“She threw it on the ground”, complained Sara, the young Mennonite woman. Then Sara said she wanted to move back to Canada where she’d attended college. Sara was raised here in Paraguay’s arid Chaco Region. We met her in her mid 20’s, when she composed her story of frustration, confusion, and sadness. Her inner conflict was palpable. “She threw it on the ground” was Sara’s iconic representation, her inner emotional portrait of the uneasiness within her community. Sara’s uneasiness became our icon, our representation of a quiet collision of cultural stories.
Here’s the rest of Sara’s iconic story: A few times, in nearly consecutive days, an elder native Guarani (“gwaruni”) woman visited Sara’s home to ask for bread. Each time she came, Sara’s mother gathered a couple of slices for the elder woman, and each time, the elder woman showed visible gratitude. On this particular occasion Sara’s mother decided, motivated by both kindness and annoyance, to satisfy the elder woman’s need for several days; she gave the elder woman an entire loaf. The elder woman looked confused and hurt, and as she walked off the porch, she tossed the bread on the ground, into Sara’s front yard.
We accumulated stories describing the cultural turbulence, turbulence at the confluence of mixing cultures, cultures of the Guarani people and the Mennonite Chaco communities. We heard them from the Mennonite peoples. Our vertigo grew as the stories accumulated, not just any stories, stories that defined cultures and structured identities.
Paraguay is an enigmatic land of separately celled and intermixed cultures, a Spanish settled land where Guarani is a people, a language, and the national currency. Though the official languages of Paraguay include both Spanish and Guarani, in modern Paraguayan cities the citizens speak a third language, a confluence of both languages, which mimics their confluence of cultures and bloodlines. Though few visitors to Paraguay venture outside modern Paraguayan cities, if you do, you can find native Guarani peoples and the Mennonite cooperative communities. And if you do, it’s helpful to be more multi-lingual than we were. Citizens of the Mennonite colonies speak what is called Low German. And if you cross the border into Brazil, to visit the Brazilian side of the jaw-dropping Iquazu Falls, the language is Portuguese. We attempted to learn some Spanish before our visit. Though the little we learned was of limited use for our trip.
In 2007, my wife and I were invited to go with her father’s Mennonite group. We visited the Mennonite Cooperatives, islands of self governance, colonizing settlements that sought religious and educational freedom in Paraguay. From Russia, though of German decent, some came in the late 1800’s. Also of German decent, others came from Canada in the early 1900’s. The Paraguayan government invited them to settle lands within their borders, lands that they claimed were unoccupied, lands that they believed were relatively worthless. The industrious and capable Mennonites adapted, they formed governmental structures called cooperatives, and they built modern infrastructures and businesses. They made it work. The Mennonites learned what was geographically different from, and similar to, their homeland. They leveraged resources and equipment, shipped from their homelands, to master their environment.
Yes, it’s true, the lands were unoccupied. They were unoccupied when viewed through the lens of Euro-agrarian-industrial culture (Euro-agrarian for short), with cultural stories that acknowledge occupancy only by those who mark their territory, and assign ownership to occupiers who “add value to the land”. The music of the Euro-agrarian story has its own dance, and from their storied shuffle, the land was unoccupied. And yet it’s also true; the lands were occupied, deeply occupied by those who frequented them.
The Euro-agrarian cultural story has been an historical Pac-Man story, a story that consumes weaker stories, a story that marginalizes those who will not assimilate, and a story that eliminates those who threaten its resources.
The Guarani people have a combination of nomadic and agrarian history. They’ve traveled over a broad region of central South America for over two thousand years. Their story’s music animates a different dance than the Euro-agrarian story. They adapted to what’s available from the land, moving to wherever it is, whenever it is available. Movement has been central to the Guarani historical dance of adaptation, a dance rhythm set by the cycles of seasons, the events of nature. Their existence linked to movement, they have, or had, learned to conserve their population. Movement is difficult with too many young, or with too many elderly. In the absence of modern contraception, infanticide was a culturally merciful practice. Until children are old enough to move under their own power, a mother, the tribe, have little capacity to care for new dependents. Though Guarani practices challenged the values of the Mennonites, their values were built into their cultural story, their history, their identity.
As modern anthropologist Wade Davis might say: The Guarani story is not a failed attempt to discover the Mennonite story, it is their “unique answer to the question of what it means to be human”.
Mennonite colonists told us that they believed the Guarani people were limited, as a species, in their capacities. It’s a familiar historical refrain, a narrative of domination in biblical and pre-biblical times, in South African Apartheid and West African enslavement, in Native American and Aboriginal Australian tragedies. The list goes on, of known and unknown oppressions, with colliding cultural stories comes the recreation of our domination narrative. The Mennonites believe that the Guarani, who are important workers on their farms, in their peanut and dairy processing factories, are incapable of handling higher positions of responsibility, are unworthy to be full members of their Mennonite Cooperatives. The Guarani are restricted from living within Cooperative lands.
Many Guarani now live in communities, on land next to the Cooperatives, the Cooperatives they serve. These Guarani have become dependent; they’ve lost the autonomy of their story. The Mennonites have convinced them to raise more of their children, to end their population controlling practices, and to assume their roles as workers within Mennonite businesses.
When we visited Paraguay, members of the Mennonite Colonies expressed complaints about Guarani overpopulation and dependence, Guarani alcoholism, and concern for rising diabetes among the Guarani peoples. We learned that Guarani communities were working to organize into their own Cooperatives. They were organizing in the image of the Mennonite communities, to gain autonomy, not through living their own story, but by increasing their story mimicry.
Remember Sara’s “She threw it on the ground” story? We shared this story with a wise elder member of one Mennonite community. He told us that in Guarani culture it’s common to ask for, and to give, food and resources as a means to connect in community. He said that Guarani believe it’s an insult to give more than what is asked for, more than what is needed. He suggested that the elder Guarani woman felt the insult. He suggested that the over-giving by Sara’s mother was a form of rejection, a request to be satisfied for longer, a rejection of the elder woman’s invitation into the Guarani story of community.
“She threw it on the ground”, complained Sara, the young Mennonite woman. Then Sara said she wanted to move back to Canada where she’d attended college. Sara was raised here in Paraguay’s arid Chaco Region. We met her in her mid 20’s, when she composed her story of frustration, confusion, and sadness. Her inner conflict was palpable. “She threw it on the ground” was Sara’s iconic representation, her inner emotional portrait of the uneasiness within her community. Sara’s uneasiness became our icon, our representation of a quiet collision of cultural stories.
Here’s the rest of Sara’s iconic story: A few times, in nearly consecutive days, an elder native Guarani (“gwaruni”) woman visited Sara’s home to ask for bread. Each time she came, Sara’s mother gathered a couple of slices for the elder woman, and each time, the elder woman showed visible gratitude. On this particular occasion Sara’s mother decided, motivated by both kindness and annoyance, to satisfy the elder woman’s need for several days; she gave the elder woman an entire loaf. The elder woman looked confused and hurt, and as she walked off the porch, she tossed the bread on the ground, into Sara’s front yard.
We accumulated stories describing the cultural turbulence, turbulence at the confluence of mixing cultures, cultures of the Guarani people and the Mennonite Chaco communities. We heard them from the Mennonite peoples. Our vertigo grew as the stories accumulated, not just any stories, stories that defined cultures and structured identities.
Paraguay is an enigmatic land of separately celled and intermixed cultures, a Spanish settled land where Guarani is a people, a language, and the national currency. Though the official languages of Paraguay include both Spanish and Guarani, in modern Paraguayan cities the citizens speak a third language, a confluence of both languages, which mimics their confluence of cultures and bloodlines. Though few visitors to Paraguay venture outside modern Paraguayan cities, if you do, you can find native Guarani peoples and the Mennonite cooperative communities. And if you do, it’s helpful to be more multi-lingual than we were. Citizens of the Mennonite colonies speak what is called Low German. And if you cross the border into Brazil, to visit the Brazilian side of the jaw-dropping Iquazu Falls, the language is Portuguese. We attempted to learn some Spanish before our visit. Though the little we learned was of limited use for our trip.
In 2007, my wife and I were invited to go with her father’s Mennonite group. We visited the Mennonite Cooperatives, islands of self governance, colonizing settlements that sought religious and educational freedom in Paraguay. From Russia, though of German decent, some came in the late 1800’s. Also of German decent, others came from Canada in the early 1900’s. The Paraguayan government invited them to settle lands within their borders, lands that they claimed were unoccupied, lands that they believed were relatively worthless. The industrious and capable Mennonites adapted, they formed governmental structures called cooperatives, and they built modern infrastructures and businesses. They made it work. The Mennonites learned what was geographically different from, and similar to, their homeland. They leveraged resources and equipment, shipped from their homelands, to master their environment.
Yes, it’s true, the lands were unoccupied. They were unoccupied when viewed through the lens of Euro-agrarian-industrial culture (Euro-agrarian for short), with cultural stories that acknowledge occupancy only by those who mark their territory, and assign ownership to occupiers who “add value to the land”. The music of the Euro-agrarian story has its own dance, and from their storied shuffle, the land was unoccupied. And yet it’s also true; the lands were occupied, deeply occupied by those who frequented them.
The Euro-agrarian cultural story has been an historical Pac-Man story, a story that consumes weaker stories, a story that marginalizes those who will not assimilate, and a story that eliminates those who threaten its resources.
The Guarani people have a combination of nomadic and agrarian history. They’ve traveled over a broad region of central South America for over two thousand years. Their story’s music animates a different dance than the Euro-agrarian story. They adapted to what’s available from the land, moving to wherever it is, whenever it is available. Movement has been central to the Guarani historical dance of adaptation, a dance rhythm set by the cycles of seasons, the events of nature. Their existence linked to movement, they have, or had, learned to conserve their population. Movement is difficult with too many young, or with too many elderly. In the absence of modern contraception, infanticide was a culturally merciful practice. Until children are old enough to move under their own power, a mother, the tribe, have little capacity to care for new dependents. Though Guarani practices challenged the values of the Mennonites, their values were built into their cultural story, their history, their identity.
As modern anthropologist Wade Davis might say: The Guarani story is not a failed attempt to discover the Mennonite story, it is their “unique answer to the question of what it means to be human”.
Mennonite colonists told us that they believed the Guarani people were limited, as a species, in their capacities. It’s a familiar historical refrain, a narrative of domination in biblical and pre-biblical times, in South African Apartheid and West African enslavement, in Native American and Aboriginal Australian tragedies. The list goes on, of known and unknown oppressions, with colliding cultural stories comes the recreation of our domination narrative. The Mennonites believe that the Guarani, who are important workers on their farms, in their peanut and dairy processing factories, are incapable of handling higher positions of responsibility, are unworthy to be full members of their Mennonite Cooperatives. The Guarani are restricted from living within Cooperative lands.
Many Guarani now live in communities, on land next to the Cooperatives, the Cooperatives they serve. These Guarani have become dependent; they’ve lost the autonomy of their story. The Mennonites have convinced them to raise more of their children, to end their population controlling practices, and to assume their roles as workers within Mennonite businesses.
When we visited Paraguay, members of the Mennonite Colonies expressed complaints about Guarani overpopulation and dependence, Guarani alcoholism, and concern for rising diabetes among the Guarani peoples. We learned that Guarani communities were working to organize into their own Cooperatives. They were organizing in the image of the Mennonite communities, to gain autonomy, not through living their own story, but through growing their story mimicry.
Remember Sara’s “She threw it on the ground” story? We shared this story with a wise elder member of one Mennonite community. He told us that in Guarani culture it’s common to ask for, and to give, food and resources as a means to connect in community. He said that Guarani believe it’s an insult to give more than what is asked for, more than what is needed. He suggested that the elder Guarani woman felt the insult. He suggested that the over-giving by Sara’s mother was a form of rejection, a request to be satisfied for longer, a rejection of the elder woman’s invitation into the Guarani story of community.