Taquara

Image description: The image is a black-and-white map. The spatial layout runs from left to right and from foreground to background. In the foreground, we see the name "Taquara" prominently highlighted. In the background, we find the name "Sapopema," followed by "Magalhães Bastos." On the left, we see "Kotyua" and "Santíssimo." At the top is "Jacutinga" and "Nova Iguaçu." The central region features "Tantimã" and "Serra do Mendanha."

Readers who research the origin of the name Taquara, a central neighborhood in the Jacarepaguá lowlands region, should not be surprised by what they find. In certain sources, there is a version claiming that the neighborhood's name originates from the perception the first European colonists had of the local nature, where “taquara” trees – a type of bamboo – were abundant. In this version, the name would have a European origin, rather than an Indigenous one. This is a modus operandi of our colonial historiography, quite similar to what happens with other place names, originally Indigenous, not only in Rio de Janeiro but throughout Brazil. Despite the large number of words of Indigenous origin, this dimension disappears to make way for a “colonial baptism.” In other words, in the absence of deeper investigation into the ancestry of places, an invented hypothesis is put forward, based on the European arrival.

The term "carioca" is perhaps the most eloquent example of this phenomenon. Both historical French and Portuguese sources show that the name belonged to an important Tupinambá taba (karióca), but to this day many claim that "carioca" means "house of the white man" -- which is also etymologically mistaken. Such appropriation occurred in the same way with the neighborhood of Taquara, one of the most evident cases of Tupinambá tabas whose names have endured through centuries.

In Hans Staden's account, a German who survived after a long period as a prisoner of the Tupinambás of Guanabara, the name of this village appears when he describes having been captured in Ubatuba to be handed over in Rio de Janeiro: "They took me to the place where they wanted to make a present of me, to a spot called tackwara sutibi." Staden remains in "Taquara" under the protection of the morubixaba Abati-poçanga -- whose name means "corn potion or remedy". Staden's words leave no doubt and thus confirm the presence of this village on the inland lands of Guanabara Bay even before the period indicated by the Frenchman Jean de Léry.

A colonist of Villegagnon's French Antarctica, the Protestant Léry organized two lists of the names of the main native villages of Guanabara, grouping them by their location relative to the bay. In all, 36 communities are listed in his account. Besides the villages to the left of those entering by the river "de Geneure," and those that were "situated on the right bank of said river," he also lists the "largest villages, inland, on both one side and the other of the river" -- in this case, Guanabara Bay. The first large village mentioned "inland," in the interior of the bay's western coast, is the village written as Sacouarr-oussu-tuue, in the original spelling.

This name was identified by contemporary researchers of Old Tupi precisely as the translation of Takûar-usu-tyba, in the most accepted version of the phonemes that the Frenchman was trying to identify. This was made possible by comparing the entire lexicon presented in his writings with what was later produced by the Jesuits, who were responsible for codifying the language and terms of Old Tupi spoken along the coast of Brazil in the 1500s into written form, in order to apply it in catechism. Furthermore, the name Taquoarusitiba is mentioned in the earliest land grant letters as a boundary marker for the land being divided.

Image description: This is a photograph of a dense forest. From left to right, we see bamboo branches and other tropical plants. In the center, there is a lighter area where sunlight shines through the leaves. On the right, we observe more branches and green foliage. The background is full of vegetation, with tones of green and brown.

In its etymology, the name begins with the term takûara, a type of vegetation. In usu, just as with the suffixes in the forms uasú, guaçu, açú – so common in the Portuguese language spoken in Brazil and originating from Old Tupi –, they mean the same thing, “big,” and in this case also, “thick.” There was indeed another word derived from the common takûara, used to refer to a larger type of plant: the takûarusu, or taquaruçu, a “giant thick bamboo grove” with large, wide culms, ideal for making bowls, vases, cups, other objects, and constructions with good wood. As for tyba, Portuguesized as tuba or tiba, it was noted by the young French traveler with a strange tuee, a suffix that denotes a large quantity

A characteristic complement to the name of other Tupinambá villages of the time, such as Arasatyba (Araçazeiro) and Ysypotyba (Cipoal), also located inland, only on the other side of the bay. It was a mark of the abundance and quality of the local flora where the village had lived for hundreds of years and which gave rise to its name.

Thus, we arrive at the full meaning of the name of this historic Indigenous village of Rio de Janeiro, the village of the great gathering or site of the Takûarusus; or, in Portuguese, the village of Taquaraçuzal. A place where there were many large, thick bamboo groves, an inexhaustible source of bamboo for the most diverse tribal activities. The village would have been established there precisely because the site was close to the plant, which was so important for the community's survival. The villages allied and in solidarity with the "Taquara" clans must also have had permission to benefit from these large bamboo groves with the consent of the morubixaba of the main village of Takûarusutyba, the largest and most important in the entire lowland of Jacarepaguá.

This can also be inferred from the accounts of Jean de Léry, who describes the taba of Taquara as well populated and of great importance, since it had more than one mouribixaba. Besides the already mentioned Abati-poçanga, Léry cites the name of another chief, Oyakã (or Ouakã). Hans Staden also mentions in his writings the name of another chief of this village, for it was to the maloka of Sowarasú that the French went looking for him upon arriving at Takûarusutyba. A Tupinambá community with three great principal chiefs who had a good number of war companions in each clan leads us to believe that Takûarusutyba was the largest village in this area, whose domains stretched across the lands below the surrounding hills, the present-day neighborhoods of Pechincha, Tanque, Freguesia, and Curicica, as well as the other regions of Barra da Tijuca, Vargem Grande, and Vargem Pequena, bathed by the Jacarepaguá lagoon, the “inlet of the alligators” (îakaré, alligator; pá, all, completely; and kûá, inlet).

The Tupinambás lived there off the great abundance provided by the basin of the Rio Grande and its tributaries, which flowed into the enormous lagoons that separated those lowlands from the sea. Where these lagoons met the sea, where the Barra da Tijuca channel is located today, fish spawning runs used to occur. They also made use of the entire Pedra Branca mountain range that surrounded them.

It is known that, in 1569, that is, just two years after the defeat of the Tamoios of Rio de Janeiro by the Portuguese, this entire region was already in the possession of the first governor-general, Salvador de Sá. This fact leads us to believe that Takûarusutyba was one of the communities that resisted the arrival of the Portuguese and, for that reason, was also one of the first to be occupied. There, the then governor set up one of the city's oldest sugar mills, which became known as the Engenho da Taquara, which helped perpetuate the name of the village.