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Despite its name, ‘Misión Tapiete’ is far from being an homogenous group, ethnically speaking. After visiting all the houses of the mission, I discovered that along with Tapiete people live members of other ethnic groups, such as Avá-Guaraní, Chanés, Chorotes, Tobas, Weenhayeks and Wichís, and also two criollo families.21

The small piece of land they received does not prevent the existence of a sort of ‘inner border’ inside the community that splits it into two sectors: one of them occupied by mostly exogenous couples; while families whose members consider themselves as Tapietes live in the other sector. Of course, exceptions to this ‘rule’ can be found in both sectors. As a consequence, people who claim a pure Tapiete origin are notably reduced. According to my calculations, only 36% -145 people- who live in Misión Tapiete identify themselves as Tapiete. This number includes both families whose parents claim to be tapietes and Tapiete members of an exogenous couple.

I wish to make clear that I did not adopt any ‘objective’ or ‘external’ criteria when I had to determine the ethnic origin of the person I was interviewing. Interviews were carried out in an informal atmosphere: in most cases, a long time was devoted both to explain my being there and to justify my curiosity. This means that in my notes a person is defined as ‘Tapiete’ or ‘Toba’ only if he or she claims to belong to that group. Of course, the logical consequent question is: What makes the child of a Toba/Tapiete couple identify

21 _{Because of time, these families were not included in the survey I carried out. I do not rule out the}

himself/herself as a Tapiete or as a Toba? At the present stage of my investigations I cannot answer this question with absolute certainty. My impression is that the ethnic affiliation of the person who was in charge of the interviewed person (mother, father, aunt, grandmother) plays a major role in this election. Very often, this person was a native speaker of the indigenous language with whom the child had grown up. People I interviewed showed different levels of proficiency in that indigenous language: some could speak it properly, some understood it and some only vaguely remembered it.

It is also necessary to make some clarification with respect to the words employed by the people I interviewed when it comes to designating the ethnic group they belong to. The terms Chaguanco and Guaraní, and also the term cuña (only for women) were used most of times by people whose origin is commonly recognized among criollo people with the derogative name of Chiriguano. Even if the term Avá-Guaraní is the chosen one by those people as the term of self-naming, it was mentioned only in those opportunities when I was asking if Chaguanco and Guaraní were synonymous with Avá-Guaraní. As far as the pejorative term mataco is concerned, it was mentioned several times as synonymous with Weenhayek by people of such origin. Now that the complexity of the subject is clearly understood, let’s examine the ethnic composition of married couples.

1.4.8.1. Ethnic composition of couples in ‘Misión Tapiete’

There is a large percentage of exogenous marriages in the community. On a total of 65 couples examined, 68% are exogenous couples which reflects a strong tendency of Tapiete people to form families with people of Avá-Guaraní origin. As far as endogenous couples are concerned, they are formed by 16 Tapiete/Tapiete marriages (24%), and 4 Avá-Guaraní/ Avá-Guaraní marriages (6%). Taking into account the relations of enmity

which lasted until a few years ago, it is really surprising to see the major percentage of exogenous Tapiete-Avá-Guaraní marriages (31%) as compared to the percentage of endogenous Tapiete/Tapiete marriages (24%). With respect to Tapiete people, it is interesting to see that the higher percentage of exogenous couples concentrates on younger people, a tendency that contrasts with the large percentage of endogenous marriages among older people. This situation suggests that the practice of getting married to people not belonging to the Tapiete group is relatively new. All of the couples whose ages are between 61 and 70 are endogenous. On the other hand, exogenous marriages start to appear among 50-year-old people. This new trend is possibly related to the conversion of Tapiete people to Christianity. Indeed, all the testimonies show that this conversion must have happened about 35 years ago, that is to say, when people who are now 50-60-year-old were about 20. According to the testimonies I could gather, evangelization broke the taboo that forbade Tapiete people to look for a husband/wife outside the Tapiete community. While reaching present times, ‘Misión Tapiete’ is getting ethnic diversity through couples that include members from a greater number of indigenous communities (Toba, Weenhayek, Chorote, Wichí, Chané) and also Criollos. However, not only evangelization must have played a major role in this change. The quick economic development of the region put an end to the geographical and cultural isolation of the Tapiete community, leading its members to establish more frequent contacts not only with the Criollo society but also with other indigenous groups with which they started to share a greater number of social spaces such as work, sporting and religious activities. There is no doubt that this situation also contributed to extend the ethnic spectrum of younger couples.