To-day all the Guaranís who are still unconquered live in the impenetrable forests of the North of Paraguay or in the Brazilian province of Matto Grosso. Their limits to the south extend to near the ruined missions of Jesus and Trinidad. By preference, they seem to dwell about the sources of the Igatimí, an affluent of the Paraná, and in the chain of mountains known either as San Jose or Mbaracayú. The Paraguayans generally refer to them as Monteses (dwellers in the woods), and sometimes as Caaguás. They present almost the same characteristics as they did at the discovery of the country, and wander in the woods as the Jesuits describe them as doing three hundred years ago. Olive in colour, rather thickly set, of medium height, thin beards, and generally little hair upon the body, their type has remained unchanged. The difference in stature amongst the Guaranís is less noticeable than amongst Europeans. Their language is poorer than the Guaraní spoken by the Paraguayans, and the pronunciation both more nasal and guttural. Their numerals only extend to four, as was the case at the time of the discovery.[31]
Like their forefathers, they seldom unite in large numbers, and pay little honour or obedience to their chiefs, who differ in no respect, either in arms, dress, or position, from the ordinary tribesmen.
In Brazil they are confined to the southern portion of the province of San Paulo, and are called by the Brazilians Bugres—that is, slaves. A more unfitting name it would have been impossible to hit upon, as all efforts to civilize them have proved abortive, and to-day they still range the forests, attacking small parties of travellers, and burning isolated farm-houses. The Brazilians assert that they are cannibals, but little is known positively as to this. What has altered them so entirely from the original Guaranís of the time of the conquest, who were so easily subdued, it is hard to conjecture. One thing is certain: that the example given them by the Christian settlers has evidently not been such as to induce them to leave their wild life and enter into the bonds of civilization.
Diaz, in the ‘Argentina’, thinks the Caribs of the West Indies were Guaranís, and the Jesuits often refer to them under that name.[32] This point would be easily set at rest by examining if any Guaraní words remain in the dialect of the Caribs of the Mosquito coast. As to their relative numbers at the time of the foundation of the missions, it is most difficult to judge. At no one time does the population of the thirty towns seem to have exceeded one hundred and thirty thousand.
D’Orbigny in his ‘L’Homme Américain’, estimates the Guaranís of Brazil at one hundred and fifty thousand.
Humboldt cites two hundred and sixty-nine thousand as the probable number of Indians of every kind in the Brazilian Empire.
The Viscount de Itabayana (a Brazilian writer) fixes the number at two hundred and fifty thousand to three hundred thousand.
Veloso de Oliveira puts it at eight hundred thousand; and later statisticians range between one million five hundred thousand and seven to eight hundred thousand.
The numbers given of Indians by the Spanish conquerors are almost always grossly overstated, from the wish they not unnaturally had to magnify the importance of their conquests and to enhance their exploits in the eyes of those for whom they wrote.
Struck by the tractable character of the Guaranís, Mendoza began to build a fort on August 15, 1537 (which is the day of the Assumption), and the name he gave to his fort was Asuncion, which afterwards became the capital of Paraguay.