Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
always fought with each other. and god doesn't like that. it is better if our
ayipie
in
this world is the same
ayipie
as god. the Bible says that our faith is our
ayipie
. it is like
our soul. Our
ayipie
is the same as the
ayipie
of Jesus christ. we therefore cannot forget
about him even for one day. god is more powerful than anything else. we cannot
forget about him or search for the things of this world. that is all we did before when
we did not know that Jesus christ existed. Before we didn't know this. So we always
searched for other wives. we lied. we killed each other. all of the things that Jesus is
against. But now we are together under the light. we are in the hands of god and we
must do what he is in favor of. Only god has strength. Only god can erase bad
ayipie
. if
an ayoreo makes his
ayipie
the same as god's
ayipie
, it will be saved and live forever.
On the radio and in conversation, Totobiegosode described the transfor-
mation of humanity in
Cojñone-Gari
in terms of acquiring
payipie ichadie
,
or new
ayipie
. This was the core of what it meant to become New People
capable of surviving in a New World where the Christian God set the
terms of life and agency. The former slave boy who had been Bill Pen-
cille's key guide throughout the 1950s and 1960s framed this in blunt
terms in a message he sent to all Totobiegosode over the radio.
Our
ayipie
were very bad [
yocayipie poitagipise
] when we lived in the forest before. that
is why we had to know Jesus. and now we know him. Before, we didn't know who
god was. god knows how to change our
ayipiedie
. he wanted us to give him thanks.
also, he wants us to thank people like me and to thank him for “touching” [capturing
and converting] so many ayoreo before. to this day, we are together, all of us, living
in
Cojñone-Gari
as god's people [
Dupade-urasade
]. and today, we are looking for the
ayoreo still in the forest so they will join us as god's people. we have left behind the war
with other ayoreo that we always had before. i am always thinking that this life is fair
because the work that we did saved all of our souls. we are together now with the word
of god and with our faith. all the ayoreo and the new people and the
Cojñone
too.
Yet
ayipie
was more than simply a discourse about radio's power: it was
also the metaphysical and nondiscursive content of radio sound. This
soul matter was a substance that adhered to radio sound and gave voice
its force and texture. I learned that radio sound expanded the ways in
which the moving breath of the speaker and the vibrations of the vocal
chords conjured and channeled a spirit power that could be fused with
words and make them capable of moving through time and space to
cause the effects they ostensibly represented. This relationship between
sound, body, and spirit was crucial to the operations of sympathetic
magic and was the source of shamanic power to heal illness in
Erami
.
Radio technology involved a double transference of audible sound and
