In the early 17th century, French and Portuguese colonizers and Jesuit priests settled in the state of Maranh？o and made contact with the Guajajara, an ethnic group that lived along the margins of the Pindaré River. The Guajajara maintained contact with Brazilian national society over the centuries, including with Brazilian admixed populations, and with African slaves that flocked towards the region from the 18th century onwards. The present study investigates the origins of this admixture using mitochondrial genetic variability. The bones of 12 individuals investigated, which are currently part of the collection of the National Museum, were tested for genetic diversity. aDNA was extracted by the phenol-chloroform method and by DNA IQ (Promega, Madison, WI, USA). Amplification of the HVS I region was performed by PCR, followed by direct sequencing using the Big Dye kit (Life Technologies, Foster City, CA, USA). This region was found to represent haplogroups of Amerindians (A, C, and D) and Africans (L, L1b, L1c, and L3). The presence of African haplogroups in Guajajara bones from as early as the 18th century is consistent with historical and anthropological data, suggesting the admixture with Africans and/or Afrodescendants. Therefore, this study demonstrates that women with African haplogroups were introduced into the Guajajara population. 1. Introduction 1.1. The Guajajara Among the indigenous peoples that still inhabit the vast South American continent are the Guajajara, an example of ethnic resistance after four centuries of contact with European, Brazilian, and African populations. The Guajajara are also referred to as the Tenetehara-Guajajara of Maranh？o to distinguish them from the Tenetehara-Tembé of Pará, and they belong to the Tupi linguistic family. According to Nimuendaju [1], during the 19th century, the Guajajara lived along the Pindaré, Grajaú, and Mearim rivers (Figure 1), an area that they had occupied since pre-Columbian times according to Wagley and Galv？o [2]. Figure 1: Current distribution of the studied Guajajara villages of Kamiranga and Januária (in red) and the quilombola populations (in black) in the state of Maranh？o, Brazil (adapted from [ 59]). A more detailed analysis of the population’s demography revealed that although their population size had been severely reduced in the past, it recovered significantly during at least two historical periods and is an extraordinary example of demographic expansion. Another particularity of these groups is their substantial level of admixture [3], both with Africans and Europeans.
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