Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians [Paperback]

Pierre Clastres (Author), Paul Auster (Translator, Foreword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0942299787 | ISBN-13: 978-0942299786 | Publication Date: December 11, 2000

Pierre Clastres (1934-1979) was one of the most respected political anthropologists of our time. Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians is an account of his first fieldwork in the early 1960s--an encounter with a small, unique, and now vanished Paraguayan tribe. From "Birth" to "The End," Clastres follows the Guayakis in their everyday lives, determined to record every detail of their history, ritual, myths, and culture in order to answer the many questions prompted by his personal experiences. Now available for the first time in English in a beautiful translation by the novelist Paul Auster, Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians will alter radically not only the Western academic conventions in which other cultures are thought but also the discipline of political anthropology itself.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In the early 1960s, the French anthropologist Pierre Clastres spent two years living among the Guayaki people of Paraguay, a tiny community of nomadic hunters whose way of life was quickly disappearing. When Clastres arrived in Paraguay, there were only 100 Guayaki left, and their culture seemed doomed by influenza and encroaching civilization. Clastres's description of his encounters with these people is respectful, self-aware, and written with great skill. Paul Auster (author of The New York Trilogy and the movie Smoke) translated the book from French to English in the late 1970s, sent it to a publisher, and then lost track of the manuscript for 20 years. Fortunately, one of Auster's fans stumbled upon the manuscript in a used-book store in 1996 and brought it to the author, making this publication possible.

According to Clastres, the Guayaki were mild-mannered folk who relished the taste of human flesh. There were far more men than women in the community, which seems sort of sinister. Every June, when the air was cold enough to make the bees logy, all the Guayaki groups gathered for a honey festival, which featured tickling games and many sexual adventures. In short, the Guayaki led lives very different from our own. There is something deeply satisfying about learning the details of faraway, drastically foreign lives. Clastres manages to describe these people's daily lives and traditions without making them seem exotic or sensationalizing their story. Clastres's quiet, detailed observations honor this vanished culture and should be of interest to anthropologists and layman alike. --Jill Marquis --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Little was known about the nomadic Guayaki Indians of eastern Paraguay until Clastres, a French ethnographer now deceased, made contact with them. He lived among them in 1963-64 and documented their history and culture. His study is extremely valuable because it documents the experiences of a group of people who no longer exist. Clastres published the French edition of this book in 1972, and it has been translated by novelist Auster, who originally translated this title in the mid-1970s. Auster's trials and tribulations in getting it published are documented in the section entitled "Translator's Notes" and his story alone is worth the price of the book. The photographs and illustrations greatly enhance the text and provide valuable information. Highly recommended for specialized collections on South American Indians.?John Burch, Cumberland Coll. Lib., Williamsburg, Ky.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (December 11, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0942299787
• ISBN-13: 978-0942299786
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #198,778 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #4 in Books > History > Americas > South America > Paraguay

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars further reading, March 22, 2006

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Of Rules "Sam" (New Mexico) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians (Paperback)

Contrary to the above reviews, the Guayakí have not "disappeared." At present, they are rarely referred to as "guayakí" (it is offensive to them), favoring the name "Aché." Their nomadic subsistence is sadly gone, but many aspects of the culture continue in the Aché communities. For a physical anthropological study of the Aché-Guayakí and a brief history of the contact, check out Kim Hill and Magdalena Hurtado's "Aché Life History." Its out-of-print and hard to find but provides an interesting, albeit academic, complement to Clastres' work.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not quite Structural Anthropology but a fine effort from student of Levi-Strauss, December 18, 2008

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Mendicant Pigeon "Mendicant Pigeon" (pdx, or United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians (Paperback)

It came as a pleasant surprise to discover that the author of this book was an understudy of Claude Levi-Strauss for, the latter's Tristes Tropiques elicited an intellectual epiphany in this reviewer.
This is not to say that Claustres' writing is anywhere near as good as Levi-Strauss', even though this chronicle of his one year plus association with the Guayaki, or Atchei Gatu, Indians of Paraguay in 1963-64 is a compelling, worthwhile read.
Claustres' task was to gather as much information as he could about the tribe's daily life, customs, 'religious' beliefs, family and tribal structures, tool use, etc. In short, or long, everything of note that he can observe. Indeed, the book is brim full of interesting, often fascinating, information and the author successfully brings the tribe to life in the reader's mind.
In fact, to examine the life of the Other, you need go no further than this book, for the life these Indians led is so out of the bounds of modern mores that they come off as an altogether different species of human.
I know that today it is acceptable only to lament the displacement of the aboriginal population of the New World by the denizens of the Old, but it strikes one that no reasonable person would countenance the Atchei Gatu order of things, assuming that Claustres' account is accurate. Granted some people would celebrate a reality that includes Incest, internecine human sacrifice, infanticide, geriatric murder, polyandry, pedophilia, open marriage, and cannbialism, albeit not, evidently, onanism. For most of us, however, the the Atchei Gatu way of life must fill us with revulsion. Their tribal life is voyeurisitically interesting, to be sure, but also repulsive and reading about it causes one to realize that, as portrayed, there really should be no place for it in our world.
This book though is a worthwhile read. A few comments, the drawings of the native implements are beautifully rendered and the photos are charming. One does wish that the author or translator had given a guide to pronouncing the native words that are liberally sprinkled throughout the text.
Finally, one does sometimes question the veracity of this account. It is not so much that the material is sensationalized or beggars belief, but much of what is there does beg questions. For instance, the tribal members have wonderfully descriptive names that are supposedly bestowed upon them according to spiritual connections made before birth, yet surely the sex-hungry elderly woman 'Perechankangi' or 'Vagina of Dry Wood' was not called that from birth. Also, author goes into elaborate detail about the daily life of these forest indians but he encountered the tribe after it had left the forest and it is difficult to believe that his account of their daily life is first hand, observed knowledge, rather than an account of what has been told to him and this is only a couple of the obvious intellectual contradictions that fill the book.
In fact, that is the biggest problem with the book. One is forced to question how much of the account is a transmission of knowledge intuited and inferred by the author, I wouldn't dare say manufactured, and how much of it is verified factual information.
Still, this makes the book no less readable nor any less recommended.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a book sent from heaven, June 4, 2000

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bill katovsky (san francisco, california USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians (Hardcover)

an anthropological tour de force that breaks your heart as you witness firsthand the cultural and material desecration of this once proud and self-sufficient tribe. their view of life and death seems the direct opposite of our western way of thinking, and one can only hope that they are right in the end. much credit must be given to the author--and novelist/translator paul auster-- who uncovered the lost, sad truths of this forgotten world. the writing is candid, pure,lyrical, incandescent, potent and non-academic. a haunting, haunting book--it literally speaks truth and wisdon from the grave.