BASKET MEN

Pierre Clastres, a French anthropologist, originally wrote this account. I found it in the winter 1997 issue of Granta. It is about a Guayaki Indian who was a homosexual. The story is touching and complete in a sad way.

The Guayaki women cannot gather enough roots, berries, palm hearts, and larvae from the rainforest to feed the tribe. Therefore, the men bow hunters are essential to survival. Great hunters are called bretete. Clastres writes: “To be a bretete requires strength, poise, and agility: you have to reach a state in which the mind and body feel at ease, are sure of themselves.” The great fear of all men is pane when “Your arm has no strength. The arrow flies from the target, useless and absurd.” Bows are buried with their owners because they hold their departed soul.

The Guayaki’s custom of reciprocity makes the shame of pane worse. A hunter cannot eat his own kill. He depends on the success of other hunters.

Krembegi was a basket man. Unusually tall and timid, he wore his hair as long as the women did and refused to pick up a bow. He seemed comfortable in his place. The tribe accepted him because, after all, he was what he was. Due to the rigid separation of the world of men and women and kinship taboos, only Krembegi’s brothers could be his lovers.

Cachubutawachugi had a thick wild beard because no woman would help him shave. He was also a basket man but was not at peace with his place. His problem seemed to be that he had a bad aim. Cachubutawachugi was very strong and hunted armadillos and coatis by hand, contributing his share to the tribe’s larder. But because he was not a bow man and did tasks of both men and women, he was either invisible or mocked. He was a threat in that he straddled the categories that defined Guayaki society.

Clastre’s account begins with discovering Krembegi’s body. There is no suggestion of foul play. It ends with his funeral. He was buried with his bowl.

Looking at another society sometimes seems like looking at our own in a shattered mirror: everything is the same in a different way. Sexual orientation aside, I’ve known people like Krembegi and Cachubutawachugi, and I have seen the same group dynamics play out. Some of us quietly accept our places, some of us never can.

What about toleration? To accept your place like Krembegi is perhaps a form of repentance for being different. I don’t imagine I could do better in an analogous situation for the sake of peace and belongingness. But what about Cachubutawachugi? I’m not a cultural relativist: no matter how people judge themselves, there are good societies and lousy societies. However, I do not believe there is a society so enlightened that it doesn’t have its Cachubutawachugis—individuals who contribute but are mocked or ignored because they defy the way the society defines itself.

I don’t want to give the impression that people like Cachubutawachugi are necessarily superior or not purposely setting themselves up for rejection, only that to judge a person, it is occasionally necessary to break our mirrors to see the person differently and not the usual reflection.