Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
which taming savage Indians was essential for transforming the power
of their difference into the salvation of all Christendom. Yet dark forces
opposed them. They imagined themselves in “spiritual warfare” against a
diabolic savagery that was “trapping” and “holding prisoner” the “world's
untouched fields” of Indian souls.
14
It was no coincidence, then, that the
Bolivian director of colonization Viador Moreno Peña himself, granted
the New Tribes Mission a state mandate to “civilize the Barbarian Indi-
ans” of the Chaco in 1946.
15
Brown Gold
The first aspiring New Tribes missionaries stepped off the plane in
Roboré, Bolivia, in 1942. Or so the story goes. They were told by one
army official that Roboré was “the most strategic spot in all of South
America to evangelize savages.”
16
A small town of whitewashed adobe
houses, wooden vigas, streets of red earth—a place cooled by scented
breezes from the taller forests of the gentler northern edges of the Chaco.
“Women with long black single-braided hair smiled their
buenos días
as
we passed. Barefoot children stared.”
17
The striking impression made by
these gringos, with their brass instruments, penchant for public prayer,
and ardent faith, lingered in local memories for years.
Many of the male townspeople of Roboré and neighboring towns were
veteran Indian hunters. The Indian hunt was a venerable backwoods in-
stitution. These hunts were based on a simple formula: track down a band
of forest
Indios bárbaros
with dogs, attack at dawn by rushing
en masse
into the middle of the camp, shoot any adult men, and capture as many
women and children as possible. The captives were roped together and
taken back to the towns, where they were sold, divided among towns-
people as gifts or sent on to relatives in Santa Cruz. These Indian slaves
were called
criados
. They worked as domestic servants, sexual servants,
clerks, shopkeepers, ranch hands.
18
Having one was a mark of status and
prestige.
Ayoreo warriors raided back, killing a cow or a lone peasant from time
to time. Military commanders advocated exterminating all of the
Bárbaros
with regular bombing raids. Not surprisingly, some residents of Roboré
doubted that these tall, well-fed gringos were willing to risk their lives to
befriend and convert the
Bárbaros
. But everyone knew that Jesuits and
Incas—and who knew who else—had left behind hidden hoards of gold,
concealed in the damp tangled forest. Jean Dye Johnson was one of the
