Tapes

The Tapes were Guarani-speaking Indigenous inhabitants of southern Brazil, associated with the Jacuí basin and the country around the Patos Lagoon. Archaeological sites record Guarani presence near the mouth of the Guaíba, where waters from the Jacuí reach the lagoon. The region’s rivers and wetlands linked the forested interior to the coast. In the seventeenth century Jesuit missions sought to gather Guarani communities in settlements farther inland.