One of the characteristics that Agapito’s story attributes to the Angaité’s ancestors is their fear of the Paraguayans. How can it be that people repeatedly described as hostile and fierce (Hunt, 1911:30; Grubb, 1911:19) were afraid of the arrival of a few outsiders whom they easily outnumbered?
This question calls for a more critical approach to the subject of the encounter between indigenous and non-indigenous people in the Chaco, as well as that of warfare, violence and feuding amongst the indigenous peoples. The need is to distinguish between a historical perspective concerned with particular events and a symbolic perspective of more general bearing. In the reports of the pioneer missionaries and land surveyors who, in the late 19th century, ventured into the Chaco and, specifically, the territory of the Enlhet- Enenlhet peoples, we have seen that they expected an aggressive response in their encounter with unknown “Indians”. They also believed that warfare amongst those “Indians” 101 – at least on the western and northern frontiers – had been frequent in the past (Grubb, 1911:105; Cominges, 1882:154). Among Paraguayans, this view was a heritage of the pre-colonial and colonial periods – 16th to 18th centuries – characterized by bellicose relations between, on one side, the Guarani and their Spanish allies and, on the other side, the Mbaya and Payagua, both riverine Chaco peoples102. The Enlhet- Enenlhet peoples, as has been said, came more into contact with Paraguayans in the 19th century, due to the retreat of the Mbayas to the north and the progressive incorporation of the Payaguas into Paraguayan society (Métraux, 1963 [1944]:225-226). The contact was established on the basis of peaceful trading.
There were, nonetheless, violent episodes in the first decades of the colonization process, when the social order – indigenous vs. non-indigenous – had yet to be stabilized. 103 For instance, the Enxet fought against a Paraguayan cavalry corps that crossed the Paraguay
101
Grubb himself acknowledged that this non-indigenous perception of indigenous hostility was exaggerated and that any danger that existed was “not so much on account of their enmity as from misunderstandings on both sides, and superstitious fears on theirs” (ibid.22).
102 The antagonistic relationship had periods of truce and peaceful coexistence during which the Mbaya and the Payagua engaged in trading with the Paraguayans (Métraux, 1963 [1944]:216, 225).
103
With reference to post-encounter conflicts, particularly those involving the Angaité and disputes over cattle-hunting/stealing, see chapter 3, in which it is shown how such conflicts are effaced by the myth of the “Two Shamans and the Owner of the Cattle”.
River during the Triple Alliance War (Grubb, 1911:106). Although there were probably more episodes,on the whole they are but isolated events. Indeed, the accounts that remain of such episodes – mostly outsider-biased – obscure their motives and circumstances and promote the image of ancient indigenous bellicosity (Grubb, 1911:22). 104
One incident in particular – less well remembered than the deaths of Boggiani or Crévaux105 – could arguably be the source of Agapito’s story. It is the slaying by unspecified “Indians”, in 1902, of two German explorers and their two Paraguayan aides. Agapito’s narrative is silent with regard to the killing of the expeditionaries, but there are several coincidences. 106 The ill-fated German expedition was undertaken, according to unofficial accounts, towards the close of the 19th century, which coincides with my estimated time frame for the story. Both episodes occurred on the banks of the Riacho Gonzalez, and the name of the location in the Angaité narrative, Makhakma/Yetna Apmaskema, explicitly associates the site with the presence of death. In both cases, the outsiders are said to have been looking for land. And last but not least, the victims’ bodies in the historical incident were thrown into the stream, along with those of their belongings which “contained sickness”; in Agapito’s story, the foreign goods were thrown into the alvata because they were poisonous. Despite the coincidences, however, it is impossible to say, in the absence of further evidence, whether they outweigh the fundamental difference consisting in the fact that the outsiders who were put to death in reality are transformed into “good” people in the narrative. 107
104 For instance, in the skirmish between Enxet and the Paraguayan army, the latter attacked first, according to Grubb’s indigenous informants.
105
Circa 1890-1900, Crévaux and, later, Ibazeta were killed by Toba and Wichí, along with most of their companions, in the course of their (in)famous expeditions down the Pilcomayo River (cf. Palmer, 2005:158). Boggiani died at the hands of Yshyro-Arrebytoso (Richard, 2007:322).
106 The incident became official and the Government blamed the Towothli people (the Enxet name for the Toba) for the killings. The Anglican missionaries heard a different version from indigenous residents at their western station: the episode took place not far from the Paraguay River, in Enxet (not Towothli) territory (Hunt, 1933:221). Yet another version was given in 1930 by Robert Eaton, foreman of the IPC ranch Riacho Gonzalez, to Thurlow Craig (1935:173-175). Thirty-five years previously, according to Eaton, his gardener “Cacique Siete Alemanes” (“Seven Germans” in Spanish) persuaded seven German surveyors – not two, as the official version has it – to take him on as their guide. In the course of the expedition, after crossing the Riacho Gonzalez – which is to say, in Angaité territory – the Cacique and his people betrayed and killed the Germans and their companions. For Eaton, the motive for the killing was the alleged indigenous culprits’ desire for the Germans’ possessions. He claimed that, after the killing, the Cacique and his people “buried the Germans and divided the spoil” (Craig, 1935:175). For Hunt, on the other hand, it was an “evident act of self-defence” in response to an offence committed by the Germans. Hunt indicated that the “bodies were thrown into a stream and various articles, which the natives thought contained ‘sickness’ were destroyed; the clothes, guns and horses were preserved” (1933:221).
107 Cacique “ Siete Alemanes” is not known or remembered as such in La Patria. Cacho Lima and his wife, Otacia Ataliano, lived around the 1940s on the Riacho Gonzalez ranch, but Otacia only remembered her
In so far as internal warfare is concerned, there are reports dating from the same period (late 19th century) of conflicts between, for instance, the Enlhet and the Ayoreo (Kalish, 2007:2), the Kisapang (Sanapaná) and the Enxet (Grubb, 1991:106), the Angaité and both the Guana and the Mbaya (Cominges, 1882:154) and between two pre-colonial Angaité groups, the Koeteves and the Koyelhna (Villagra, 2005:36, 2008:94). On the whole, such conflicts do not represent a permanent state of warfare but, rather, local quarrels with particular causes. Internecine warfare should be understood, then, not as an a priori attitude but as an a posteriori response to offences and grievances that had a particular context and specific causes. Amongst the Enlhet-Enenlhet, at least, interethnic aggression served as a balancing mechanism, in the manner of a vendetta. It is worth mentioning that such conflicts could also be dealt with by shamanic means, thereby diminishing the need for actual physical violence.
Kalish (2007) has worked on the idea of Enlhet peace – applicable also to the other Enlhet-Enenlhet peoples – as not only a conceptual but also a factual reality, already predominant amongst them before the colonial process and still present, though disrupted by contemporary conditions under non-indigenous domination. We have already seen the Enlhet concept of nengelaasekhammalhcoo (“the reciprocal act of respecting each other”: see chapter 1). This concept is reflected in several related social practices, such as the lack of social stratification and the intense (but fluid) relationship between groups, a relationship mainly contingent upon the initiation rituals of boys and girls (Kalish 2007:5,6), events at which large numbers of people from different villages gathered together. Other related social values and practices are food/time sharing, reciprocity in terms of inter-subjective responsibility and initiatives designed to build harmony and equilibrium (ibid.7). If, then, warfare and feuding were context-specific and of restricted incidence, and if nengelaasekhammalhcoo provided a moral framework for relationships within and between groups, we can better understand and interpret the indigenous response to the arrival of Paraguayans in the Angaité narrative.
Consistent with the Enlhet concept, Agapito’s story – despite its possible correspondence with the incident involving the German surveyors - presents an example of a non-violent
grandfather, Martin, as the leader there. The name “Siete Alemanes” was probably a non-indigenous nickname, but there is no knowing whether the cacique to whom it was given was Martin or a fellow leader.
response towards the unknown “Other”.108 he Angaité response is depicted as an (albeit unsuccessful) effort to understand the Paraguayans: What are they saying? What do they want? The Enyatau (“our grandparents”) wondered why the valayo had arrived in their community, and what they were doing so far away from their original dwellings.