Relación padre-madre

The fact that the Guaraní of south-eastern Bolivia (in the literature widely referred to as ‘Chiriguano’) are the descendants of Guaraní migrants (and – according to some theories – a local Chané population; see discussion below) has caused scholars to attempt to trace the migrants’ origins by way of linguistic as well as archaeological studies.1 There is some consensus that their ancestors came from the Brazilian coastal region around Santa Catalina and subsequently mixed with Guaraní from Paraguay, thus making the eastern Bolivian Guaraní language a combination of Brazilian Tupí and Paraguayan Guaraní (Gutiérrez 1965: 11-12, Dietrich 1986: 194-5, Combès 2005a: 72). There are today some 60.000 Guaraní people living in Bolivia (Gustafson 2009: 12), comprising three cultural-linguistic subgroups: the Ava (the most numerous), most of whom live in Cordillera Province; the Simba (formerly 1_{Curiously, these studies tend to highlight the supposed points of arrival of various different ethnic groups to a} particular area and their points of departure, without engaging with the question of ‘origins’ as such (that is, the question of according to what criteria one decides to pinpoint a particular point in space and time above others as an ‘origin’).

Tembeta)2, who live in the Department of Chuquisaca and are regarded as the most ‘traditional’; and the Isoseño, situated in the Bajo Parapetí. All of them speak the same Guaraní language, but with slight variations between them (Combès 2005a: 20).

As for the first Guaraní people’s arrival in the Bolivian Cordillera region, some scholars favour a relatively recent date around the same time as the arrival of the Spanish conquerors (Nordenskiöld 1917, Métraux 1930) or even later, when the migrations might have been undertaken under the influence of their presence (Combès 2005a: 69). That there were Guaraní migrations taking place in colonial times is certain, as can be seen from contemporary records (ibid.). However, some other authors believe in a series of migrations starting from as early as the 13th or 14th centuries (Renard-Cassevitz, Saignes and Taylor- Descola 1986; Combès 2005a; Melià 1988). Archaeological evidence found at Inca fortresses in the Andean Cordillera seems to confirm the presence of Guaraní people in the area at the time of their building (Pärssinen 1992; Siiriäinen and Pärssinen 1997; Alconini 2002). Some of the fortresses might even date back to pre-Inca times, when the Aymara federations already had to defend themselves against Guaraní attacks (Platt 1999), and some recent excavations rendered a possible date of as early as 400 AD (Pärssinen 2003). On the other hand, Xavier Albó lists several cases of small-scale Guaraní migrations taking place within Bolivia as late as the 1980s (Albó 1990: 38-43).

Concerning the reasons for these migrations, one hypothesis refers to the slash-and-burn agriculture which was traditionally practiced by Guaraní peoples, and which relied on expansion into new territories in order to relieve population pressures and saturation of cultivated soils (Melià 1988: 19). According to 16th-century Spanish records, on the other hand, their motivation was the search for precious metals for adornments and trade (Melià 1988: 21). However, the Guaraní tales of a land rich in metals lying to the west, in the documents sometimes referred to as ‘Kandire’, has most famously been interpreted by Hélène Clastres in terms of the Brazilian Tupí-Guaraní myth of a ‘Land without Evil’, where humans can attain immortality ‘without going through the ordeal of death’ (H. Clastres 1995: 76). The idea that its pursuit played an important role also in the Guaraní migrations towards the Cordillera used to be widely accepted (cf. Pifarré 1989, Combès and Saignes 1991) and has

only recently been challenged (see Julien 2007)3. According to Pierre Clastres (1977), the impetus for these often extensive migrations led by powerful shamans was the fact that Tupí- Guaraní society was undergoing changes towards the end of the 15th century that threatened to replace their egalitarian social structure with a system of centralised power reminiscent of the State. However, given that there were several Guaraní migrations towards the Cordillera, apparently stretching across a long time span, it seems unlikely that there can be a single explanation for these phenomena (Melià 1988, Combès 2005a). More contemporary migrations could, for example, be triggered by factors such as pressure exerted by patrones

and other power groups (Healy 1982), unwelcome State attempts at integration of the region, or confusion caused by diverse agendas of different NGOs active in the same area (Albó 1990: 46-52, Lucero 2008: 67).

Apart from giving rise to different theories about origins and migration routes, the uncertain provenance of Bolivia’s Guaraní population has also divided scholars on the question of their ancestry. The established position is today most famously advocated by Isabelle Combès, one of the leading experts on Bolivian Guaraní history. Combès and her followers maintain that Bolivia’s Guaraní (to whom they refer as ‘Chiriguano’ in order to distinguish them from other Guaraní groups who do not share the same historical background) are a mestizopeople that was formed out of the synthesis of the Guaraní migrants with the local Chané, an Arawak group already settled in the Cordillera that was subdued by the newcomers (Combès and Saignes 1991, Renard-Cassevitz, Saignes and Taylor-Descola 1986, Melià 1988). According to Combès, the ‘integration’ of the Chané was achieved through enslaving, marrying, and occasionally eating them (Combès and Saignes 1991, Combès 1992) and was thus not one on equal terms. This contradicts P. Clastres’s vision of Tupí-Guaraní egalitarianism (Saignes 1990: 12). The Chané held a lower social status and were excluded from the Guaraní system of reciprocity (Melià 1988). Combès laments the fact that most studies prior to Combès and Saignes’s of 1991 have ignored the Chané component of ‘Chiriguano’ society in favour of its Guaraní elements (Combès 2005a: 314, 331). That the Chané can nonetheless not be overlooked is, in her opinion, demonstrated by the case of the Isoseños4, whose political

3

Julien’s argument is convincing in the careful way in which it deconstructs Clastres’s theory in order to demonstrate how, from a combination of elements from various unrelated sources, Clastres constructed the theory that all migrations of all Tupí and Guaraní peoples of all times were inspired by the search for the Land without Evil, and that Kandire was the name they gave to it. See also Combès (2006).

4

It should be noted here that there is no mention of a mestizajebetween Guaraní and Chané in Isoseño oral history (Combès 2005a: 75), and that this idea is in fact outright rejected by many Guaraní people.

structure to this day follows an Arawak model that protects and legitimates the interests of the Iyambae family currently in power in the Isoso (Combès and Villar 2004)5.

While Combès’s mission in pushing the mestizo theory is thus one of promoting good scholarship, opposition to her position is currently arising from more politically-minded scholars. In a recent book on the indigenous struggle for bilingual education in Bolivia, Bret Gustafson tersely dismisses the entire debate in the first sentences of his foreword before moving on to more recent matters:

The Guarani people and language in Bolivia are often called Chiriguano in academic literature. The termChiriguanooriginated in colonial myth, and I see no reason to replicate it for academic purposes. Guarani call themselves Guarani. They call their language Guarani (guaraní), “our language” (ñandeñee) or “mbɨa language” (mbɨaiñee). (2009: xix)

While this brief negation does not tell us anything about the reasoning behind it6, it does make it more than clear that – contrary to Combès – Gustafson is more interested in the actions, opinions, and situation of his informants than in explaining their current socio- cultural and political positions through recourse to ancient colonial documents.

Combès’s and Gustafson’s projects are, in short, two different ones, without one necessarily being more important or legitimate than the other. Thus, Gustafson deals with contemporary issues, with historical background information provided as relevant, while Combès’s writings are a lot more focussed on the past.

The project of this thesis is more similar to Gustafson’s work in that it attempts to provide a snapshot of a particular place at a particular time and the way it is embedded within a larger geographical and historical context, rather than tracing particular features of Guaraní culture or society back through the centuries. Accordingly, the following subchapters provide a brief historical overview that is, due to the constraints of this study, selective rather than exhaustive. Its intention is to provide a narrative through which the themes and events described in the main part of the thesis can be situated within a wider context within Guaraní

5_{For a detailed study on the importance of descent and lineages in Isoseño politics and power claims over time} see Combès (2005a).

6

Gustafson’s Washington University of St Louis website informs us that an article in which he further elaborates this position is currently under review (http://artsci.wustl.edu/~bdgustaf/research.html).

and Bolivian history.7However, by this I am not suggesting that every present-day situation can be seen as having been brought about by a particular and bounded number of events in the past, leading up to the present in neat succession. On the contrary: rather than the present being the logical outcome of a series of past phenomena, it is the needs of the present that impose their logic on the events of the past. There are, of course, always wider connections that go well beyond the scope of even the most careful study; however, I do believe that it is possible to identify certain key influences which have helped shape the present in particular ways, and that they can help us understand current phenomena more clearly.

Finally, a quick word on terminology: while I am in no position to contradict Combès, who bases her theories on the careful study of primary historical sources and ethnographic materials, I concur with Gustafson that the use of the colonially derived ethnonym ‘Chiriguano’ to refer to contemporary Guaraní people is not only unnecessary but wrong. Guaraní people today are showing great initiative in representing their own interests, and the continued use of a term that is widely regarded as derogatory8 and therefore rejected by the people to whom it refers shows a disregard for their position that casts them in the role of mere objects of study rather than political subjects with the agency to shape their own history. In this thesis, I am therefore using the term ‘Chiriguano’ only in instances where it appears in quoted texts; in all other cases, I am – in accordance with their own usage – referring to the people at the centre of this study as well as their ancestors as ‘Guaraní’.

1.2 Colonial Era: Establishment of Communities in the Highlands and ‘Irreducible