Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Common impressions of moral insufficiency in
Cojñone-Gari
were en-
forced by the fact that Ayoreo-speaking people were frequently sick with
a range of preventable diseases. On their diet of rice, sugar, and noodles—
modeled on that of working-class Paraguayans—teeth fell out by twenty-
five and young children had the orange hair of protein deficiency. People
died from infections that would be minor elsewhere. Teenagers were di-
agnosed with rare forms of cancer and most recently, HIV. In a cruel
irony, the shift to sedentary villages means Ayoreo are now exposed not
only to tuberculosis but also to the spores of lung-damaging fungi that
are commonly buried in undisturbed Chaco soils. The ubiquitous golden
dust itself had become a potentially mortal contagion.
Totobiegosode told me that illness itself had changed. They said that
the diseases afflicting them were different than before, that they were
particular to the metaphysics of
Cojñone-Gari
. Similar attitudes have long
been noted among Ayoreo-speaking people, and were encouraged by
early missionaries. New Tribes missionary Asi'guede, reported in 1970
that some Guidaigosode at El Faro Moro agreed to convert to Christianity
only if they would also receive injections of Western medicine. “One day
in camp,” he wrote, “the chief said to me, 'Tell your wife to give shots
to all of our people so that
Asojná
won't be able to touch us.' ”
12
Western
medicine at that time was a cure for the failure to obey
puyaque
limits.
During my fieldwork, Totobiegosode distinguished between diseases
sent by Satan/
Asojná
and those sent by
Dupade
/
Cojñone
. They called these
new illnesses
Cojñone Ujatiode
. The phrase implied that the illness origi-
nated from the hostility of
Cojñone
and that they were specifically aimed
