INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 9 



esp«'cially parrots. Live parrots are kept in tlie villages 

 and carefully raised for their feathers. They know the 

 art of making parrots produce yellow feathers as has 

 been mentioned in another section. Great herds of wild 

 pigs feed in the fields and do great damage to the potato 

 and manioc crops. The Chana retaliate by hunting the 

 thieves and eating their tasty flesh. They also do the 

 same with deer, ant-bear, fox, hare, and similar four- 

 footed animals. Monkeys, being great robbers of fruit, 

 cause damage for which they have to pay dearly, as many 

 are killed, their meat replacing the stolen fruits. [San- 

 chez Labrador, 1910-17, vol. 2, p. 258.] 



SHELTER 



Terena houses, ovoktiti, were built in a circle 

 surrounding a central plaza called noneovohuti. 

 Villages, which varied in size, were built near 

 sources of water and cultivable land. In the final 

 stages of their stay in the Chaco, villages were 

 not very permanent, as the Terena were on the 

 move. The village, oneu, was not only a dwelling 

 place but was also the primary political unit and 

 the center of ceremonial life. Each household 

 had its cultivated plot outside the village, and if 

 these plots were at some distance from the village 

 temporary brushwood shelters were thrown up for 

 the night. The size and disposition of the houses 

 gave no indication of the organization of the 

 Terena into moieties or of the social importance 

 of the chiefs. 



As the Terena no longer remember the type of 

 house which they used in the Chaco, we must 

 depend upon historical sources. Even historical 

 sources give us but an indirect description of the 

 Terena house. Sanchez Labrador gives us a de- 

 scription of a Ghana house, and as he states that 

 the Terena belonged to the Ghana people and lived 

 near them there is some justification in assuming 

 that the Terena house resembled that of the 

 Ghana : 



The Ghana houses differ in type from Christian ones. 

 Each house is from 16 to 20 yards (varas) long and 8 

 yards wide. The form of their structure is an arch, which 

 is not supported by center pillars or columns. To sustain 

 it, they use relatively long, thick sticks which make up the 

 wall, the upper ends of whicli are curved inwards and 

 tied together, but so that they do not touch. The height 

 is about 5 or 6 yards. The houses have no ridges for the 

 part which should be covered by the ridge is left open in 

 order to let in light and to let out the smoke. That is 

 why they do not close the arch completely. The whole 

 framework is covered with a kind of thick long reed which 

 they weave in a curious manner and place over the frame 

 except for the opening. [Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 275-276.] 



From this account it would appear that the Ara- 

 wak-speaking people in this area were no longer 

 using the large oval-shaped straw-thatched house 

 which is still used by many of the Arawak-speak- 

 ing peojile to the north. The covering used may 

 have been made from "piri," a species of bul- 

 rush, which the Terena still use for making mats. 

 This type of house was easy to dismantle and move, 

 which may account for the probable abandonment 

 of a more permanent type of structure. 



Sanchez Labrador then goes on to describe the 

 inside of the house : 



Each captain lives together witli his brothers and their 

 kin in one house. . . . Every house has five doors, in 

 order that no one should get in each other's way. There 

 is one door at each end and three on one side. When it 

 rains, they cover their doorways with mats of rushes. 

 Near the doors are the fireplaces and kitchens, which are 

 no more than three movable stones, which act as a tripod 

 on which they place their curiously worked pots. The 

 food is cooked without any other spices than water. At 

 the back of the house are the beds, that is, mats spread 

 over tlie floor. It is astonishing that although these 

 people grow cotton they do not use hammocks. [Ibid., 

 vol. 2, p. 270.] 



In 1845, when the first groups of the Terena were 

 already near Miranda in Brazil, we get a more 

 definite description of Terena houses from Castel- 

 nau : 



In the village there are about 100 to 120 houses, joined 

 to each other. They are long huts forming a circle around 

 a big square. They resemble great "ranches" covered with 

 immense roofs of palm fronds. [Castelnau, 1850-59, vol. 

 2, p. 301.] 



As to weajions and the interior of the house, 

 Gastelnau has this to say : 



The weapons of these people are spears with iron points, 

 clubs, bows, and small arrows, and the 'bodoque," an in- 

 strument which resembles a bow but has two cords united 

 by a piece of leather in the middle on which stones are 

 placed for shooting. In the inside of each hut there is a 

 bed made of a platform of cane, supported by four stakes, 

 which is covered with a hide of a bull. [Ibid., vol. 2, p. 

 409.] 



The passages just quoted give us a general de- 

 scription of Terena houses. The descriptions are 

 nearly 100 years apart. Sanchez Labrador states 

 that the occupants of the house slept on the floor, 

 while Gastelnau states that they slept on skin-cov- 

 ered platforms. The Terena say that they did not 

 use hammocks until recently and that they slept 

 on bamboo platforms, ipe, covered with skins or 

 reed mats called hitun. 



