Brazilian Folk Religions

Guaraní communities in southern Brazil and neighbouring regions passed accounts of gods and spirits down orally, with narratives varying from place to place. In the early seventeenth century, Jesuits established missions among the Guaraní across the region where Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina meet.

The missions gathered Indigenous people into settlements for Christian instruction and offered some protection from enslavement. Raids by Brazilian slave traders led to the formation of armed Guaraní militias; in 1767 the Spanish crown expelled the Jesuits from its missions.