THE TERENA AND THE CADUVEO OF SOUTHERN MATO GROSSO, BRAZIL OBERG 



37 



also true that the status-giving capacity of the 

 manager and the missionaries leads to tension and 

 discord. The role of Catholic missionaries, also 

 Americans, is much less important. They visit 

 the settlements only occasionally and are con- 

 cerned almost solely with questions of religious 

 belief, births, marriages, and deaths. 



The economic contacts of the Terena outside the 

 villages are restricted to the fazendas, the rail- 

 road, and the towns. It is on the fazendas and 

 the railroad that the Terena make most of their 

 cash incomes, and where they learn to use tools 

 and other mechanical techniques. In the towns 

 the Terena learn such arts as carpentry, tailoring, 

 and masonry of a more advanced order than in 

 the villages. In the towns, too, they come into con- 

 tact with a variety of individuals, the movies, bars, 

 and houses of prostitution. It is here where the 

 men learn to ch'ess better and where the girls learn 

 the custom of using lipstick, face powder, and hav- 

 ing their hair waved. A moi-e organized form of 

 contact with the towns is by means of football 

 games played by Terena teams against the town 

 teams. 



Although every j^oung Terena has the right to 

 go out to work, and some of them spend a number 

 of years away from the villages, none, so far, ac- 

 cording to the manager of Bananal, has achieved 

 success or independence in the Brazilian commu- 

 nity. Sooner or later they return. In Campo 

 Grande, the largest town in southern Mato Grosso, 

 a young Terena was working as a waiter in a hotel. 

 When the manager of the hotel was asked what 

 he thought of the services of the Terena waiter, 

 he said, '"He is the laziest waiter I have." So far 

 the Terena have not shown a capacity to advance 

 further than supplying the common labor market 

 on the fazendas, the railroad, and in the towns. 

 When they grow tired of working they return to 

 their native villages. 



Enough has been said to enable us to outline 

 briefly the main features of the development of 

 Terena social organization in post-Columbian 

 times. 



1. In association with, and perhaps in reaction 

 to the Mbaya, the Terena developed a military 

 and class organization based on the use of the 

 horse for raiding. The resulting mobility led to 



nomadism and to the abandonment of permanent 

 settlements, probably giving rise to a band type of 

 organization resembling that of the Mbaya. 



2. On entering Brazil the military and class 

 organization was the first to disappear. The ap- 

 pointment of captains or village chiefs first weak- 

 ened and finally abolished the positions of the 

 moiety chiefs. 



3. During the period in which the Terena were 

 forced to disperse and seek a livelihood on the 

 fazendas, the function of the moieties in regulat- 

 ing marriage and in organizing ceremonials grew 

 weaker, an individual being able to marry his 

 opposite and to shift temporarily into the opposite 

 moiety during ceremonials. 



4. With the reintegration of the Terena on res- 

 ervation lands the moieties as functional entities 

 disappeared altogether, being replaced by other 

 forms of social organization. 



The present social organization we might, there- 

 fore, summarize as follows: The some 3,000 

 Terena, today, occupy 11 settlements. Ten of the 

 local groups, or villages, are established on defined 

 areas of Government land. Contact between the 

 members of the different villages is maintained 

 through intei'marriage, visiting between relatives 

 and friends, football matches between the principal 

 villages, cooperation in dances, pageants, and reli- 

 gious processions. 



Within the principal villages we find the fol- 

 lowing structural elements : The basic unit is the 

 individual family, which carries on the i^rimary 

 economic activities associated with the rearing and 

 training of the young. The extended family is 

 no longer a define<^l house group although bilateral 

 kinshii) ties are strong, very much after the Bra- 

 zilian pattern. Young married men live either 

 with their fathers or fathers-in-law in the same 

 house, but in most cases they sooner or later build 

 their own houses on the same lot. Politically the 

 village is organized around the Post with the 

 Brazilian manager exercising authority through 

 his police force and the Terena village chief, or 

 headman. In the principal villages the people 

 are organized into two religious gi-oups, Cathplics 

 and Protestants, centering around missionary ac- 

 tivities. In recreational activities the larger 

 villages are organized into football teams and, in 

 Bananal, into a football club which organizes Bra- 

 zilian dances. Native dances like the shaman 



