An unknown variety of Ayoreo Indians stay remoted within the Paraguayan Chaco, the huge scrub forest that extends south of the Amazon basin. Parojnai [pronounced Pow-hai] Picanerai, his spouse Ibore and their 5 kids had been on the run for a few years. The realm of forest they known as house had been getting smaller and fewer secure. Landowners have been shopping for up their forest and sending in bulldozers to clear the land, in defiance of nationwide and worldwide regulation.
The fixed incursions of outsiders meant Parojnai and his household continually needed to transfer camp. Every sudden transfer meant the lack of the crops that they had planted, and sometimes their treasured possessions reminiscent of cooking pots and instruments.
Parojnai: ‘We heard the noise of the bulldozer. We needed to run away instantly, however fortunately we have been in a position to take all our issues.
‘We spent the evening up within the forest, however we needed to stand up earlier than daybreak as a result of we have been afraid, and as we have been getting up we heard the noise of the bulldozer once more.
‘It began to come back nearer to us. My spouse needed to depart the fruit of the najnuñane (carob tree) which she had already picked. We needed to depart another issues as effectively to run quicker due to the bulldozer.
‘We ran from one place to a different. It seemed just like the bulldozer was following us. I needed to depart my instruments, my bow, my rope to run quicker. Finally, the bulldozer left in one other course. Once I realised that the bulldozer had gone in one other course, I discovered a trunk with a beehive in it, and I took the honey.
‘We thought that the bulldozer may see us. We had planted many crops within the backyard [melon, beans, pumpkin and corn] as a result of it was summer season. We thought that the bulldozer had seen our backyard and got here to eat the fruit – and to eat us too. The bulldozer opened a path up proper beside our backyard, that’s why we have been so afraid of it.
‘We now have all the time seen airplanes, however we didn’t know that it was one thing helpful of the cojñone [white people, literally strange people]. We additionally noticed lengthy clouds behind the aircraft which frightened us, as a result of we thought that one thing may fall on us. After we noticed these huge planes with this white smoke behind, we thought they have been stars.’
Parojnai died of tuberculosis in 2008.
