Ayoreo Contact with the Outside World

Ayoreo Contact with the Outside World

The Ayoreo that live sedentarily outside the forest, although coexistence with surrounding society has changed their external manners and useful items, still have the basic attitudes and views that reflect essentials of Ayoreo traditional culture: high degree of mobility; non-accumulation; profound trust in nature, in the world and themselves; high degree of personal autonomy within the structures of collective organization; and an attitude of equity – non-superiority – for the world and nature.

The seizure of vast historical Ayoreo land by outside settlers and surrounding society has led to important changes and a notorious decline in the quality of life for the Ayoreo. Ancestral practices of balanced coexistence with the environment were abruptly interrupted when the local Ayoreo groups, who lived on and gave life to a huge extension of forest in the Gran Chaco, were pulled out of their habitat, deported to missionary settlements and forced to lead sedentary lives.

Today the Chaco forests are increasingly affected by the gradual destruction of its eco-system, which are being turned into cattle grazing land. Current business and productive transactions are incompatible with Ayoreo culture and the Chaco. At present, apart from a few small groups that continue to live in voluntary isolation in the forests, most of the Ayoreo natives live permanently in about 22 settlements in Bolivia and currently 13 settlements in Paraguay (June 2005). Only 3 of the settlements in Paraguay are in traditional Ayoreo land. The total number of Ayoreo people continues to stand at around 4,000 people, half of which live on Paraguayan territory.

It is important to note that before the encroachment onto their territory about 45-60 years ago, the Ayoreo had no knowledge of what is called poverty. Persuaded to abandon life in the forest under false promises and settled into large and permanent communities, with a non-indigenous economic model totally foreign to their way of living. Their close and special rapport with the forest and the environment is starting to change and lose its meaning. Presently, the situation of the Ayoreo shows the effects of an accelerated process of impoverishment and of increasing loss of autonomy.

Their dependence on the way of living of surrounding society is growing, but without opportunities to reach a new standard of living compatible with human dignity and the respect for the environment. A number of Ayoreo now live near centers with significant non-indigenous population, in extremely poor conditions, looking for precarious odd jobs as laborers in an insecure, irrational and excluding labor market. Many young Ayoreo have no clear prospects for the future nor constructive possibilities.