I can't believe it's been a month since my last blog post. I've been so busy doing some more reading, finding images to works with and working on some early sketches, mixing some inks, starting to print a few prints and selecting text excerpts to possibly work with. More about that later.
Before moving on, I've been meaning to write a post about the Enxet Sur, the people from whose ancestors most of the collection items stem. I think the reason I've put off writing about the Enxet Sur is because I don't quite know how to start. Until I began reading for this project to get some background information about the collection, I must admit I didn't know much at all about the Enxet Sur and I feel so far from having expert knowledge to share about another culture. Having grown up in one of the Mennonite communities in the Chaco, I lived on Enlhet Norte territory, although contact with the Enlhet Norte was also very limited for me. I have probably passed by some of the Enxet Sur hut and tent settlements along the Ruta Transchaco on my way to and from Asunción. Since many of the communities have no claim on their ancestral lands, they end up living on public land adjacent to the highway since they have nowhere else to go. Some communities have lived along the Ruta for 20-30 years. I remember sometimes trying to imagine what it would be like to live along the Ruta as I passed by in a car, but it was always so unimaginable and just a passing image that I looked at with pity without being able to do anything about it. Over the years I have followed NGOs such as tierraviva.org on social media and cheered from afar when a few communities regained access to part of their lands during the past few years (such as Sawhoyamaxa and Xámok Kásek) after staging road closures. The territory of the Enxet Sur consists largely of large-scale cattle ranches, resulting in relatively little opportunity for labour in the market economy. With the support of NGOs, the Enxet Sur have become aware of their rights (which do exist in the constitution) and have organized themselves more successfully to fight for their ancestral land claims.
Growing up I often keenly felt the injustices I saw with regards to indigenous people, but I didn't really have words or even a real frame of reference to articulate what I felt. There was this immense chasm between "us" and "them", economically, culturally, linguistically. My only interaction with indigenous people was with day labourers that stopped by to ask for yard work or food. I grew up with the dominant narrative of my (Mennonite) community, which goes something like this: "we've been migrating for centuries trying to find a place where we can live in peace and practice our faith and culture freely (which prominently includes a German school education and exemption from the military). We lost everything in Russia, migrated to Canada, but had to leave Canada again because of broken promises by the government and under much sacrifice and suffering we have created such a rich agricultural region in this 'Green Hell' called the Chaco. Among other things, God has sent us here to bring the gospel to the indigenous peoples. We were victims of the Russian revolution, broken promises, and a misleading settlement project that promised us great lands and brought us to this inhospitable wilderness." While I don't deny the hardships of the Mennonite pioneers in the Chaco, there are so many more layers to the narrative, so many more perspectives on the history: firstly the dispossession and exploitation of the indigenous peoples through the colonization process of the Chaco, the personal narratives of indigenous people recounting their history, their experiences, their trauma, which is largely excluded from any public discourse. Secondly, the Paraguayan government's absence with regards to any land/territory questions for indigenous communities (or any other social supports), thirdly the hope of an American banker to make a healthy profit from the Mennonite colonization project (which financially didn't work out for him in the end). There are probably other angles and other narratives that could be looked at.
Racism is part of everyday life in the Chaco, although most people I talk to either deny it or try to justify it. Part of the Mennonite narrative is the emphasis on a 'peaceful coexistence' between the cultures, whereas reality seems to resemble more a kind of system of Apartheid, where the white and the indigenous communities live quite separately, and many of the indigenous settlements are utilized as cheap labour camps. Having been baptized in the Mennonite faith does not give indigenous people the same status and access to schools, hospitals or co-op memberships as the white Mennonites.
One really interesting aspect for me throughout some of the academic, anthropological and ethnographic readings is the portrayal of the sharing culture of the Enxet. The narrative I grew up perpetuates that the indigenous people are lazy; they don't work more than is needed for the next meal; they don't save for the future to better their living conditions; they always give away what we have given them (such as a blanket), etc. I always thought it sounded rather like good Christian practices, but it was not looked at as such. Seymour Hawtrey describes the sharing economy as "the principles of socialism, which are so deeply instilled in the minds of these Indians. (...) The Lengua natives (Enxet) rule their lives almost exclusively by public opinion. (...) A chief would find out, by listening to conversation, the wishes of the majority, and then carry out the matter through as if it was entirely his own idea. (...) It is difficult to get an Indian to compete against others for a prize which is to be received only by one. Those who loose feel hurt because they lose, and he who wins feels grieved because the others are hurt." (Hawtrey, "The Lengua Indians of the Paraguayan Chaco." The Journal of Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 31, [Jan. - Jun., 1901], p. 292). From his tone, I gather Hawtrey does not look favourably on these principles of socialism. I've come across similar observations by Barbrooke Grubb, which are fittingly summed up by Morgan Crago in the following excerpt: "In his Geographical Society presentation, Grubb described some indigenous cultural practices, such as the custom of always sharing food with strangers (and community members) with a focus on the deficiency of these practices. Grubb remarked that while 'many of the Indians would be fairly hard workers,' the requirement of hospitality prevented wealth accumulation. Any person who acquired more material goods would necessarily end up supporting a large number of poorer relatives ('loafers') because the people lacked 'the moral courage' to argue that 'if a man will not work neither shall he eat.' Their practices of destroying a dead person's goods and vacating settlements where death had occurred had similar effects. While recognizing that the system led to 'equality and justice' with all at 'a common level,' Grubb thought the custom was ultimately a 'cancer that eats of the root of the industrious life of the people.' To remedy this social lack, he thought 'new wants must be created, and when such become necessaries of life, the people will work to get them, and the habit of industry will grow.' (Crago, Morgan. "W. Barbrooke Grubb - Missionary Explorer and Anglican Layman." Boston University. 2020 p.6) This sharing economy which leads to equality within a community does not fit into the capitalist market economy of settlers and governments, and the indigenous people are blamed for their own poverty (without taking into consideration the lack of access to resources and land). Rather than simply dismissing this different philosophy of life, which allows time for leisure and a certain kind of contentment with less, I believe there is much that should be valued about it, supported and learned from.
I thoroughly enjoy reading books and articles that open up new perspectives for me, that allow me to see the world I grew up in differently and that validate that sense of unease and unresolved conflict I experienced. Now I know that unease had to do with the narrative, the history, and the long-term effects of colonization. I so wish that the teaching of multiple perspectives on history would become part of the school's curriculum, but I suspect that won't happen any time soon. I hope that perhaps my prints and my art might give viewers an impetus to reflect and to perceive power imbalances, the purpose and voice of history narratives, and a contribution to a dialogue on decolonizing minds.
Really great resources to read about the Enxet Sur are among others:
Correia, Joel E. "Reworking recognition: Indigeneity, land rights, and the dialectics of disruption in Paraguay's Chaco." Geoforum Vol 119, February 2021
Kidd, Stephen William. Love and Hate Amond the People without Things: The Social and Economic Relations of the Enxet People of Paraguay. University of Saint Andrews, 2000
There are great publications about and with voices from the Enlhet Norte by Hannes Kalisch.
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