Guaycuru or Guaykuru is a generic term for several ethnic groups indigenous

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

 to the Gran Chaco

Gran Chaco

The Gran Chaco is a sparsely populated, hot and semi-arid lowland region of the Río de la Plata basin, divided among eastern Bolivia, Paraguay, northern Argentina and a portion of the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, where it is connected with the Pantanal region...

 region of South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

, speaking several related Mataco–Guaycuru languages.

At the time of the European conquest, the territory of the Guaycuru tribes extended into the present-day countries of Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

 (north of the Santa Fe Province

Santa Fe Province

The Invincible Province of Santa Fe, in Spanish Provincia Invencible de Santa Fe , is a province of Argentina, located in the center-east of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise Chaco , Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Buenos Aires, Córdoba, and Santiago del Estero...

), Bolivia

Bolivia

Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...

, Paraguay

Paraguay

Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...

, and Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

 (south of Corumbá

Corumbá

Corumbá is a municipality in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, 425 km northwest of Campo Grande, the state's capital. It has a population of approximately 96,000 inhabitants, and its economy is based mainly on agriculture, animal husbandry, mineral extraction, and tourism, being the...

.

The name is written guaycurú or guaicurú in Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 (plural guaycurúes or guaicurúes), and guaicuru in Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

 (plural guaicurus). It was originally an offensive epithet given to some Mbayá tribes of Paraguay by the Guarani, meaning "savage" or "barbarian", which later got extended to the whole group. It has also been used in the past to include other tribes of the region, but is now restricted to those speaking a Mataco–Guaycuru language.

Divisions

The major extant branches of the Guaycuru are:

• Mocoví
• Toba
• Pilagá
• Kadiweu
  Kadiweu people
  The Kadiweu are an ethnic group indigenous to the Gran Chaco region of South America, presently living in Southwest Brazil. As of 1998, they numbered about 1500 people, divided into four villages....
  
  

The Mocoví, Toba, and Pilagá call themselves qom and appear to forma linguistic and ethnic continuum. They have been placed together with the Abipón in the "Southern" division, while the Kadiweu are placed by themselves in a "Northern" division. The placement of the Payaguá in this classification is still controversial.

Some authors, such as Quevedo, Hunt, Mason

John Alden Mason

John Alden Mason was an archaeological anthropologist and linguist.Mason was born in Orland, Indiana, but grew up in Philadelphia's Germantown. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1907 and a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley in 1911...

, Greenberg

Joseph Greenberg

Joseph Harold Greenberg was a prominent and controversial American linguist, principally known for his work in two areas, linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages.- Early life and career :...

 and Viegas Barros, have joined the Guaycuru and the Mataguay languages into a larger Mataco–Guaycuru language family, but it is not clear yet whether the similarities between the vocabularies of the two families are due to a common origin or to borrowing.

Other Guaycuru groups have become extiguished over the last 500 years:

• Abipón
  Abipón people
  The Abipones were an indigenous nation of Argentina's Gran Chaco, part of the Guaycuru languages linguistic group. They ceased to exist as an ethnic group in the early 19th century...
  
  
• Mbayá (believed to be ancestral to the Kadiweu)
• Payaguá