OF FERAL AND OBEDIENT COWS: Colonization as Domestication in the Paraguayan Chaco

Abstract

In the Paraguayan Chaco, cattle evoke images of power, prosperity, and celebration, but they also trigger one of the quickest deforestation processes in the world. The presence of cattle in the region has deep historical roots, dating back to the beginning of the colonization process, when the establishment of a double economy based on cattle ranching and the tannin industry dispossessed indigenous people of their territories. Through a historical and ethnographic analysis of the Carlos Casado tannin company, I suggest considering domestication and ferality—and their local related idioms (amansar, anestesiar, sagua'a, señuelo, carne)—as inter-species categories crucial for understanding processes of colonization from a local perspective. In particular, I claim that practices and idioms related to the (un)domestication domain have been used to make sense of ethnic, class, and power relationships, as well as of practices of resistance.