Simplificación del Trabajo Administrativo

Introduction. 'Señora o señorita'?

During the first period of my fieldwork in Apiao I was consistently asked, directly or indirectly, if I was a Miss or a Mrs. I would say that I was a Miss, and then people would ask me if I had any children. My negative reply -doubly negative- would definitely classify me as a ‘very strange person’. I was a young woman, single, childless, away from her country, her home and her possessions: they could hardly make any sense of me at all. I was always happy to explain that while I was a student it was not feasible to consider starting a family. This reply was considered satisfactory, but then the next question regarded my plans for after the end of my studies. ‘You should stay on the island and get married soon’ was the friendly and invariable remark. Most of the people I came across during my stay on the island would reiterate the same suggestion: settle down, find a husband, form a household. It was a little obsession, it seemed to me at the time, that they had with the idea of seeing me married, a busy mother of several children. The people I was closer to used to talk about this subject in a joking way, trying to find me various suitable partners, and imagining some details of my new life with the Apiao man they were suggesting, and even picturing me while pregnant. They went as far as imagining me with a big belly and started describing my body transformed, and the way I would walk then. All of these remarks, comments and fantasies were always made in a joking mode, with much laughter, in a humorous context. Another set of remarks, comments and suggestions would be concerned with my age. In Apiao women of my age tend to have several children, and full household responsibilities. People tended to react with disbelief to the fact that, despite looking younger I was over thirty, and once a girl in my host family came very close to me to better examine my face, mumbling ‘this is impossible, it cannot be true, you must be lying’ in a suspicious tone. Of course, the fact that I was much older than they expected did not improve my situation: ‘you must marry soon’, my first landlady told me, ‘before your pan gets cold’, ‘antes que se te

enfríe la cacerola’. This phrase was openly sarcastic, and it gave rise to bursts of noisy laughter every time it was mentioned. I provocatively asked the woman to explain the phrase, and to make a sketch of the pan for me, but she wouldn’t. It was a game we were playing, and it was all revolving around the same subject: my attitude towards men. The fact that I was apparently neglecting sex was a clear indication that I was deviating from the path a young woman is expected to take.

In Apiao terms, I was deviating from that path in several ways: for being single, childless, and away from my people. For being single: a young woman, if single, is certainly the target of single men willing to marry. The fact that I had no husband or partner, called for judgmental remarks concerning my being difficult, spoilt and so on, implying that I always refused any courtship I had received. Childless: many single women become pregnant after casual sex, or during affairs with married or unmarried men. Some women consciously decide to be mothers, taking the risk of remaining single parents, because they know that their partners could not or would not necessarily be interested in marrying them. On the island there are several single mothers and they are not blamed, nor stigmatized by the community47_{. On the other}

hand, childless single women on their own are considered pitiful and unfortunate, for being lonely, for having all the domestic workload on their shoulders, and for having no-one to take care of them in their old age. Away from my people: people travel a long distance and stay away from land and family only for a good reason: work. Many Apiao people and Chilotes in general migrate to Argentina and southern Chile, and they learn skills which earn a living for them and then they send money or products to their families back home. But I was away from home for my studies, and I was clearly not earning money, rather, I was spending money. This implied my deliberate absence from my parents’ home, and my selfishness.

Taking as a starting point the episode of the cacerola, I will try to unravel Apiao people's understanding of kinship by going through some ethnographic vignettes, and some reflections on what they could tell anthropology.

Let us start with the apparent paradox of the beginning: my hosts, as I said, seemed to have an obsession with me and maternity: my future was speculated upon, as well as

47 _{Alonso (1993: 220) points out how in Chilean middle and upper classes the approach towards the} virginity of women varies. In her opinion, in such milieus, concerns with female virginity have to do with male honor and are related to machismo ideology.

my past, and my present was jokingly alluded to as 'going in the wrong direction', seemingly without a real goal in my life. 'So when are you going to have this child then?' my friend Judith asked me, when I went back to Apiao for a brief visit, shaking her head disapprovingly. What I found confusing was the fact that on the one hand they had a sort of obsession with me becoming a mother, and being part of a family, and, on the other, I realised more and more that motherhood was constantly played down in Apiao. At the beginning I justified the reticence regarding motherhood with the high number of single mothers and illegitimate children, but soon it became clear to me that the dismissive attitude towards motherhood was a consistent pattern in Apiao.

A married couple generally spends the first period subsequent to their marriage in the household of the parents of one of the spouses, generally the man's. However, the communal life does not imply communal ownership of resources, such as land and animals: while living with the elder owners of the household, the married couple own and administer their own resources: a garden, the potato field, pigs, chickens, and sheep or cows. After a period of time that can vary from a few months to some years, the married couple move, together with their children, to an independent household. Only married couples would move to live in an independent household. All unmarried people, men and women alike, live in the household of their parents or grandparents. No unmarried man, or woman, would go to live on his /her own: indeed, the building of a new house is strictly associated with a married couple and their productive land. Households are first and foremost productive units and bachelors and single women with living parents or unmarried siblings actively contribute to the everyday activities, performed communally by individual members of the unit. The accomplishment of everyday duties perpetuates the existence of the household and of the family who lives in it.

Within the approximately 150 households of the island, there are some with young married couples and their children, what we call a nuclear family, and other households with an extended family including a number of people, such as an old couple and their unmarried children. Whenever any of these children become single mothers, their children grow up and live in the same household. Whether married or unmarried, women in both types of families become pregnant and have babies. Let us

go back to my original question: why were my hosts - and, indeed, all the Apiao people I met - so concerned with my being a mother, and yet they seemed so uninterested in maternity and motherhood themselves?

'Y después, me enfermé una vez más!' Reticent mothers

One of the most evident instances in which motherhood is downplayed to Western eyes is pregnancy. In Apiao, as well as in the Chiloé area, a woman would refer to her pregnancy as enfermedad, illness. 'And then, I got ill once more!' 'Y después, me enfermé una vez más!' an old woman told me, recalling her many pregnancies48

. A pregnant woman is limited in her capacity to work, in her movement, and in her efficiency - just as if she were ill. Pregnant women generally act as if they were not pregnant, and in fact their pregnancy is often difficult to spot, until it is in the last stages. This is also because Apiao women tend to wear loose clothes with aprons on top of them. Despite the high number of expecting mothers at the time of my fieldwork, it was seriously difficult for me to realise that a woman was pregnant - and I myself lived with a pregnant woman for months without noticing she was expecting a baby. Nothing in the behaviour, speech, or dress of pregnant women would underline their special state. They would never speak about it, as if it were not appropriate, or simply not necessary. This is true not only for single mothers, but also for married women. Similarly, no special attention is given to them by the family, or the neighbours. A woman carries on with the household daily activities, irrespective of her state, and so do all people in the household, each one with their responsibilities. In fact, pregnant women do all they can to ignore their pregnancy and go on with the usual rhythm of everyday activities. Once a woman told me that she was working in the potato field when she had to interrupt what she was doing because her baby was about to be born; and another woman told me how she had cooked for everyone soon after having given birth49

.

Up until a few years ago women used to give birth on the island, with the help of local

48_{See also T. Platt (2001: 642), that reports that Andean women use the term unqusqa, meaning ‘ill’, to}

refer to the condition of being pregnant.

49 _{Urbina (1983: 112) reports how a group of austral indigenous people, brought to Chiloé at the end of} the 18th _{century by the Jesuit missionaries, specialized in fishing and diving. Diving for seafood was} women’s task, and they did not find being in an advanced state of pregnancy as an impediment, nor to have just given birth. Faron (1961: 136) writes of the Mapuches that a woman about to give birth ‘may be active until heavy labour begins’.

midwives (parteras), but nowadays they have easy access to a medical team of doctors, nurses and obstetricians who come to the island once a month (ronda medica). The obstetricians encourage expectant mothers to have regular check ups and advise them to go to the local hospital (this is in the nearest town, a three-hour boat trip away) well before their baby is due, to make sure that bad weather conditions do not jeopardise both mother and child. Despite the friendly attitude of the obstetricians, Apiao women are often reluctant to leave their households and their other children for a few weeks, and so leave their trip to the very last days. Once a woman in an advanced state of pregnancy was examined by the obstetrician during the monthly trip to the island, and she was found to be suffering from a dangerous liver condition, and close to giving birth. The obstetrician arranged for her to be brought to hospital immediately, because she was risking her life as well as her baby's. The woman burst into tears, and said that she really could not possibly go, because there was so much to do at home, and she had to feed her other seven children. Another woman having a risky pregnancy was advised to rest, possibly in bed. Half an hour later we spotted her on the path, carrying a 40-kilo sack of wheat on her shoulder. She replied to the obstetrician's protest with a shy smile, and hurried up along the path, towards her household.

I was quite surprised to notice that women that were close to giving birth were not willing to mention - let alone talk about - the imminent event that, in my opinion, would have dramatically changed their lives. So it was, for example, for Carola, a married woman, when I went to visit her a few days before she left for the hospital. We chatted about various things and I stayed with her for a few hours; yet, no mention was made of the imminent birth. Similarly, a few days later, I was present when Carola's husband and mother-in-law were given the news of the birth of a baby boy.

In fact, that day Ana, a girl from my host family, was sent to Carola's in-laws to give them the news, and I offered to accompany her. We sat in the kitchen of our guests, and we were offered mate as is always the case with visits. We accepted the mate and Ana started a conversation on generic topics, such as the weather, the fields, and so on. Then Carola's husband came in and sat with us, joining in the conversation. When he was about to set off, to make a phone call to the hospital, only then Ana said 'there is no need to call, since Carola already had her baby'. She added that it was a boy and

that he was born by Caesarean section. The man thanked Ana with no particular emphasis, asked his mother if the shirts she had washed were dry, and which ones he could take. He then left to organise his trip to the town for the next day. We stayed for a little while with the grandmother, who briefly mentioned the fact that she had two children, just like Carola, and then the subject shifted again onto totally different topics. I was impressed by the measured reaction of Carola's family: they seemed to be controlling their emotions: not only were they not particularly moved, happy, or impressed with the news; indeed they acted as if it was an ordinary event - and Ana herself brought the news just as she would have done for any other news.

I recorded the same reaction in my household, when Ana's sister, a single mother, had her first baby. After happily congratulating the confused grandparents, who had initially disapproved of the girl's pregnancy, the few moments of enthusiasm (no doubt, promoted by my Italian outburst of happiness) soon gave way to practical worries. Among these, was the organising of a medical card, which involved asking the island's paramedic for some documents. Therefore a boat trip to the health post was set up immediately, and no one talked about the baby anymore. A few days after coming back home, the new mother was as active and energetic as ever and helped her mother as she had always done, taking care of the household, interrupting her activities only when it was necessary to feed the baby. In fact a young mother would devote most of her day to household-related activities, rather than to her baby.

As the data show, there seems to be a consistency in the attitude of both married and unmarried pregnant women towards their condition; they are reticent and unwilling to talk about it - and they act as if they were not pregnant at all, carrying on with the daily domestic activities that define their way of being in the world much more than motherhood does. The same reticent attitude is explicit in the demeanour of all those people close to pregnant women; the event of a new birth is welcomed but does not bring forth celebrations, or emotional reactions. The birth of a new baby is considered a natural, obvious event, and as such does not call for extraordinary measures. At the time of a new birth, practicalities occupy people more than sentimentalities. A corollary of the described attitudes towards pregnancy and birth is that people in Apiao are valued for their personal autonomy, and for their ability to be autonomous, independent individuals - and this is what really defines a person, irrespective of gender. The emphasis is always on productivity and capacity to live the household life

actively, and the attention does not shift - at least apparently - to the pregnant woman and her child.

Motherly grandmothers

After attitudes regarding pregnancy and birth, the second crucial element that contributed to my observation that motherhood is de-emphasised in Apiao is the particular use of kinship terms. During my stay on the island I hardly heard a child addressing his mother by referring to her as 'mother'. All children, as well as all adults of my generation (and sometimes, the previous generation) would address their mother by her Christian name, and their father in the same way. On the other hand, children tend to address their grandparents (especially so grandmothers) with the parental term, mama or mamy and papa, and whenever referring to them in conversation, people would always use the parental term mama and papa preceded by the possessive adjective. I was initially quite puzzled to see my landlady urging her little children to 'go and sleep with their mama', meaning the great-grandmother, a woman in her nineties, her own grandmother, whom she also called mama. Once I asked little Miria, who was visiting the house with her grandmother, who had plaited her hair, 'Mi mama' she replied, indicating her grandmother. And I told her, but I know your mother, Ana, where is she? The girl replied 'Ah! You mean my other mother?’ Then she told me she had two mothers and two fathers, the ones with whom she was living (meaning: her grandparents), and the others who lived on the other side of the island (meaning: her parents). Another case: a woman in her seventies was telling me how proud she was of Luis, whom I knew to be her grandchild. She