Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
passed a handful of shady recessed houses, garages, and a generator sta-
tion, before stopping in front of a large brick house with a picket fence
and flowers shaded by palm trees. A Great Dane greeted me at the gate,
and a half-grown pet anteater raised its sticklike nose to examine me.
Soon, a smiling woman with pale skin and auburn hair invited me to
sit on a padded wicker chair on the cool porch. She spoke English, her
words clipped and polite. She served me a glass of cold lemonade. I held
each sip in my mouth before swallowing. It was cold and sweet. It just
couldn't be, but so it was.
I had arrived hoping to interview her husband, Bobby. We chatted
while we waited. She was born in Thailand, the child of New Tribes mis-
sionaries. She asked for news of the US, which she imagined as a place
of gang violence and childhood obesity and video games. She told me
they kept newspaper clippings of all the accusations of genocide that
anthropologists had leveled against her husband's family and that she
was ambivalent about the recent news that her nephew was taking an-
thropology classes in college.
Like his wife, Bobby was also a second-generation New Tribes mission-
ary. His parents were famous in the Chaco. In 1966, they had established
the first permanent mission with the Guidaigosode at a remote camp
near Cerro León. His father had been involved in several contacts with
forest Totobiegosode. Bobby and his brother were raised among Ayoreo
people. It was Bobby who had the closest friends among them and it was
Bobby that Ayoreo-speaking people respected, over and above all other
missionaries. He spoke impeccable Ayoreo, bow-hunted peccaries in the
forest, and gave oranges to the children when he came to preach to the
New People in Chaidi. They said it was Bobby who brought messages
from the Son of God.
One of these messages, which began shortly after I arrived, was that
I was opposed to God, that I was a helper of Satan, that I would lead the
Totobiegosode to
Ngahu Pioi
, the “lake of fire.” For more than a year prior
to my arrival at his house, Bobby and I had carried on a debate by proxy.
I put out word that I didn't hate God. It was disconcerting to find myself
imitating preachers I had known as a child in western Kansas, where my
grandfather often took me to services at the evangelical Church of Christ
he so loved. To argue with Totobiegosode that they were not intrinsi-
cally sinful, I ended up quoting scripture and discussing Bible parables
at length.
I tried time and again to interview Bobby, but he always refused. My
meeting with him that day was more the result of Ayoreo lobbying than
anything else. Many people said they liked us both and that we should
