The Sun and the Moon as Marks of Time and Space Among the Mocovies of the Argentinean Chaco

摘要

The present work addresses some key aspects of the concepts of space and time among the Mocovi peoples, a hunter-gatherer group of the Argentinean Chaco. Our aim is to show the main role that the Sun and the Moon have played, and still do play, in the construction of the Mocovi cosmos. The Sun and Moon are related to power and abundance, both of them central topics in Mocovi thought. We will see how they have served to mark fixed points, or "marks," in space and time as well as in the spatial structure of the terrestrial plane of the Mocovi universe. These celestial objects play their important role when moving through the sky in their respective paths, a concept that acquires a structuring function in the Mocovi cosmovision that allows them to think of diverse aspects of existence. The temporal structure delineated by the movement of the Sun and the Moon forms cycles of abundance and power, renewed by going through critical moments. The spatial structure implies a concept of the terrestrial plane that conceives the pair north-south and the pair east-west as qualified portions of the horizon grouped in significant pairs. The intercardinal diagonals are also of great importance and are defined by the "corners" of the terrestrial plane. They relate not only to solar movement but also to the concept of wind. We will discuss the fact that these ideas existed among the ancient Mocovi, as the first chroniclers and linguistic evidence affirm, and are still active to this day. The Spaniards' conquest imposed upon the Mocovi people an unbalanced power relation and put them under enormous cultural pressures that introduced important changes. In any event, the logic of the Mocovi cosmovision has adapted creatively and persists in a complex game of breaks and continuities. In order to achieve our aim, we combine the use of ethnohistoric sources with the ethnographic material obtained from our fieldwork and from other contemporary sources.