The information gathered in this article comes from a single bibliographic source, since anthropological and linguistic studies on the Aruá people are rare. For this reason, the text presented here provides general data about the groups that, like the Aruá, lived and still live in the Guaporé River region.
Aruá is part of the Tupi-Mondé language family. Currently, there are around 20 native speakers of Aruá.
Location
According to Eurico Miller (1983), who carried out pioneering archaeological work in the upper and middle Guaporé, the Tupi of the Guaporé region would have originated from dispersions of the Tupi families coming from Aripuanã. In the area of the upper and middle Guaporé plains, groups of ceramic-producing agriculturalists reached the banks of the river and its tributaries around AD 900. These groups would have been speakers of the Tupi trunk, Tupari family.
The countless Tupi groups on the right bank of the Guaporé River remained ‘unknown’ until the early 20th century, because they were located mainly along the banks of the Branco, Terebito, and Colorado rivers, far from the banks of the Guaporé. They only approached that river after the dissolution of their traditional villages during the rubber extraction period.
Information about the Aruá was gathered from a single man of about 70 years old, who reported that the Aruá villages were located near the Gregório igarapé [a narrow natural channel], a tributary of the upper Branco River.
The rubber tappers reached the Aruá around 1920, and soon after, measles practically exterminated them. Those who survived left their traditional territory and went to the São Luís rubber estate.
History of contact and occupation of the region
In the region drained by the western tributaries of the Guaporé and Mamoré rivers, the Jesuits maintained—for approximately 100 years—what was undoubtedly the largest missionary complex in South America: the Province of Mojos. In its secular arm, kept in a latent state, the province acted as guardian of the king of Castile’s frontier. This fact, discovered by the Portuguese when the missions were already well established and the societies inhabiting them had been incorporated into the defense of Spain’s interests, would contribute inexorably to the extermination of the Aruá. All occupation of the eastern (Portuguese) bank of the Guaporé then became oriented toward maintaining Portuguese possessions and destroying the missions.
The 18th century was characterized, as a consequence of frontier defense, by intense and systematic occupation. Indigenous policy clearly expressed the interest and desire of colonial statesmen to keep Indigenous peoples within their own territories, because in that way they could be considered—and eventually act—as guardians of the frontier
Because of the needs of frontier defense, navigation along the Guaporé was also particularly intense in the 18th century and employed a great deal of Indigenous labor.
The rivalries between Portugal and Spain—which resulted in direct attacks as well as prohibitions on exchange and mutual aid—led some societies to extinction. There were two reasons for this: on one hand, the conqueror’s ideology regarded the Indigenous ‘confederations’ and ‘nations’ as natural guardians of the frontier, mobilizing contingents for that purpose; on the other hand, the opposing side sought the annihilation of the societies that had distinguished themselves most.
By the end of the 18th century, when the independence movements in the Americas began to take shape and colonial borders lost importance, the region emptied with remarkable speed.
From the second half of the 19th century onward, it once again became heavily occupied, this time due to the demand for rubber. The remaining Indigenous peoples of the former Mojos societies—who had already undergone processes of cultural disintegration and population mixing—were quickly incorporated into the labor force. The Indigenous groups on the right bank, however, mostly remained isolated, living in less accessible areas, largely in the headwaters of the eastern tributaries
The establishment of countless rubber extraction sites — the famous barracones — mostly owned by Bolivians, resulted in the occupation of those tributaries, provoking the immediate outbreak of conflicts.
Along the Guaporé River, the occupation triggered by rubber exploitation can be clearly delineated: from Fort Príncipe da Beira, continuing past the river mouth until reaching the Mamoré, a land concession of the Mamoré Railway Co., responsible for the legendary railway project, monopolized an area of roughly 250 kilometers. From Fort Príncipe da Beira to Vila Bela — the former capital of the Captaincy — the occupation was carried out by Bolivian rubber tappers and, later on, by Brazilian rubber tappers.
Information about the earliest moments of this 19th-century occupation is still scarce, but there are primary sources that can be examined and that will certainly provide new data.
At the end of the 19th century, Bolivian rubber tappers founded the Pernambuco rubber estate near the mouth of the Colorado River. Its establishment, and later that of the São Luís rubber estate on the upper Branco River, initiated a rapid process of contact with the Tupi groups that had remained isolated.
The rubber estate that had a very great influence in the region, intensifying contact with the indigenous people, was undoubtedly São Luís. It was from that establishment that the measles epidemic spread, which, with frightening speed, claimed countless lives, leaving some groups on the brink of extinction.
Occupation of the Colorado and Branco rivers took place between 1910 and 1920, with the establishment of various “barracks” and rubber collection points. These establishments were responsible for incorporating the Makurap, Ajuru, Djeoromitxí, Arikapu, and Aruá into the workforce.
The first contacts were probably established with the Djeoromitxí, whose villages were located below the headwaters of the Branco River. The society closest to the Djeoromitxí was the Arikapu, which immediately made contact with rubber collectors. The Makurap, located in the headwaters of the Branco River and on both banks of the upper Colorado River, were likely the next society, in a process concurrent with the Ajuru of the upper Colorado, closer to the headwaters. The Tupari established their first contact in 1928.
From the third decade of the 20th century onward, contact intensified, especially when, in the context of World War II, the demand for rubber increased. The Tupi peoples and others who, at that time, inhabited the territories between the tributaries of the left bank of the middle Guaporé, in the upper parts of the Mequéns, Colorado, São Simão, Branco, and San Miguel rivers, were severely impacted. Their villages were invaded, they suffered epidemics, and were forced to abandon their territories, settling in some of the main barracks.
Until the beginning of the second half of the 20th century, the indigenous people living near the barracks had considerable interaction with Bolivian indigenous groups (Baure and some Chiquitanos). Later, all the rubber estates on the Branco River, such as Laranjal, Colorado, São Luís, and Paulo Saldanha, were acquired by a single owner – João Rivoredo. He was directly responsible for the dissolution of all the indigenous villages in the region, recruiting labor, leaving the populations without medical care, and taking no measures to control measles epidemics.
Between the 1940s and 1960s, there was a notable dispersion of indigenous people across the rubber estates. In 1940, the then-governor of the Guaporé Territory encouraged the transfer of indigenous people from Ji-Paraná to the Guaporé, aiming to replace the labor lost due to epidemic outbreaks. The SPI (Indian Protection Service) had only the Ricardo Franco Post, which was not prepared to attend to the newcomers. The conditions under which the transfer was carried out are unknown, but it is known that mortality reached dramatic levels.
Even with the existence of the 9th Regional Inspection of the SPI, created in 1946, the indigenous people continued working on the rubber estates under servile conditions.
Only from 1970 did this situation begin to change, with the displacement of the remaining groups to the Guaporé Indigenous Post, formerly the Ricardo Franco Post. Some, however, were irreversibly close to extinction and could no longer be maintained as distinct ethnic units.
The process of conquest and colonization of the region, oscillating between intensive occupations and periods of isolation, left a paradoxical outcome: entire societies disappeared, and the fate of others remains completely unknown.
In September 1982, the Guaporé Biological Reserve was created in the southern region of the State of Rondônia, covering lands in the municipalities of Vilhena and Guajará-Mirim. Its creation occurred when the expansion of pioneer fronts was already irreversible, so that its southern boundaries were already compromised due to settler establishment.
Two years earlier, demarcation work was carried out for the Rio Branco Indigenous Land, neighboring the Reserve, and at that time the presence of isolated indigenous people in the region was noted. The technicians of the National Indian Foundation (Funai) were struck by the presence of ‘maricos’ among the objects found in these camps. These are baskets made of tucum fibers, woven with fine or medium stitches, which can vary in size and are not only characteristic but also exclusive to the indigenous groups that today inhabit the Guaporé and Rio Branco Indigenous Lands. This was an unequivocal indication that the isolated group is part of a cultural complex that—apparently—exhibited many similarities.
The homologation of the Rio Branco and Guaporé Indigenous Lands was carried out in 1986 and 1996, respectively.
Social organization
Even though information about the Aruá is minimal, it is interesting to note that this society, like other groups in the Guaporé basin region, had internal divisions. The nature of these subdivisions is not clear; it is only known that they defined affiliation, which was patrilineal. According to what could be inferred, the following subdivisions existed:
Aruá subgroups
| Name | Meaning |
| Tirib ei | ouricuri (a type of palm) |
| Kapeá ei | bird (?) |
| Bixid ei | type of caterpillar |
| Nadég ei | type of caterpillar |
| Andat kud ei | cujubim (a type of large forest bird) |
| Kuru ei | jacu (a forest bird, similar to a guan) |
| Gib ei | bat |
| Poá ei | papaya |
| Aksosón ei | |
| Jucan ei | toucan |
The suffix ‘ei’ in the Mondé languages indicates the plural. It is worth noting that other Tupi-Mondé peoples also have subdivisions whose names carry the same suffix. This is the case among the Zoró: Pangyn kirei (“white people”), Pangyn peyei (“black people”), and others. Likewise, among the Cinta-Larga: kakinei (from kakin, a type of vine) and kabanei(from kaban, a fruit-bearing tree), among others.
For both the Zoró and the Cinta-Larga, these names were used to classify subgroups that could be predominant in some areas of their traditional territory, but they did not necessarily have a territorial meaning; instead, they cut across local groups as a whole.
Marico Cultural Complex
Regarding material culture, several elements show unmistakable similarities among the peoples of the Guaporé region: the absence of “bitter” manioc cultivation and manioc flour in their diet; the use of corn chicha in daily food and fermented chicha in ceremonial occasions; and the making of the marico. These are baskets woven from tucum fibers, done in fine or medium stitches, varying in size. They are characteristic—though not exclusively so—of the Indigenous groups who today inhabit the Guaporé and Rio Branco Indigenous Lands.
Another cultural element, besides the making of the marico, that could be considered exclusive to the peoples of the Rio Branco, Colorado, and Mekens rivers is the practice of “inhaling” angico powder during shamanic rituals.
Among the Indigenous groups of the Guaporé and the western tributaries of the Mamoré, three cultural features stand out: the absence of “bitter” manioc and manioc flour in their diet; the existence of defined and named territorial subgroups; and the consumption of corn chicha in ceremonies where subgroups alternated the roles of host and guest, providing an important mechanism of solidarity and cohesion.
The traditional social structure of the groups in the Guaporé region has faced serious threats to its reproduction and continuity due to demographic losses. However, a new social reality has emerged as intergroup relations have intensified, at least within the Guaporé Indigenous Land. Certain cultural elements are valued and function as mechanisms of solidarity among the different societies: the consumption of chicha, which establishes a non-coercive rule of etiquette, and shamanism, through the joint participation of individuals from different Indigenous groups in the inhalation of angicopowder and in healing ceremonies.
It was undoubtedly in the healing ceremonies that intergroup relations became stronger, especially through two mechanisms: the chicha festivals and intermarriage. The chicha festivals were traditional practices among all these groups, in which villages alternated the roles of host and guest, creating continuous networks of solidarity and reciprocity. After contact, different peoples—rather than different villages of a single ethnicity—began alternating in these roles. Intergroup marriages arose out of demographic necessity and, over time, helped strengthen the ties among the peoples of the region (Denise Maldi, 1991).
Shamanism
The shaman’s practice is related to the use of a hallucinogen: angico seeds (in some places known as Yopo) , which are crushed into powder and mixed with a special type of tobacco cultivated for this purpose. Evidently, the cultivation of tobacco for shamanistic use is a cultural element common to all indigenous groups in the Guaporé region.
According to Rondón’s records (1916), what struck him most was that the indigenous people “did not smoke,” but used “ra-pé through a rather ingenious device, consisting of a tacuara tube about two palms long, with a small container filled with tobacco powder at one end. The person taking the snuff brings it to their nose, and another person, using the free end of the tube, blows through it, making the ra-pé enter the nostrils of the other person” This description corresponds exactly to the way the angico and tobacco powder mixture is inhaled even today, which Rondón called “ra-pé.” Several mythic narratives mention this shamanistic powder.
In addition, shamans also use a special lexicon, apparently unintelligible to non-initiates, which they recite during the healing process (Denise Maldi, 1991).
Sources of information
MALDI, Denise. The Marico Cultural Complex: Indigenous societies of the Branco, Colorado, and Mequéns rivers, tributaries of the middle Guaporé. 1991.
MINDLIN, Betty. Anthology of myths of the Ajuru, Arara, Arikapu, Aruá, Kanoê, Jabuti, and Makurap peoples. São Paulo: Iamá, 1995. 67 p.