Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
the core of shamanic practice. By 2001, these chants had been abandoned
across Ayoreoland. Jnupi, my first adopted father and himself a respected
elder who accompanied me on some of my journeys, told me that there
was only one old man in Bolivia who still knew the chants and might be
willing to talk about them.
His name was Simijáné. In 2001 he was around ninety years old. He
had been a main informant of every ethnographer who had ever writ-
ten on Ayoreo “traditional religion.” All of Simijáné's assistance had
not translated into material wealth. Simijáné was poor even by Ayoreo
standards. He survived on the coins he begged from passersby in the
city center and from his great-granddaughters' earnings from sex work.
His unashamed willingness to talk about ujñarone was not merely ex-
ceptional but singular. It made him a highly controversial figure among
other Ayoreo-speaking people.
I found him hunched unsmiling on the curb of his favorite corner in
downtown Santa Cruz, a few steps away from a French boutique. The
slight figure looked impossibly alien among the roaring buses with his
dirty rags, patched bag, eyes blue with cataracts, and cane made from a
broken broom handle. As I approached, he held out his hand and asked
for a coin in a surprising bass voice.
I ignored the request but felt awkward about towering over him, so
I squatted down on the curb nearby. He seemed to lose all interest in
me at that point and sat in silence. Within seconds, a large, middle-aged
Ayoreo woman approached in an oversize pink T-shirt and a long, floral-
print skirt, holding a toddler. She fixed me with a hard stare and asked
me what I wanted. I tried to explain. The woman was his daughter,
and her gaze relaxed as soon as she heard that I was an anthropology
student.
“So you want him to tell you about the old things,” she interrupted.
“Yes.”
“Will you pay?”
I flushed. She said all anthropologists had to pay. I said we should talk
about it. Both of us knew that meant probably. I was uncomfortable but
she was pleased. She told me to come visit them that weekend and gave
me directions to the abandoned lot where they were camped. She said
their family had been kicked out of the urban camp three weeks earlier
and had been beaten with fists and clubs. She didn't say why, but I later
heard that Simijáné had been suspected of sorcery. Others in the camp
attributed several unexplained deaths to his secretly reciting of chants
in his home. They said he was in league with Satan.
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