Guenoa

The Guenoa, also called Minuane or Guenoa-Minuane, were a Patagonian-type people of the Charrúa family, sometimes described as the northern Charrúa. At Spanish arrival they held three adjoining lands: northwestern Banda Oriental across the Uruguay River, southern Entre Ríos, where they were called Minuanes, and southeastern Rio Grande do Sul, where they were known as Guenoas.

Their traces remain in the cerrito mounds of the southern Brazilian grasslands, and the hill of Ibití near the Arapey River was sacred. Raiding with neighbouring Charrúa bands over horses and women was endemic.

European settlement on the Río de la Plata pushed Charrúa peoples northward, and in 1730 the Guenoa joined an alliance of Charrúa groups; in later wars they often sided with the Portuguese against Spain. As colonial rule hardened, they merged into a single Charrúa identity and their separate name fell out of use.