in 1914 they were small in numbers as a result of diseases. He visited them on the Brazilian side of Rio Guaporé in a village called Orikoripe. Here lived eight families and except for these there were about 15 more families in the whole Pauserna area at the time. Most of those families lived on the Bolivian side. Their population went into a period of sustained decline in the twentieth century. From approximately 130 people in the 1930 the Pauserna declined to 60 people in 1965 to fewer than 30 in the 1970s. The Bolivian population was censused at 125 in 2012.

Name

Pauserna are also known as Araibayba, Carabere, Guarasug'we, Guarayuta, Itatin, Moterequoa, Pau Cerna and Pauserna-Guarasug'we.

Subsistance

Originally

foragers A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...

, the Pauserna have since become

horticulturists Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...

. They raised a great variety of food and other plants available before contact but now have ceased raising

manioc ''Manihot esculenta'', commonly called cassava (), manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America. Although a perennial plant, cassava is extensively cultivated a ...

and have adopted the cultivation of rice and caripo (yams). Groups clear and prepare fields for planting. Men plant maize, and women plant manioc and assist in the harvest. Some also collect rubber and ipecac, which is used to make pharmaceuticals. Nordenskiöld writes that the Pauserna enjoyed the meat of

alligator An alligator is a large reptile in the Crocodilia order in the genus ''Alligator'' of the family Alligatoridae. The two extant species are the American alligator (''A. mississippiensis'') and the Chinese alligator (''A. sinensis''). Additiona ...

Dwellings

The Pauserna once lived in multifamily dwellings but now live in single-family open sheds. Inside the house are food-storage platforms and cotton hammocks. For sitting, men have benches; women have mats.

Craft and clothes

The Pauserna make and wear bark cloth and woven cotton garments. Women spin cotton thread using a drop spindle and a vertical loom. Pots are made with clay tempered with crushed potsherds.

Society and culture

Boys were often scarified and bled to make them strong. Girls were secluded for a month at puberty, fed a restricted diet, and tattooed on their arms and breasts. Cross-cousin marriages and those between a man and his sister's daughter were preferred. A girl or woman could not marry without the consent of her father and brother.

Polygyny Polygyny (; from Neoclassical Greek πολυγυνία (); ) is the most common and accepted form of polygamy around the world, entailing the marriage of a man with several women. Incidence Polygyny is more widespread in Africa than in any o ...

was common. Postmarital residence was

matrilocal In social anthropology, matrilocal residence or matrilocality (also uxorilocal residence or uxorilocality) is the societal system in which a married couple resides with or near the wife's parents. Thus, the female offspring of a mother remain l ...

at first, and then

neolocal Neolocal residence is a type of post-marital residence in which a newly married couple resides separately from both the husband's natal household and the wife's natal household. Neolocal residence forms the basis of most developed nations, especiall ...

. Pregnant women had to observe certain food taboos. Fathers observed couvade by remaining in hammocks for three days following the birth of their children—it was believed that a child's soul follows the child's father and might be injured if it exerted itself immediately after birth. The dead were formerly buried in graves, over which a hut was built; today they are buried in their huts, wearing their paint and ornaments, wrapped up in mats, and facing west.

Language

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pauserna Ethnic groups in Brazil Ethnic groups in Bolivia Indigenous peoples in Brazil Indigenous peoples in Bolivia Indigenous peoples of the Amazon