Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
knives, children grew up fast, and everyone seemed to be waiting for
something that never arrives. With its skeletal dogs, piles of trash, human
excrement, and emaciated people, Casa Pasajera could make Ayoreo seem
like refugees from some unnamable cataclysm.
But they were there to stay, and they made the town their own. They
had names for its places and goods, like Their Stomachs, where Men-
nonite businessmen dumped slaughterhouse offal for them, or Grand-
mother (
Dacode
) for yerba mate, because it's something you never forget
even if you have nothing else. Children were named not after
edopasade
clan ancestors but after objects of power and desire. There were at least
two men named Rice (
Aocei
), one Tomato Paste (
Conservai
), two Noodles
(
Fideo
), an Onion (
Cebollai
), a Fresh Meat (
Carnei
), a Dried Meat (
Cesina
),
three Vegetable Oils (
Acei)
, one Dried Biscuit (
Galleta
), several Sweets
(
Dulcei
), a Sugar (
Asucai
), a Lettuce (
Lechuga
), two Milks (
Leche
), a Yoghurt
(
Yogui
), and two Breads (
Pamaane
). There was a Train (
Maquina
), a Bull-
dozer (
Topadora
), two Tractors (
Tactoi
), a Chainsaw (
Motosierra
), a Flash-
light (
Linternai
), a Battery (
Piladie
), a Mirror (
Espejoi
), a Motorcycle (
Motoi
),
many Guns (
Poca
), and an Airplane (
Achorro
).
During their visits to Filadelfia, my Totobiegosode friends didn't stay
with their ancestral Guidaigosode enemies in Casa Pasajera. Rather, the
NGO charged with assisting them let them sleep in a wooden shed be-
hind its brick office. There, they would sit for hours watching the pale
figures walk by in gingham dresses or purr along on motorcycles. They
had funny names in Ayoreo for these people, like Fish for one particularly
pale man, Head of Bees for a guy with tightly curled hair, or Bulldozer for
a spiteful fat lady. Those better known had names with a little more sting,
things like Harelip for a woman who tightly compressed her lips when
she was angry at them, Mean Spirit, the Mother of Whores, Fat Belly, and
Old Lady. The Ayoreo watchers claimed to know which
cojñoi
was sleep-
ing with which other
cojñoi
, who was cheating on their wife or husband,
where they went, what kind of vehicles they owned, the personalities of
their pets.
By February, Iodé's mother had come back and at the insistence of
the NGO the Totobiegosode leaders had forbidden Iodé from sleeping in
the shed behind the NGO because she was bringing a string of strange
men there. They were worried the Totobiegosode girls would follow her
example, and rightly so. She moved back to Casa Pasajera, but we'd run
into each other from time to time at night in Filadelfia. She'd be there on
the corner in some impossible outfit with one group of girls and holler to
me out of the dark, “Lucas
ahaiquea
, where are you going?” followed by
her raucous laugh. We'd chat about this or that, where her grandfather
