The Chaco war in indigenous perspective: shamans and non-humans in the battlefield. An approach to the qom memories about the conflict

Abstract

Although the Chaco war between Paraguay and Bolivia (1932-1935) was an international conflict, at the core of the boreal Chaco area it was a war of occupation. Invisible for a long time, the indigenous situation at the moment of the conflict has recently surfaced in papers that problematize the historiographic approaches of the war. This paper analyses the Qom memories about the Chaco war emphasizing the participation of shamans and non-human beings. The narratives presented by the Qom People allow us to go in depth into a war in which shamanic powers provided subsistence to Paraguayan soldiers, tore down Bolivian planes and made their weapons not to work. This analysis shows the Qom situation at the moment of the war, informs about ways of making politics and history all together with the cosmos, and allows the comparison between the war experiences of Qom communities that nowadays inhabit Paraguay as well as Argentina.