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Argentina's Toba: Hunter-Gatherers in the City
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16155 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
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6 / 1989 |
4,182 Words |
| Author
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Elmer S. Miller
Elmer Schaffner Miller is professor of anthropology at Temple
University and is the author of many books and articles. |
When one thinks of hunter-gatherer societies, remote forested areas and open plains come to mind. The Gran Chaco of northern Argentina, central Paraugay, and eastern Bolivia fits that description well. In fact, the term Chaco itself is generally through to be derived form a Quechua word designating the entire region as hunting grounds. The largest population (approximately twenty-five thousand) of hunter-gatherers living today in the Argentine portion of the Gran Chaco are the Toba, or Qom, as they call themselves. They have survived throughout the twentieth century by hunting and collecting wild fruits and vegetables, even while working for wages in lumber mills, on sugar plantations, and in cotton fields.
Individual Toba males first began to work for wages in the eastern Chaco more than a century ago, during the 1860s, cutting down tress for newly established sawmills. Later in the century, men were also transported to Salta and Jujuy for seasonal labor as harvesters on sugarcane plantations. Throughout the twentieth century, Toba families increasingly have come to rely on wages earned by hoeing and picking cotton on the farms of newly arrived colonists from Europe (Spain, Germany, and eastern Europe) and from within Argentina, who staked out land claims that restricted the Toba's ability to hunt and gather. Adult males worked in the lumber and sugarcane industries, often separated from their families for extended periods.
During the past twenty-five years, however, thousands of Toba have migrated to cities, not only in the northern Chaco and Formosa provinces, but also to distant Rosario and Buenos Aires. While many are transients who remain only during the difficult winter moths, an increasing number make the urban villas
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