The Charnacoco Endurance: Global Politics in the Local Village Mario E
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The Charnacoco Endurance: Global Politics in the Local Village (Paraguay 1890s - 1990s) BY Mario E. Blaser A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfilment of the requeriments for the degree of Master of Arts Departmenet of Sociology and Anthropology Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario April 18, 1997 Copyrisht Mario E. Blaser National Library Bibliotheque nationale m*l of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ot&wa ON KIA ON4 Ottawa ON KIA ON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive licence dowhg the exclusive pennettant a la National Library of Canada to Biblioaeque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, preter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette these sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/fih, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format electronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriete du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protege cette these. thesis nor substantial extracts fkom it Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. aut orisation. In the process that brought about the formation of a World System the Chamacoco people of Paraguay have been incorporated into a unified discursive field. The Chamacoco have had to accomodate their own discourses as to make them appear ammed to the discourses which are dominant in the unified discursive field. Since this unified discursive 6eId is a changing one the strategies used by the Charnacoco have been modified through time. The latest of this changing strategies has been the development of a traditionalist political agenda. In order for this agenda to succeed at the village level, the leader must find allies among the dominant agents and institutions of the National Society. In turn, these Linkages between local and global levels set a limit for political initiatives originated in the village. Acknowledgements Rimero tahamiuro enviar peyuwo a mis dehebich Ishiro-Ebitoso. Neychit que ahlilo amistad e heres. Neychit a Majito Modesto y Majito Leke, Bruno, Mateo, Perla, Papito, Meneto, Sonia, 10s weterak Babi, Alejo, y a todos 10s otros. Espero sobpakiliye sirva para Maro bolilo de una buena vez Ishiro wututa! This work has been possible thanks to the generous financial support of Earthwatch and its Earthcorps. I specially want to thanks George Eade for his constant interest. CONICET fiom Argentha also contri'buted financially through a Research Training Scholarsip. Finally, I have to mention a series of people who has contributed with scholarly and human support. They are Pancho Suarez, Dario Arcella, Mario Rabey, Glenn Edwards and Douglas Green. Special gratitude to my wife Josi, I promise that &om now and ahead I wiIl act normal (at least until the next thesis). CONTENTS INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF TEE CEACO (MAP) ......................... 1 PREFACE ..........................................................-7 PART ONE,. GEN;ERAL I2\rTRODUCTION ................................ 6 1. Conceptual Framework ........................................ 8 2. Background of the Research ................................... 19 PART WO:TIIE UWFICXTION OF DISCURT' FELDS ............................................................ 25 3. The Chamacoco Discursive Field ............................... 26 132e Cadwe0 lnterfude ..................................... 36 Dibkunaho Settlement ..................................... 39 4. Facing the Contact ........................................... 45 Learning the mite Wq .................................... 47 ?he Woythe EIders TeN the History ........................... 53 Mqa/ito'sTaies ........................................... 58 5. ConcIusions to Part Two ...................................... 67 PART THREE: HEGEMONYRND CO~PHEGEMONYI2V ?HE UNIFED DISCORTm FIELD .......................................... 73 6. The Hegemonic Coincidence ................................... 75 Christian Discourses and the Nau Chamacoco Leadership ......... 79 7. The End of the Hegemonic Coincidence .......................... 92 Christians. MMbmand TrClCiitiomIists ....................... 101 8. Conclusions to Part Three .................................... 109 PART FOUR ZTHE POLIITCS OF TRADITI0NAl:ISM .................... 114 9. The Trrditionalist Vige .................................... 115 Hegemonic Trdtiomkm ................................. 121 10 . Struggling in Traditional Contexts ............................ 127 11. Conclusions to Part Four .................................... 136 FmALREFLECTIONS ............................................. I39 Appendix ................................................... 147 Bibliography ................................................. 152 INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF TBE CaACO Map from MayburyLewis and Lowe (1980) PREFACE A tale in Parodi' s Ehrcubraciones sobre la inmorta[idad del ccmgr~ustates that in an unspecified place and time, a group of wise men from around the world gathered to define the essential identity of the onion One man after another peeled a layer of skin from the vegetable. Each time, he presented it to the public, proclaiming that he held in his hands the 'real' onion. Finally, the demonstration reached a point where no layers of the onion remained. The wise men discussed the situation amongst themselves, and then returned to the stage with a solution to the puzzle: they declared that the onion had never existed. As with other Indigenous people, circumstances have forced the Chamacoco to play the role of Parodi's onion - objects subject to definition by 'wise' White men. At times these men declared that certain Indigenous people were disappearing (Bruner 1989). In reality' they were growing another 'layer of skin' that no longer fit the wise men's narrow categories of what was an Indian. In our time, academia's deconstructivist peeling away of traditions and identities seems for many to undermine the attempts of Indigenous people to regain control in defining their identity (Jaimes and Noriega 1988; Trask 199 1). There is no need here to discuss again what is already a common place in our discipline, that these 'definitions' are not innocent, politically neutral or without 'practical effects'. In the 1980s some scholars attempted to revese these monologic practices, at least in ethnographic texts, by proposing dialogic, polyphonic, evocative, and generally more democratic representations of anthropology's subjects. Whring Cdhwe (Clifford and Marcus 1986) has become known as the classic reference to these attempts. However, as some critical currents have asserted since then, we must not let a fishionable dialogic trend fool us. The possibility of dialogue is not a matter of voluntaristic editorial decisions, but is determined by the respective power positions of those engaged in a communicative act (Tala1 Asad 1986, Rabinow 1986). This work represents a contribution to the struggle of the Chamacoco to recover the direction of their destiny*rather than any experimental form of ethnography. In this sense, this writing is a report, £?om a different perspective than their own, on their recent history. I hope it would prove usell in providing insight into the connections between what happens in their villages to the wider World System. This focus on the connections between global and local levels is one of the methodological premises of this work. The other is that we can only grasp these connections in their complexity through a procesd analysis that considers their unfolding through time. Thus, this analysis fluctuates between local and global levels while considering the different patterns this 'weaving' reveals at various moments of the Chamacoco history. This represents the reverse of peeling an onion, by discussing the conditions in which new layers of 'skin' came to form what is Chamacoco. Rather than focusing on the construction of Chamacoco identity and traditions, this work analyses the degrees of constraint and fieedorn that, in diverse moments in their history, provided the space for diEerent expressions of what it means to be Chamacoco. The title of this work, 4 7he Chamacoco Edrance, alludes to the persistence of their identity through those moments; the subtitle Global Politics in the Local YiII'ge refers to the link between levels, and its importance to the design of the weaving. This work begins at a point in the Chamacoco history that shortly preceded the definitive settlement of Whites in the Alto Paraguay area. This provides enough temporal depth to Aow the analysis of at least three major changes in the social 'skin'. These changes relate to distinguishable moments in the Chamacoco history that correspond to qualitative changes in the historical space considered. These moments included the one previous to Mbya-Cadweo influence, White settlement in the area and the rapid inclusion of the Chamacoco within the World System, and the crisis in hegemonic coincidence about the Indigenous 'problem' among dominant Paraguayan groups. The discussion addresses current debates on power, hegemony and resistance, and relates to the work of authors such as Antonio Grarnsci, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu and James Scott. Although their inspiration