The context and the intentions of telling the myth

As I have already mentioned, Agapito narrated the myth of the “Two shamans and the Owner of Cattle” on the same evening that he related the “Arrival of Paraguayans” and other myths. The conversation began that evening with a comparison of past and present shamanism, in the course of which Agapito criticized one shaman, whom we both knew, as being inauthentic and undeservedly favoured by the NGO for which I used to work (see chapter 2). He also criticized a language promoter involved in the Angaité revitalization programme who used to bring provisions in order to gather people from different villages. His technique, Agapito assured, was of no use as “he does not properly learn the language but just writes down the words” (Fieldnotes, 18/1/2005). Agapito went on to refer to the powers, deeds and perils of traditional shamanism, starting with a description of the shaman’s ability to throw darts at game animals in order to hunt them down and feed the community. From my knowledge of the literature on the subject, I commented that some shamans were jaguars, to which Agapito replied by telling me about the shaman who converted himself into a jaguar to go hunting capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) to feed his people and eventually ended up killing his own two sons.157 There followed several Nanek Anya, most of which made reference to shamans and/or Paraguayans. Agapito’s inclusion of the “Two shamans and the Owner of Cattle” follows, therefore, from the fact that the conversation started with the issue of shamans and their relationship with powerful outsiders (the members of a Paraguayan NGO). What better case in point for a conversation about past and present shamanic practices than a Nanek Anya related to shamans and their Paraguayan auxiliary spirit Valay Veske, Chief of the Paraguayans? The point is self-evident. The conversation also alluded to the misleading attempts of a Paraguayan to learn the Angaité language.

What is not obvious – nor explicitly mentioned in our conversation – is that Agapito himself is a shaman and that, from his point of view, I was a powerful Paraguayan. He initiated the conversation by explicitly stating what he considered to be improper types of

157

Clastres (1987[1975]:140ff.) discusses the transformation of shamans into jaguars and vice versa. The transformation, however, seems not to be restricted to male shamans. Palmer (2005:94) tells that, amongst the Wichí of the Argentine Chaco, women in extremis “assume the characteristics of the jaguar” and also mentions the existence of a narrative in which a woman transforms into a jaguar. Grubb (1914:61-62) refers to a similar, ancient version of Agapito’s myth of the jaguar-shaman in which a man wanted to marry the human wife of a male Jaguar and killed the offspring of the jaguar-human couple.

attitude in relations between shamans and powerful Paraguayans, and between Paraguayans and Angaité storytellers. Then he expanded on the Nanek Anya in which the agency of shamans and/or Paraguayans – singly or in relation to each other – is problematic and complex. I said from the beginning that I wanted to learn the Angaité language and everything about the past, but what I did not realize beforehand was that, for Agapito, such apprenticeship was not restricted to acquiring linguistic capabilities – far less, to simply writing down Angaité words. As we will see in the following chapter, learning the Angaité language implied, for Agapito, my acquisition of a sort of shamanic knowledge. Another issue that was central to the conversation – as well as cutting across our entire relationship and the broader framework of past and present relations between the Angaité people and Paraguayans – is the provision of subsistence, among the means for which the abilities of shamans and the wealth of Paraguayans stand out.

I believe, then, that the main problem posed in the conversation – and expounded in most of the Nanek Anya told that night – is how the two terms, i.e. shamanic power and Paraguayan wealth, succeed (or not) in supplying the needs of the community, thereby allowing the members to “live well”. The posing of the problem did not owe itself to a premeditated agenda on Agapito’s part or to calculated interventions on the part of the ethnographer, but rather arose as a result of a meandering sequence of discussion topics and narratives. None the less, Agapito ostensibly wanted to make sure that I was well informed about the operation of shamanic powers in the past and about the disastrous consequences ensuing from their mismanagement, where by mismanagement is understood lack of control and disregard for proper social behaviour.158 He then linked shamanic power to the issue of Paraguayan wealth, both in the “Arrival of Paraguayans” and in the “Two shamans and the Owner of Cattle”. Both myths ratify the impossibility for the Angaité of achieving such wealth, and in both cases this is attributed to their own actions: in one case, it is apparently a shaman who tells the people not to eat the valayo food, thereby wasting an empowering opportunity; in the other, two members of the community interfere in the shamanic endeavours, again to the detriment of social well- being. In both myths the interference is produced by a negative sensory element: poisonous food and a disturbing sexual odour, respectively.

158

Agapito also referred that night to the saga of Pelhten, Moon (see chapter 2, and Appendix 1), who, when he was still human, was a great sorcerer and Apmovana anya (“capable of telling/making up stories”). In so doing, he added the talent of storytelling to the ancient shaman’s abilities.

For reasons that will become clear in chapter 4, the Paraguayans’ wealth is not understood in Agapito’s narratives as a physical property but as a generative faculty comparable to shamanic power and, as such, linked to auxiliary beings in their capacity as owners of specific goods. The core theme, therefore, of our conversation that night, and the associated storytelling, was the misunderstanding between different agents such as shamans and Paraguayans, and the mismatching of their respective agencies and abilities. It is a theme that reflected the predicament faced by Agapito and myself, in our respective capacities as shaman and Paraguayan, at that early stage in our relationship. As already mentioned, the problem was not manifestly expressed. It was suggested by exposing the difficulties that our reciprocal agencies could bring into being. As human agents ethnically and historically constituted in different ways, our respective agencies could and would be mutually transformative by virtue of the relational knowledge referred to in chapter 1. That is, the knowledge acquired through engaging with others is not neutral but, rather, implies a transformation of the self in terms of the other. As the narratives unfold, it emerges that the abuse or misuse of the knowledge derived from that engagement may have a negative transformative impact, as well as affecting the relationship between the terms involved, as in the case of the two shamans and Valay Veske.

In sum, Agapito’s narration of the myth can be understood on a variety of levels: as a lesson in ancient Angaité shamanism, in the negative aspects of the relation between shamans and Paraguayans, and in the problems associated with their respective generative powers, each of which provides for the subsistence needs of society. At the same time, on a personal level, Agapito was reflecting on the possibility that our own relationship might be affected by our respective agencies.