Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
brink of starvation. These miracle narratives reconstituted and mystified
the links between cause and effect in the time of memory. Aasi was fond
of telling the following story:
now I am going to tell of the time I went to bring firewood, and a rattlesnake almost
bit me. I did not see it until I was very close. I saw something, and it was the rattlesnake.
you know that when the rattlesnake is ready to bite, it coils its body. I could not move
my foot; it seemed very heavy. I wanted to jump but I could not. The snake was ready,
and I could not understand why it didn't bite me. God protected me so that the snake
did not bite me. Instead, it moved away. There are many things that have happened
to me like this, in which God protected me. Because of the protection of God, I was
not bitten. I thanked God because the snake did not bite me. Because of God, I am
still alive today.
The distinctions between past and future human kinds were also spatially
inscribed. Totobiegosode, for example, at times associated nanique and
its animating forces with certain places in the wilderness. This use was
consistent with a general schema in which Ayoreo words for place and
direction usually referred to experienced time as well. Thus, jogadi could
refer to a specific location as well as a specific time; the future was referred
to with words that also meant before, in front of, above, and on the other
side; and the past was expressed with words that meant behind, after, and
what has been passed. Both the future and the past could be near, far,
a medium “distance,” between, or otherwise located spatially vis-à-vis
other moments. Up and down, however, referred to parallel universes
that represented distinct modes of nonlinear social time. This spatializa-
tion of social time may at times have threatened the strict segregation
of memory that Ayoreo said was a necessary condition for apocalyptic
redemption.
The Christian God, Dupade , was said to absolutely control the terms
of human life in Cojñone-Gari . 15 But the extent of his power was less clear
for Ayoreo-speaking people who encountered the material remnants of
the past or found themselves back in the places they used to inhabit.
Most of these zones and the occasional potsherd found while hunting
were treated with no particular reverence. This was not the case, however,
when we happened on one of their more permanent village sites, ore idai ,
with its dome-shaped communal house, ore iguijnai . Because such houses
were often abruptly abandoned and are very durable, they could seem
jarringly contemporary. Firewood remained neatly stacked and ready for
use, reeds for arrow shafts were tucked into the roof, tins and blankets
and bones were strewn about, favored paths were still clearly visible. The
Search WWH ::




Custom Search