The Lost Center of the World - Behold the Black Caiman - page 48

These pamite dateode were not only shared by different bands of the
same uage , but the margins of large spatial divisions were often shared by
different Ayoreo-speaking groups, such as the garai prairie on the southern
edge of Manenaquide'uniri. Because of historical alliances between the
Totobiegosode and Iñojamuigosode, bands from the two groups ranged
into each other's uniri even though other bands of the Garaigosode allied
with the Iñojamuigosode sought to exerminate the Totobiegosode. Such
fluid boundaries and agreements created a number of wider joint-use
areas around the margins of fiercely defended territorial cores. In times
of peace, Ayoreo-speaking groups could send out messengers and request
permission to visit or cross their uniri . I was told that such dajetagode visits
from other groups, even from distant unireone , were common.
Place names, as well as borders, were also highly fluid. Places were
descriptively named after events that happened there. This system of
naming meant that a single group of people for each place could have
various names, and that the group's knowledge of place names and social
events was continually evolving depending on its composition. It also
meant that events could potentially delimit a new place. As Yoteuoi told
me, “There are very many places in our country. There are so many places
that even if we all sat here and helped one another we would never be
able to tell you all the names of the places where people used to camp.”
A single individual only knew part of these place names, depending on
his or her social relations. That person could never know all the names
of the places within his or her own uniri , nor were the referents of such
names entirely fixed. This multiplicity was not seen as contradictory or
confusing. Rather, place names were constantly being generated, applied,
cited, resuscitated, forgotten, or disputed. Such names were—are still—
often invoked to show solidarity or index a shared experience that ties
an individual to the group. This meant that the landscape or uniri space
did not contain named places that imbued it with meaning but, rather,
that the practice of citing and naming places patterned time and space in
ways that always had the potential to reorganize it.
This fluidity also applied to Ayoreo ways of grouping people, from
band to uage village confederations. Each uage was named after a particu-
lar place, such as the People-from-the-Place-of-the-Village, or Guidaigos-
ode ; People-from-the-Place-of-the-New-Day or Direquedenejnaigosode ;
and People-from-the-Place-of-the-Hole-in-the-Ground, or Jnupedogosode .
Yet neither these names nor group membership were fixed. Genealogies I
made in the Totobiegosode villages suggested that such circulation was
pervasive. Although Totobiegosode say they have not had sustained