Comparative Studies and the South American Gran Chaco

This article reviews the historical and present prospects of ethnohistorical and ethnographic work in the South American Gran Chaco. Geographically the Chaco is a semi-arid central South American plain, some one million square kilometers in size, encompassing portions of northern Argentina, eastern Bolivia, and western Paraguay. Average rainfall oscillates around 800 mm/yr, with the peripheries being wetter and the central Chaco drier. Some 250,000 indigenous people belonging to more than twenty ethnic groups live in the Chaco. Traditional ethno-linguistic categorization classifies them into six main linguistic groups: Mataco-maká (Wichí-Mataco, Chorote, Nivaclé-Chulupí, Maká), Guaycurú (Toba, Toba-Pilagá, Pilagá, Mocoví, Mbayá-Caduveo), Lule-Vilela (Chunupí), Lengua-Maskoi (Lengua, Sanapaná, Angaité, Enenlhet), Zamuco (Chamacoco-Ishir, Ayoreo) and Tupí-Guaraní (Ava-Chiriguano, Chané, Tapiete, Isoseño-Guaraní, and Guaraní Occidental). The last group is the largest, including nearly 100,000 people, of whom the majority live in Bolivia. Unlike their Amazonian and Andean counterparts, Chaco indigenous peoples have yet to establish transnational, pan-indigenous representative bodies of their own. The present position of Chaco scholars is in many ways isomorphic to that of Chaco indigenous peoples, as Chaco anthropology has not established itself as an internationally recognized field of endeavor. Nevertheless, recent scholarship in the region is currently producing an original synthesis of many of the long-standing concerns of Andeanist and Amazonianist scholarship, respectively. A case can also be made for a new direction for research, based upon intriguing anthropological and historical parallels between the North American Great Plains and the South American Gran Chaco. The very indefinition of Chaco scholarship may also be its principal strength, and the past and present directions of Chaco research both draw upon and make a persuasive case for returning to comparative and area studies approaches in anthropology.