Tapiiete

The Tapiete are a Guaraní-speaking people of the Gran Chaco, spread across the borderlands of Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina, whose way of life belongs to the Chaco cultural world rather than that of the forest Guaraní. Their name comes from the Guaraní tapii ete, meaning true slaves, and they were historically also called tirumbaes, the unclothed. Their Tupi-Guarani language is close to Paraguayan Guaraní.

Their origin is debated: they may be Guaraní who split from the main trunk and adopted customs from the Toba, a non-Guaraní people linguistically Guaranized by the Avá Guaraní, or Chanés who settled in the Chaco after being Guaranized.

These accounts are bound up with the Guaraní push into the Bolivian Chaco in the early 1500s, when migrants from Paraguay assimilated and enslaved the local Chané. The Tapiete lived by hunting and gathering, supplemented by horticulture and fishing.