Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
families eventually travel to São Vicente during the summer,
quando o lixo está
gordo
(when the garbage is fat).
16
This same striking analogy between safe/clean garbage and dangerous/dirty drugs
was drawn by another Guarani woman from the Itaóca Village, but from the Mbyá
group. Sonia also referred to her life on the dump, as I watched her cook some
spaghetti her oldest son had been lucky enough to find in a heap of trash:
I pray we can still make it to the Ywy Marae'y. At least the dumpyard is clean.
I don't do drugs, I don't drink, and I don't have sex with white men. So I guess
I still qualify for Ywy Marae'y.
Unlike the Guarani Nhandeva households, which are in the hands of the women
because the men have “disappeared” - they have either been killed by drug
traffickers, in alcohol-related accidents or else are trapped in a web of eternal debt
on sugar cane plantations and banana farms - the Guarani Mbyá households, located
on the other side of the Itaóca reservation, are headed by Guarani men. As the Mbyá
like to put it, “we don't mix,” which means there are no marriages outside of the
extended patrilineal families, and sex between a Guarani and a non-Guarani is
strictly forbidden. These are “temptations” one should avoid in order to qualify for
migration to the Land-without-Evil.
According to karaí Henrique Firmino, the use of drugs and alcohol hampers the
passage to an altered state of consciousness. An altered state of consciousness is a
prerequisite to transcendence that can very effectively be fulfilled by fasting. While
drugs are considered “dirty” because they hinder one's transcendental abilities, the
dump is considered “clean” in spite of all the filth, since it embodies scarcity and
thus provides for the state of hunger that is necessary for spiritual transcendence.
THE DOCTOR, THE INDIAN AND THE AMBULANCE DRIVER
Unlike the Guarani Nhandeva on the southernmost part of the Itaóca reservation, who
only speak Portuguese, the Mbyá children communicate exclusively in Guarani. The
Mbyá community maintains tight kinship ties, and solidarity among family members
is strong. Young Indigenous leaders such as Luiz Karaí, who became the headman
of the Itaóca Village in 1997, have just begun supporting community projects, such
as vegetable gardens and communal kitchens, with the food still coming from the
dump, in most cases. But Luiz Karaí - whose last name is an indication of his status
as a prophet - plans to get everyone out of the dump because, as he says, “this kind
of suffering cannot get us to Ywy Marae'y, only to the cemetery.” The young leader
- 38 years of age in 2014 - belongs to a generation which began realizing, in its
teens, that unless the conditions of life featured in the Land-without-Evil became a
mundane reality, the Guarani world would be doomed to destruction.
Back to the ambulance performance, presented in the opening of this chapter,
which karaí Henrique Firmino and I watched from the family's kitchen. Mariano Tupã
Mirim, an 18-year-old Guarani Mbyá who works as a health agent on the reservation,
