Tamoio people
The Tamoio were a Tupi-speaking indigenous group that inhabited the coast of the present-day states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Their territory included the Bay of Guanabara, extending from what is now Rio de Janeiro to the northern coast of São Paulo, near the city of Bertioga. The group’s population is estimated at approximately 70,000 people at the time of European contact.
The Tamoios are also called Tupinambás. In fact, they were nothing more than the Tupinambás of the south. The others are those from Bahia and Maranhão.
The ethnonym "Tamoio" comes from "ta'mõi," which, in the Tupi language, means "grandparents," indicating that they were the Tupi group that had been established on the Brazilian coast for the longest time.
Anthropologists Beatriz Perrone-Moysés and Renato Sztutman argue that the term "Tamoio" did not refer to a homogeneous indigenous people, but rather to a "collective of leaders" from different tribes who formed an alliance among themselves and with the French against the Portuguese colonizers.
Presence in daily life
- In the state of São Paulo, the highway that connects São José dos Campos to Caraguatatuba, on the north coast, the former lands of the Tamoio was named Rodovia dos Tamoios.
- The current 2nd district of the city of Cabo Frio is called Tamoios because it was one of the last strongholds of the Tamoio Confederation.
- Several cities have also named streets and avenues after the Tamoios, including São Paulo, Itanhaém, Tupã, Lins, Diadema, and Praia Grande, among others.