book chapter

Descriptive treatise on Brazil in 1587

Revista do Instituto Historico e Geographico do BrazilRio De JaneiroPublished In 1851 • Pages: 94-347 [incomplete]

By: Soares de Souza, Gabriel, Métraux, Alfred.

AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This bulky work (365 pages) was written in the second half of the sixteenth century by a Portuguese who resided in Brazil for a long time. It is a complete description of the colony from the geographical, botanical, zoological and anthropological points of view. The author resided mainly in the region of Bahia and the Tupi tribe which he describes is the one that lived around that city. Soares de Souza gives valuable historical information on the Tupinamba and their migrations. The anthropological section contains many minute details which he alone gives; unfortunately, however, his style is clumsy and sometimes obscure. He also mentions the culture traits that differentiated the coastal Tupi tribes. In the botanical section there are many data on economy. He also carefully defines the geographical boundaries of various Indian tribes, Tupi and Tapuya.
SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
Hunting and trapping
Fishing
Cannibalism
Warfare
Aftermath of combat
Burial practices and funerals
Sex
cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
Tupinamba
HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
2003
RegionThe area the document pertains to
South America
Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
Eastern South America
Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
book chapter
Evaluation
Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
Unknown
Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
3: Good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent
AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
Alfred Métraux ; 1971
Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
1570-1587
Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
1570-1587
Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
Bahia, Brazil
NotesAdditional notes
Gabriel Soares de Souza
This document consists of excerpts
Translation of: [Tratado descriptivo do Brazil em 1587]
The original Portuguese text is not included
Translated for the HRAF files by Alfred Métraux prior to 1956
LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
98648817
LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
Tupinamba Indians