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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 10 



that as it may, it is possible that the Siriono, well before 

 the Chiriguanos, had come from the southeast and had 

 migrated into areas far distant from the cradle of the 

 Guarani nation. 



The Siriono live under the same conditions as the 

 Guarayos and have about the same color, stature, and 

 fine proportions, judging from the few we have seen. In 

 general, their features are the same, but they have a more 

 savage appearance, a fearful and cold expression which is 

 never encountered among the Guarayos. Since they have 

 the custom of depilating their hair we cannot say whether 

 they have as bushy a beard as the Guarayos. 



We have been assured that their language is Guarani, 

 but corrupted to the extent that they cannot understand 

 the Chiriguanos perfectly. As to their personality, it 

 differs essentially from that of the Guarayos; they are so 

 savage and hold so strongly to their primitive independence 

 that they have never wanted to have contact with Chris- 

 tians. No one has been able to approach them unarmed. 

 Their forebears were gentle and affable, but these are 

 less communicative. They live in scattered tribes which 

 wander deep into the most impenetrable forests and live 

 only by hunting. They build rude huts formed of boughs 

 and know no other comforts of life; everything indicates 

 that they live in the most savage state. They have no 

 other industry than the making of weapons. These con- 

 sist of bows eight feet long and arrows even longer, which 

 they most often use seated, both the feet and hands being 

 employed to shoot with great force; thus they are obliged 

 to hunt only big game. Both sexes go entirely nude, with 

 no clothing to burden them. They do not paint their 

 bodies and wear no ornaments. On their trips they do 

 not use canoes. If they have a river to cross they cut 

 liana which they attach to a tree or to stakes placed for 

 that purpose on the banks of the river. They wind the 

 liana around tree trunks resting in the water, thus forming 

 a kind of bridge which the women cling to in crossing with 

 their children. Whenever they get the opportunity they 

 attack the canoes of the Moxos and kill the rowers to 

 obtain axes or other tools. This is all we have learned 

 about this tribe, without doubt the most savage of the 

 nation [D'Orbigny, 1839, trans., pp. 341-344]. 



Jose Cardus was the next writer of any sig- 

 nificance to deal with the Siriono. In his book 

 on the Franciscan Missions of eastern Bolivia 

 (Cardus, 1886, pp. 279-284) he devoted about 5 

 pages to a description of the condition and culture 

 of the Siriono in the latter part of the nineteenth 

 century. Following Cardus, Nordenskiold (1911, 

 pp. 16-17) interviewed two Siriono on his 1908-9 

 expedition to eastern Bolivia, and on the strength 

 of this published a 2-page article about them 

 which, however, contains very scanty data. In 

 1910TheodorHerzog (1910, pp. 136-138, 194-200) 

 published a short account of the geography of the 

 area which also embodies a few notes on the 

 Indians. In 1928 Arthur Radwan (1929, pp. 



291-296) wrote a brief description of Siriono 

 culture which deals primarily with their contacts 

 with the Franciscan fathers at Santa Maria. 



Some years ago, considerable stir was caused in 

 the anthropological world by the publication of a 

 series of articles and books by Richard Wegner 

 (192S, pp. 369-384; 1931; 1932, pp. 321-340; 

 1934 b, pp. 2-34) on a month's journey to the 

 Siriono country — to the Siriono between the Rio 

 Piray and Rio Grande and to those of the Mission 

 of Santa Maria. In his various articles and books 

 Wegner claimed to have discovered a primitive 

 group of Siriono which he called Qurungu'a, who 

 possessed no language but whistling. Although 

 this statement is patently absurd — I, too, have 

 heen with groups of Siriono who were uncommuni- 

 cative for long periods of time — it should be 

 pointed out that Wegner's observations on the 

 material culture, although not outstanding, are 

 fairly accurate. However, his statements about 

 language (or its lack), group classification, re- 

 ligion, and other subjects do not check with my 

 findings, nor with those of the Franciscan monk, 

 Ansehn Schermair (1934, pp. 519-521), who has 

 written a brief article refuting the claims made by 

 Wegner. My own data substantially agree with 

 those, of Padre Schermair, in so far as he has 

 published them. For many years this Franciscan 

 father has been collecting a vocabulary of the 

 Siriono language, but his works have never been 

 published. They will be awaited with great 

 interest. 



In 1937 Stig Ryden spent 3 weeks collecting 

 ethnological specimens and interviewing Indians 

 at Casarabe. His results have been recently 

 published (Ryden, 1941). Although the descrip- 

 tions of his material collections are accurate 

 enough, Ryden's statements about the non- 

 material aspects of culture are mostly inaccurate 

 because he was probably deceived by staff mem- 

 bers of the school at Casarabe into recording false 

 information about the Indians. Moreover, lack- 

 ing adequate primary data, Ryden padded his 

 work with irrelevant speculations and comparisons 

 which are largely meaningless for the reconstruc- 

 tion of Siriono history. 



Finally, it should be mentioned that most of 

 the extant data on the Siriono were admirably 

 summed up by Alfred Metraux in 1942 (Metraux, 

 1942, pp. 110-114). 



