Claude Levi-Strauss: The Poet in the Laboratory (10 page)
Read Claude Levi-Strauss: The Poet in the Laboratory Online
Authors: Patrick Wilcken
Tags: #Biographies & Memoirs, #Professionals & Academics, #Social Scientists & Psychologists, #History, #Americas, #South America, #Brazil, #Politics & Social Sciences, #Anthropology, #Cultural
BOOK: Claude Levi-Strauss: The Poet in the Laboratory
3.82Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
For da Cunha, Dina and Claude were chalk and cheese: “While he was cold, she was expansive and friendly. They were two people who you couldn’t imagine being married.”
30
30
THE CITY OF SÃO PAULO was one reality for the Lévi-Strausses in Brazil, with their teaching duties, soirées with the Paulista elite and the more informal meetings with Brazilian intellectuals. The other reality was on the routes out of São Paulo, which Lévi-Strauss and Dina explored on weekends and in breaks from teaching. In the suburbs, where they found a miscellany of Syrian and Italian immigrant communities, along with Afro-Brazilians, they took footage of the Moçambique, Cavalhada and Congada dances, six minutes of which still exist in municipal archives in São Paulo.
31
Beyond the city, they reached the outlying German-, Italian- and Polish-dominated towns, along with the closed-off agricultural colonies of the Japanese.
31
Beyond the city, they reached the outlying German-, Italian- and Polish-dominated towns, along with the closed-off agricultural colonies of the Japanese.
The first long journeys were into the pioneer zones, which the British colonization company Paraná Plantations Limited was opening up by driving a railroad into the interior. Every fifteen kilometers or so, workmen cleared lots and small towns developed, with dirt roads and roughly constructed wooden houses, built by the Eastern European immigrants who were filtering into the area. The populations dwindled as the plots moved farther down the line, from a thriving town of fifteen thousand in the first settlement to five thousand in the second, followed by a thousand, ninety and forty, down to a solitary Frenchman living in the outermost clearing.
32
32
The pioneer zone fascinated Lévi-Strauss. These dusty settlements taking shape in the ruddy soils of the interior were like proto-cities; “at the meeting point of nature and artifice,” new entities were coming into being. As roads divided districts, and districts differentiated into the commercial and residential, the settlements self-organized along central and peripheral, parallel and perpendicular axes. Dreamed up by politicians and businessmen, the pioneer towns were as far as you could get from spontaneous, ad hoc development. But even so, Lévi-Strauss sensed a pattern, cut from a panhuman cloth—an involuntary reflex of the human condition. “Space has its own values,” he wrote, “just as sounds and perfumes have colours and feelings weight.”
33
And these values molded human behavior in profound ways. As innocuous as they might have looked to the casual observer, the pioneer towns hinted at a deeper truth that Lévi-Strauss would soon recognize in a more traditional ethnographic setting as he pondered the highly structured way in which tribes positioned their huts.
33
And these values molded human behavior in profound ways. As innocuous as they might have looked to the casual observer, the pioneer towns hinted at a deeper truth that Lévi-Strauss would soon recognize in a more traditional ethnographic setting as he pondered the highly structured way in which tribes positioned their huts.
Farther to the west, the state of Paraná was still a wilderness, out of reach of the colonization projects. It was in this vast forest—today cane fields and cattle ranches—that Lévi-Strauss, accompanied by an agent from the Serviço de Proteção aos Índios, or SPI (Indian Protection Service), had his first contacts with native Brazilians. He had arrived in Brazil drunk with romantic expectation: “I was in a state of intense intellectual excitement,” Lévi-Strauss described much later. “I felt I was reliving the adventures of the first sixteenth-century explorers. I was discovering the New World for myself. Everything seemed mythical: the scenery, the plants, the animals.”
34
Eager to win his spurs as an anthropologist, he now stood on the brink of the exotic encounters that he had read about in Paris. But what he found when he entered a small Tibagy encampment in the forests of Paraná was sobering.
34
Eager to win his spurs as an anthropologist, he now stood on the brink of the exotic encounters that he had read about in Paris. But what he found when he entered a small Tibagy encampment in the forests of Paraná was sobering.
Scattered on the earthen floor of the huts were the flotsam of industrialization—enamel plates, poor-quality utensils and “the skeletal remains of a sewing machine.” There were old-fashioned pistols alongside bows and arrows; matches were known, but rubbing sticks together was still the preferred method of making fire. In among the junk, Lévi-Strauss’s collector’s eye spotted a beautifully crafted stone mortar and pestle, possibly traded from another indigenous group. He left with the impression that they were “neither completely true Indians, nor, what was more important, ‘savages.’” It was an experience that “took away the poetry from my naïve vision,” Lévi-Strauss remembered.
35
35
Continuing his tour, Lévi-Strauss spent days on horseback, stumbling up and down the narrow forest trails that wended their way under a thirty-meter forest canopy. From time to time their party would pass small groups of Indians, walking in single file through the forest in silence. At journey’s end was the 450-strong São Jerônimo reservation—a series of broken-down sheds strewn across an open clearing, housing members of the Kaingang tribe. The Kaingang had experienced the full panoply of the native Brazilian experience: they had suffered flu pandemics and German colonists had hunted them down before the SPI subjected them to well-meaning but heavy-handed attempts at “pacification” and acculturation, only to abandon them to their run-down reservations.
The men wore tattered trousers, the women cotton dresses or “just a blanket tucked under their armpits.”
36
They fished with half-learned versions of techniques picked up from the colonists, attaching hooks to the end of sticks and using scraps of cloth as nets, as well as harvesting bananas, sweet potatoes and maize from gardens in forest clearings. In the huts there was the same miscellany of cheap industrial products—pots, pans, cooking utensils and, in a surreal touch, an umbrella. Lévi-Strauss had been looking for exquisitely crafted material culture; what he had found was junk—an ironic allusion to nineteenth-century poet the self-styled Comte de Lautréamont’s famous definition of beauty which inspired the surrealist movement: “the chance encounter, on a dissecting table, of a sewing machine and an umbrella.” Lévi-Strauss tried to barter for the few traditional objects that remained—gourds fashioned from hollowed-out marrows—but “felt ashamed to deprive people who have so little.”
37
36
They fished with half-learned versions of techniques picked up from the colonists, attaching hooks to the end of sticks and using scraps of cloth as nets, as well as harvesting bananas, sweet potatoes and maize from gardens in forest clearings. In the huts there was the same miscellany of cheap industrial products—pots, pans, cooking utensils and, in a surreal touch, an umbrella. Lévi-Strauss had been looking for exquisitely crafted material culture; what he had found was junk—an ironic allusion to nineteenth-century poet the self-styled Comte de Lautréamont’s famous definition of beauty which inspired the surrealist movement: “the chance encounter, on a dissecting table, of a sewing machine and an umbrella.” Lévi-Strauss tried to barter for the few traditional objects that remained—gourds fashioned from hollowed-out marrows—but “felt ashamed to deprive people who have so little.”
37
One traditional delicacy was still enjoyed—a type of pale grub known as
koro
, which thrived in the rotting hollows of tree trunks on the forest bed. After decades of prejudice and persecution, the Kaingang had become ashamed of their own culture, whisking away the delicacy when outsiders visited. Lévi-Strauss was determined to track some down and, coming across a fever-stricken Indian in a deserted village, resorted to questionable tactics: “We put an axe into his hands, shook him and pushed him.” The Indian did not respond, so “we succeeded in dragging our victim to a tree trunk,” where a single axe-blow revealed a heaving mass of
koro
inside the sodden wood. Hesitating at first, Lévi-Strauss popped one in his mouth and savored a taste that he described as a combination between “the delicacy of butter, and the flavour of coconut milk.”
38
koro
, which thrived in the rotting hollows of tree trunks on the forest bed. After decades of prejudice and persecution, the Kaingang had become ashamed of their own culture, whisking away the delicacy when outsiders visited. Lévi-Strauss was determined to track some down and, coming across a fever-stricken Indian in a deserted village, resorted to questionable tactics: “We put an axe into his hands, shook him and pushed him.” The Indian did not respond, so “we succeeded in dragging our victim to a tree trunk,” where a single axe-blow revealed a heaving mass of
koro
inside the sodden wood. Hesitating at first, Lévi-Strauss popped one in his mouth and savored a taste that he described as a combination between “the delicacy of butter, and the flavour of coconut milk.”
38
He had had his first, bittersweet experiences of fieldwork—not the heroics of Léry’s Tupinambá, but the tragicomedy of cultures on the fringes of the ever-expanding frontier. He had arrived too late. All that was left was the cultural gray water, a depressing mix of tradition and modernity, each corrupted by the other. The experience marked him, confirming his jaundiced view of the West, which he would come to see as a corrosive force that was dissolving mankind’s cultural achievements. He realized that he would have to travel farther afield if he wanted to catch a glimpse of something less degraded, more authentic. He realized, too, that this would always be the anthropologist’s fate. Like the indigenous peoples they were trying to study, they were compelled to embark on the ultimately futile exercise of outrunning the spread of their own culture.
IN NOVEMBER 1935, at the end of the university year when most of the French academics returned to spend the holidays in Europe, Lévi-Strauss and his wife stayed on to embark on their first real attempts at fieldwork in Brazil. Just a generation before, maps of São Paulo state were still being sold with blank spaces marked “unknown territories inhabited by Indians.”
39
By the 1930s, Lévi-Strauss would have to cross the state lines into Mato Grosso—then a vast wilderness, loosely connected by train, river, dirt road and mule trail—to get firsthand experience of relatively isolated indigenous peoples. The trip was largely self-financed, with some help from Mário de Andrade at the São Paulo Department of Culture. Lévi-Strauss was instructed by the Museu Nacional in Rio to survey an archaeological site in the region, but his prime objective was to work among the Caduveo
40
on the Paraguayan border and to visit “by an as-yet-undetermined route”
41
the Bororo in central Mato Grosso, gathering data and material culture for the newly created Musée de l’Homme in Paris.
39
By the 1930s, Lévi-Strauss would have to cross the state lines into Mato Grosso—then a vast wilderness, loosely connected by train, river, dirt road and mule trail—to get firsthand experience of relatively isolated indigenous peoples. The trip was largely self-financed, with some help from Mário de Andrade at the São Paulo Department of Culture. Lévi-Strauss was instructed by the Museu Nacional in Rio to survey an archaeological site in the region, but his prime objective was to work among the Caduveo
40
on the Paraguayan border and to visit “by an as-yet-undetermined route”
41
the Bororo in central Mato Grosso, gathering data and material culture for the newly created Musée de l’Homme in Paris.
Accompanied by high school friend René Silz, who had come out from France for the expedition, the couple flew the first 350 kilometers to Bauru, a small town to the west of São Paulo. The light aircraft passed over rows of squat coffee bushes, furrowing the hillsides like vineyards. Pasturelands stretched out over the red soils of the interior, the vivid russet palette “so typical,” noted Dina, that they “immediately take on a significance for the foreigner who arrives in Brazil.”
42
From Bauru, they stowed their luggage—“a trunk, two bags, three navy bags, three tents, a medicine bag and a tent cloth”
43
—on a rickety wood-burning locomotive for the journey across the western portion of São Paulo state. A fine reddish dust blew off the desiccated landscape, coating the carriages, as the train rattled on toward Porto Esperança. After changing train companies on the Mato Grosso state lines,
44
the tracks straightened, and the landscape flattened out, leaving endless forests and fields against huge skies. The greens had deadened, the vegetation settled into dry bush, with scatterings of hardy trees and palms. The well-fed cattle that had sauntered across the Paulista pastures were now scrawnier, bony beasts picking through anthill-covered scrub. It was bleak, yet beautiful, “wild and melancholic, but how grandiose, how moving,” as Dina wrote of these epic landscapes.
45
42
From Bauru, they stowed their luggage—“a trunk, two bags, three navy bags, three tents, a medicine bag and a tent cloth”
43
—on a rickety wood-burning locomotive for the journey across the western portion of São Paulo state. A fine reddish dust blew off the desiccated landscape, coating the carriages, as the train rattled on toward Porto Esperança. After changing train companies on the Mato Grosso state lines,
44
the tracks straightened, and the landscape flattened out, leaving endless forests and fields against huge skies. The greens had deadened, the vegetation settled into dry bush, with scatterings of hardy trees and palms. The well-fed cattle that had sauntered across the Paulista pastures were now scrawnier, bony beasts picking through anthill-covered scrub. It was bleak, yet beautiful, “wild and melancholic, but how grandiose, how moving,” as Dina wrote of these epic landscapes.
45
After a few days carrying out an archaeological survey for the Museu Nacional, Dina was taken ill and returned to São Paulo. Lévi-Strauss and Silz continued on to Miranda, a few stops from Porto Esperança on the Paraguay River, where Lévi-Strauss had brief contact with a group of Terena Indians. From the terminus at Porto Esperança they took a secondary line—a precariously laid track skirting the Pantanal swamplands. The marshes sent the smell of rotting vegetation drifting up through the floorboards, along with swarms of mosquitoes. But this complex of rivers, muddy pools, embankments and shrub, covering an area the size of England, was also one of the world’s great wildlife sanctuaries. To Lévi-Strauss’s delight,
veados
(a type of deer), native emus and flocks of egrets scattered before the train.
veados
(a type of deer), native emus and flocks of egrets scattered before the train.
As they pushed into the more remote regions, their demeanor and garb became more conspicuous. For their fellow passengers, most of whom worked on the railway, the idea that two foreign men were going to such lengths to track down indigenous peoples seemed outlandish. In their minds, the expedition was clearly a front for some kind of commercial survey—gringos prospecting for gold, precious stones or minerals.
They left the train at “kilometer twelve” and made their way to a ranch run by two Frenchmen—known locally as the Fazenda Francesa—their base for an expedition to Caduveo indigenous settlements. They spent six weeks on the ranch, time enough for Dina to rejoin the expedition.
46
They were now back in cattle country, on the Paraguayan borderlands. The Fazenda Francesa operated as a kind of colonial outpost, running an exorbitantly priced trade store and managing the
vaqueiros
(ranchers), many of them indigenous people, who tended the wandering herds of zebu cattle. Lévi-Strauss’s party gathered supplies—rice, beans,
farinha
,
mate
and coffee, the staples of the Brazilian interior—along with “a heavy load of goods for barter.” Among the diverse items were dolls and toy animals for the children, glass bead necklaces, little mirrors, bracelets, rings and perfumes for the women, and “more serious gifts” such as fabric, blankets and male clothing.
47
They set off with indigenous farmhand guides for the last leg of the trip, a three-day haul on horseback to Nakile, the largest Caduveo settlement.
46
They were now back in cattle country, on the Paraguayan borderlands. The Fazenda Francesa operated as a kind of colonial outpost, running an exorbitantly priced trade store and managing the
vaqueiros
(ranchers), many of them indigenous people, who tended the wandering herds of zebu cattle. Lévi-Strauss’s party gathered supplies—rice, beans,
farinha
,
mate
and coffee, the staples of the Brazilian interior—along with “a heavy load of goods for barter.” Among the diverse items were dolls and toy animals for the children, glass bead necklaces, little mirrors, bracelets, rings and perfumes for the women, and “more serious gifts” such as fabric, blankets and male clothing.
47
They set off with indigenous farmhand guides for the last leg of the trip, a three-day haul on horseback to Nakile, the largest Caduveo settlement.
Through grasslands and the muddy outskirts of the Pantanal, they scaled the Serra da Bodoquena, reaching a plateau of brush and cacti. From there they followed “the Indian road,” down a track so steep they had to lead the horses on foot, to a clearing at the bottom of the slopes known as the
campo dos índios
(Indians’ fields), where they made camp and ate. They were now in the Pantanal proper, an area so flat that much of the water accumulated on the plains, rather than draining off into the surrounding river systems.
campo dos índios
(Indians’ fields), where they made camp and ate. They were now in the Pantanal proper, an area so flat that much of the water accumulated on the plains, rather than draining off into the surrounding river systems.
Other books
Buried: Mystery Series (My Murder Mysteries #2) by H. B. Rae
P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han
Italian Shoes by Henning Mankell
Jack Strong: A Story of Life After Life by Mosley, Walter
Love's Crazy Twists by Johns, S. A.
Turning Payne by Chantel Seabrook
Enslaved by a Rebel [Sold! 2] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) by Anitra Lynn McLeod
The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene
Christmas Steele by Vanessa Gray Bartal
Escape 2: Fight the Aliens by T. Jackson King