ABSTRACT
History The area in which the Ayoreo live was explored early in the colonial
history of South America. In 1717 Jesuit missionaries contacted ances tral Ayoreo, Zumocoan language family speakers, and settled them on missions. Warfare among these groups hindered the Jesuits’ mission ary efforts and when the Jesuit order was expelled from Paraguay in 1767 some ancestral Ayoreo groups still remained uncontacted. These latter people were the ancestors of the contemporary Ayoreo. From the 18th century until the 1950s, contact between the Ayoreo and other peoples-both indigenous and European-was rare and usually violent. As a result, the Ayoreo and their neighbors held each other in contempt.
