Hidden away in book 4 of WRg's army lists, and also lurking in the DBR list for South America is an odd little army called the Tupi.
The Tupi were a collection of tribal cannibals living in the forests of South America. The Tupi tribes included the Tupina, Tupinamba, Tomoio, Tupinikin, Temimino, Tobajara, and the Potiguar.
They mostly fought amoungst themselves ("Whats for dinner darling ?") and the Portuguese when they arrived. Pointing out that these forests were now Portuguese, and all you horrible savages had better become catholics!
The Tupi lived in small settlements sometimes fortified with pallisades; and even booby trapped with falling trees.
An Englishman called Anthony Knivet, appears to have separted from his ship in 1591, and spent some six or so months with various tribes, on his way home. During this time he became military advisor to the Tomoio, teaching them feigned retreats and ambushes. He also got them to paint one leg red to distinguish their side.
Painting guide.
This is culled from Chris Peer's articles.
Tupi warriors shaved off all their body hair, beards and eyebrows, and made a tonsure on top of their heads. Their natural skin colour was a dark copper, painted in various combinations of black and red dye. Possible stripes, one for each enemy they had killed. Clothing when worn was feathered in reds, blues, greens, whites, yellow grey, browns and blacks. (Parrot colours !) Chiefs cloaks were made from red ibis or alternating bands of red, blue and green. Tupi warriors wore necklaces of white shells and fish bones, and sometimes also wore a lip plug of green jadette.
Their weapons were a two handed war club and longbows. Note the fletchings on the arrows would have been bright coloured feathers, not the usual white.
Jean de Lery 1578
" Anyone who has seen them busy with their bows will agree with me that ... they can draw and shoot so fast that ... our savages ... would have fired a dozen while (the English) would have released six... When they were finally in a melee with their great wooden swords and clubs they struck one another with mighty two handed blows... If they struck an enemies head they did not just knock him to the ground, but slaughtered him as one of our butchers fells an ox... Apart from the entertainment of watching them jump, whistle and wield their swords, circling and bobbing, it was marvellous to see so many arrows with their plummage of red, blue, green, scarlet and many other coloured feathers flying through the air..."
My thanks to Steve Cooper, the Tupi designer, for supplying this infomation.