ACCULTURATION IN THE GUAJIRA—CRIST 497 
ture? Over the centuries the Guajiro way of life has altered in some 
phases, but its core has remained essentially the same. 
What gives to Guajiro society its cohesive strength? What fea- 
tures make possible for its members a life of fulfillment? What are 
the elements that nourish in them a lasting loyalty? A culture 
which, to the outsider, appears to be characterized mainly by routine, 
monotony, and drudgery, may yet offer for those living in it so many 
intangible or psychic compensations, so much pleasure for the flesh 
and poetry for the spirit, that they find in it the ideal way of life. 
Only a prolonged analysis can provide the whole answer. Neverthe- 
less a basic twofold aspect early impresses the observer: Guajiro 
society is interdependent, cooperative, and fraternal, and the bonds of 
family are strong. Surrounded in infancy by maternal and family 
love, accepted and protected—so long as there exist the barest means 
of subsistence—already in tender years contributing in their measure 
to the cooperative unit, with chores and duties and responsible de- 
meanor, children early have a feeling that they belong, and acquire 
a sense of individual human dignity. The landscape of their larger 
environments to those who compel it to yield up a living, however 
meager, seems friendly rather than hostile, and, because it seems 
friendly, attractive. Most of us recall with nostalgic pleasure the 
physical scenes of our childhood, which we endow with semimagic 
qualities. The Guajiro feels the same charm in those wide stretches 
of lonely sand and scrub and cactus, windblown and sun-parched, the 
muted palette relieved by sudden flashes of bright-plumaged birds and 
a hint of the blue sea beyond the distant dunes: this is the home of 
his people, these the broad preserves of the close-knit brotherhood of 
the Guajiros. 
The physical environment of the Guajira is so harsh as to seem 
at first glance to preclude the possibility of evolving or maintaining 
aculture. The fact that a society has succeeded in doing so in spite of 
the inhospitable physical environment speaks very highly for the in- 
trinsic values preserved in the culture. To be sure, the manmade laws, 
rules of conduct and taboos that men live by, tend to be absolute, to 
allow of no deviations. Society establishes severe sanctions for those 
who strike out on untried paths. Nature is more pliable, more resili- 
ent, and physical factors seem often to allow of more leeway in adjust- 
ment by, for, and to man than does the cultural environment created by 
man himself. 
All over the Guajira Peninsula there is a ferment of acculturation 
as the Guajiros sink their cultural roots, as it were, deep into both re- 
publics—beyond Machiques in Venezuela, and beyond Valledupar in 
Colombia; the process is relatively rapid in La Gloria, whose in- 
habitants, neither exclusively Guajiro in culture nor completely 
