The Aché of the Mbaracayu Forest Reserve in Paraguay
I was born in Northeastern Brazil, in the State of Alagoas to be exact and stayed there till I was 20. Then after having spent some months in São Paulo and worked in odd jobs, including digging holes to install telephone and electricity lines in a multinational Swedish factory, I decidied I had had it and then moved on to Paraguay. My purpose when I arrived in this landlocked, South American neighboring country was to serve God - or then I thought - where the need for workers was greater. So I saw myself living with a nice Paraguayan family in the outskirts of Asunción and listening to Paraguayan stories and history. It was then that I learned about the existence of the Guayaki Indians a word modern-day Paraguayans pronounced with a mix of admiration, hatred and fear. Admiration because the Guayaki were somehow envied for their fierceness and warring spirit. They were seen as the undisputed owners of the Eastern Paraguayan then dense jungles. Hatred because, as they said, the Guayaki...