efore the European colonizers came, the territory now called Paraná was inhabited by indigenous peoples descended from the Kaingang and the Guarani. The Kaingang belonged to the Jê linguistic family, and may have come to the region from Central Brazil as much as 6000 years ago. The Guarani, belonging to the Tupi linguistic branch and the Tupi-Guarani linguistic family, are classifiedin three subgroups: the Ñandéva, the Kayová, and the Mbyá. They came to current-day Paraná about 2000 years ago. Leaving southwest Amazonia, they occupied the area of Mato Grosso do Sul and entered the South of Brazil through northwest Paraná, across the Paraná River.

     Among the ancestors of the Kaingangwere the Guayaná, whom Fernão Dias Paes Leme encountered on Serra de Apucarana, in 1661. Xokleng and Kaingang have common antecedents, related to the Jê language family, while the Xetá have linguistiv relationships with Tupi-Guarani.

     The majority of natives held in villages by the Jesuits in Guairá Province were Guarani. The Nossa Senhora da Encarnação reduction held natives called Coroados (Crowned) by the Portuguese.

   The majority of Kaingang kept to the fields and araucária forests, in continuous combat against the invaders. When the reductions were destroyed by the bandeirantes, those groups expanded to the Second and Third Paranaense Plateaus.

     The 18th-century military expeditions to explore the territory and expand the cattle-raising fazendas in Campos Gerais forced the indigenous groups to withdraw further from the areas occupied by the whites. Attacks organized by both sides were constant, and private militias were formed to fight the natives who attacked the fazendas and the tropeiros on the roads. Since the law prohibited the enslavement of natives, the “administrative” model was instituted in the Colônia. The natives were considered to be incapable of administering themselves. The colonists began to exercise full dominion over them. The natives were not slaves. They were “administrated peoples”.

     In the 19th Century, indigenist politics promoted the installation of official settlements directed by Capuchin missionaries associated with the military colonies (like the ones at Jataí, near Aldeamento de São Pedro de Alcântara). By law, it was permitted to use the natives for manual labor in the maintenance of the colonies and in expeditions to open the countryside in the direction of Mato Grosso; the natives acted as guides and interpreters for other groups still unmet in the lands.

     In the time of the Republic, the Indian villages of the Imperial period gave way to indigenous reservations. The reservations were administrated initially by the Indian Protection Service (Serviço de Proteção ao Índio) and then by the National Indian Foundation (Fundação Nacional do Índio).

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