Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
caused my right leg to swell until it was streaked with black and I couldn't
walk. I remember gourd rattles and firelight and a group of women who
held me down and mercilessly probed the infected spot. In this memory
they began to admonish me for my willfulness. “Asojná did this to you.
It is because you went to hunt in the forest like an Ayoreo. But you are
Cojñoi
. The forest is no place for you.” Just as quickly, they vanished. Did
this mean my illness was caused by my insufficient faith in
Dupade
or by
my failure to respect the spirits of the forest or both at the same time? Or
was this just another fever dream?
As a
Cojñoi
, it was often taken for granted that I knew how to diagnose
and cure the sicknesses of
Cojñone-Gari
. In general, Totobiegosode con-
sumed as much medicine as they could find, dozens of pills they classed
by color or shape and shared with each other. A mixture of caffeine and
painkillers was the most popular kind. Totobiegosode people called pills
semenie
or
bisidode
, and their names were stories:
yajo pororodie
, “we eat
white things,” was a common way to refer to taking Western medicine.
Bisite utatai
, black medicine, was for stomachaches.
Seme carate
, or red
medicine, was seen as a vitamin. Novalgina painkillers were called by
Totobiegosode
Nujnanguto'date potedie
, or “that which Nujnanguto'date
always wanted,” after a woman who frequently took them. “That which
Nujnanguto always wanted” referred to Syndol, a similar painkiller.
Chicori-potedie
, or “that which Chicori always desires,” was the name for
Calmol, a popular mixture of muscle relaxant and painkillers. Needle
medicine was the name for antibiotics. Men medicine, or
seme choquiode
,
referred to all kinds of pills that were elongated or oval in shape, while
women medicine, or
seme chequedie
, referred to all pills that were round.
Many people, even those who seemed healthy, were taking immense
quantities of pills. One of my Totobiegosode friends took more than
thirty different pills every day, ten of which were prescribed by a doc-
tor. His wife began to get visibly nervous when the supply was low. Sev-
eral individuals—all contact survivors—were known pill collectors. One
woman in her early fifties constantly complained of weakness. She would
moan and cry if she was refused medicine, no matter its shape, color, or
effect. She was said to hoard the pills and bury them in a jar in her house.
Other people refused to take medicine of certain colors and shapes, no
matter their illness.
One day out hunting, Cutai asked me if it was true that
Cojñone
had
medicines that could make you happy, that could cure one of sadness. I
stumbled through a description of mood-altering drugs and antidepres-
sants. I tried to explain in my insufficient Ayoreo that there was a kind of
medicine that changed how one feels but that it was only for those who
