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On the banks of the Pilcomayo River: Wichí fishery in the age of motorcycles

<table><tr><td>Journal:</td><td>cultural geographies</td></tr><tr><td>Manuscript ID</td><td>Draft</td></tr><tr><td>Manuscript Type:</td><td>Article</td></tr><tr><td>Keywords:</td><td>Motorcycles, Indigenous peoples, Wichí, Material culture, Mechanisation, Fishery, Fishing practices</td></tr><tr><td>Abstract:</td><td>In just a few years motorcycles had become an irreplaceable object for the daily life of Indigenous people in the Gran Chaco region. In spite of their pervasiveness, there are still many aspects to this current dissemination that remain to be unraveled. This paper explores the ways in which motorcycles have been incorporated into Indigenous material culture and the ways they are reshaping Indigenous perceptions and relations with the local environment. Starting from the machines and their uses is a way to not confine Indigenous people to a position as victims of modernity, but rather to recognize their proactive role in the ongoing reproduction and transformation of their cultural world. For this purpose, I take the example of the Wichí fishery to see how this cultural practice is changing as fishermen adopt motorcycles as means of transport. I investigate this practice and its transformations based on ethnographic fieldworks carried out with several communities settled on the banks of the Pilcomayo River, as well as readings of the ethnological literature which contains detailed descriptions of this practice. By tracing its past and ongoing transformations, I show how the hold and spatial organization of Wichí fishery has evolved as motorcycles spread to the whole Pilcomayo area. Their adoption redefines fishermen perceptions and relations with the surrounding environment, which is now understood from a new mechanized and motorized perspective of capitalization and exploitation. Indeed, while motorcycles allow them to integrate into the market, they further promote market penetration on Indigenous lands. At the same time, I demonstrate how motorcycles allow fishermen to overcome the inconveniences of an intractable river and new infrastructures that hinder fishing practices, as well as to bypass the attempts to privatize the riverbanks. In a way, the fishermen are more resilient to these sudden changes thanks to motorcycles.</td></tr></table>
On the banks of the Pilcomayo River: Wichí fishery in the age of motorcycles

In 2016, I was sitting in a café talking with a colleague about our latest fieldwork among the Wichí people of the Argentine Chaco. At that time, we were participating in a research project on machines among Indigenous societies, and were interested in how mechanical knowledge is formed within a culture that remains little involved with motors and machines¹. Our attention was focused on motorcycles, which first became present some years before, and the ways in which they are involved in the transformation of Indigenous relations with the local environment. We both noted that in just a few years motorcycles had become an “irreplaceable object²” for the daily life of a Wichí family: they are used to go to work or to the hospital, to go hunting or to fetch firewood, to go to church or to visit family. In spite of this pervasiveness, there are still many aspects to their current dissemination that remain to be unraveled.

If we know something about the importance of walking among Indigenous peoples, and how this practice creates social bonds and fosters connections with the environment, what do we know about their motorcycle practices' uses and purposes? Given that the material world is not separate from the social world³, and that it is even less separate from culture⁴, what do motorcycles tell us about Indigenous worlds and their transformations? By carrying on a cultural geography which “has long argued for the importance of cultural artifacts in mediating human experiences of place, space and landscape⁵”, the aim of this paper is to grasp the ways in which motorcycles have been incorporated into Wichí material culture and the ways they are reshaping Wichí perceptions and relations with the local environment.

Based on the assumption that things are woven in complex ways into the fabric of human and social being⁶, this paper makes a contribution to material cultural geography⁷, meaning to give the materiality a paramount importance in order to grasp the daily life of Indigenous people. For this purpose, I take the example of the Wichí fishery to see how this cultural practice is changing as fishermen adopt motorcycles as means of transport. The following pages are based on ethnographic fieldworks carried out between 2016 and 2018 with the Wichí fishermen living in the communities settled on the banks of the Pilcomayo River, which marks the border between Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay. In order to document past and ongoing transformations of fishing practices and strategies, I also draw on ethnological literature which contains detailed descriptions of Wichí fishery.

In the following section, I discuss the marginal attention that the literature on Indigenous societies assigns to machines, which are, more often than not, treated as invasive and intrusive. In order to shed light on the conditions of existence of machines on Indigenous lands, I then present the Wichí and the Pilcomayo River, as well as the recent advent of motorcycles in this area. I continue with a study of the transformations of the Wichí fishery, focusing on the fishermen's adoption of motorcycles to understand how they transform this practice. In the two following sections, I examine the motorcycles' role in the reshaping of fishing grounds as well as their influence on fishermen's perceptions of the river. I end by discussing the ways in which machines intervene in the transformations of Indigenous cultural worlds.

Mechanical mediations in Indigenous worlds

While in recent years a wide range of machines and new technologies – from trucks to power generators, to washing-machines and computers – punctuate the daily lives of Indigenous peoples,
they have rarely been studied by classical ethnology and anthropology. In this regard, a kind of anthropology of nature has arisen that looks at Indigenous worlds without machines, questioning unmediated and technically embedded human-nonhuman relationships⁸. With few exceptions⁹, machines are missing when it comes to investigating perceptions of the environment and the relation to the landscape among hunter-gatherer peoples¹⁰. So, while one wonders how the world is perceived on one's feet¹¹, another might also ask – what about its perception when threatened by a bulldozer, driving a truck, or sitting on a motorcycle? As trivial as this question may seem, the interstitial role played by machines in the current transformations of Indigenous worlds is still far from clear.

There are however some scholars who have studied the influence of machines on Indigenous cultures and lands. Some described the changes resulting from the adoption of snowmobiles on hunting techniques and relation to the land among Inuit communities in the Arctic¹². Others have focused on the transformation of mobilities, livestock husbandry patterns, and perceptions of the environment among pastoral peoples in northern latitudes¹³. With the nomadic pastoralists of the Mongolian steppes¹⁴, the primary topic was the replacement of animal mounts with mechanical devices. In South America, despite a "return of things to Amazonian anthropology¹⁵", machines have most often been addressed as "the objects of the Whites¹⁶". Thus, they are charged with a set of meanings that refer to unbalanced power relations, environmental devastation, and colonizing violence. Still, in much less confrontational terms, some scholars have recently study "the mission of machines¹⁷", considering these as crucial devices for the normalization, framing and government of Indigenous societies.

Usually, machines are seen as an indicator of transformations that are taking place, and scholars speak alternately of social, cultural or technological change. In all these cases, it is difficult to get rid of a Marxist approach that asserts a certain "technological determinism¹⁸". In many respects, these understandings too often coincide with "acculturation¹⁹" and have often been associated with Indigenous peoples' "assimilation". Sometimes the term "revolution²⁰" has been used, but this would mean to dismiss the potential for coexistence between so-called "past" or "traditional" objects, and those of recent introduction, such as motorcycles. The appearance of machines on Indigenous lands is globally identified as an incontrovertible marker of the progression of a "modernity" that razes everything that stands in its way. In most cases, this seems to mean a major break with the "former" or "traditional" society, and with the rules by which it was governed.

In this paper, my intention is not to analyze the introduction of motorcycles as a "trauma" for the relation that Indigenous people maintain with their land²¹. And it is even less about proposing a split reading of reality, insisting on the "cultural loss²²" from which they would suffer. Rather, I propose to focus on the "tradition of innovation²³" specific to Indigenous cultures which, far from being seamless, are extremely porous due to their long-standing interactions with the dominant culture. By moving beyond debates where the old disappearing culture is regretted and the present time condemned²⁴, I thus propose to observe the transformations that came with the introduction of motorcycles, while considering that knowing how to handle a gun, program a washing machine or drive a two-wheeler contribute to the shaping of Indigenous culture just as much as learning how to use a bow and arrow, to snorkel, or to grind plant fibers did in the past. Considered this way, machines do not wipe out the past, but they widen Indigenous material culture while creating new demands and offering new opportunities.
Starting from the machines and their uses is a way to not confine Indigenous people to a position as victims of modernity, but rather to recognize their proactive role in the ongoing reproduction and transformation of their cultural world²⁵. They aren't mere consumers²⁶, nor do I see commercial goods as inherently corrupting “pristine” Indigenous cultures²⁷. As others scholars have already contended, Indigenous people take over trade goods within their society based on their social conditions and for their proper political and economic purposes²⁸. Confronted with major changes, which they often cannot control unless they adapt to them, they find themselves involved in market networks, in which they play a role that is often marginal. This is why it is important to go beyond a kind of essentialism²⁹ that frames Indigenous peoples as victims of the market, to instead capture how people respond and adapt to current transformations.

## The Pilcomayo River, the Wichí people and their motorcycles

The Chaco forest-region, home to several Indigenous peoples³⁰, was not affected by the colonizing enterprise of the Iberian empires, but by those of new states born in the 19th century (Map 1). The whole area remained under the control of many Indigenous peoples, including the Wichí, until the beginning of the 20th century. While the Argentine state advanced through military campaigns (1880-1910), Paraguay and Bolivia fought over oil resources during the Chaco War (1932-1935). Since the occupation of the Argentinean Chaco, Mestizo ranchers and missionaries have settled on these lands and have long been the only non-Indigenous presence. Because of its isolation and its arid climate, this area has long been deprived of any economic interest. Nevertheless, since the end of the 1990s it is under the pressure of an agricultural frontier, which combines crops farming and cattle breeding. Despite this, the area crossed by the Pilcomayo River is still little impacted and preserved from deforestation.

[Insert Map 1]

**Map 1.** The Pilcomayo region. Map made by author.

The Pilcomayo River – which is not navigable – originates in the Bolivian Andes (upper basin) and then runs through the Chaco plain until the Estrella swamp (lower basin). Here, due to the almost complete absence of relief, its course is marked by countless sloughs, oxbow lakes and braided channels. The river's meandering is due to the fact that it carries an enormous load of sediment from the Bolivian Andes which, once transported to the plain, are deposited and obstruct the water, causing the progressive clogging of the river bed. The Pilcomayo sinuous flow favors sudden changes in the riverbed and the formation of new ones that vanish into the forest or form unstable swamps downstream. For this reason, it is known as “an intractable river³¹” and the floods that occur regularly during rainy season reshape the geography of the area where thousands of Indigenous people live (including Nivaclé, Toba, Pilagá and, mostly, Wichí) between several settlements and villages.

According to the most recent data, in Argentina the Wichí – also identified as the Weenhayek in Bolivia³² – are estimated to be 40,000 individuals mainly located astride the international border of the Pilcomayo River. Today, as in the past, the Wichí should not be considered a single unified nation, but rather an egalitarian anarchy of small local groups (communities or settlements) who share the same language³³. In order to distinguish among the various groups, the Wichí use an ecological criterion based on their proximity to or distance from
watercourse. Thus, there are riverine groups, *tewokw-lheley*, meaning “river-dwellers”, and inland groups, *tahnyi-lheley*, meaning “forest-dwellers”. Traditionally, the former lived from fishing and, to a lesser extent, horticulture, while the latter are mainly dedicated to hunting and gathering. The groups that live closest to the river employ a second criterion that stresses the position different groups occupy in relation to the river. So, when referring to communities upstream, people use the term *phom-lheley*, meaning “people from above”, and for communities downstream, the term *cho’m-lheley*, meaning “people from below”³⁴.

The Wichí lifestyle and spatial practices prior to colonization were rhythmized by seasonal conditions and natural resource availability, both of which directed resource harvesting and trade systems³⁵. Groups moved along circular itineraries using the river and the forest to the extent that the resources of the annual cycle and cultural technology allowed them to take advantage of it³⁶. That is why the river and the forest are the geographical polarities of the Wichí society. Since the 1990s, they live in more permanent settlements and urbanized villages than previous generations did. This new spatial arrangement is the cumulative result of dislocation from their lands by Mestizo ranchers, of concentration fostered by missionaries, of transformations caused by floods, and of easier access to goods and services³⁷. In these new villages, a minority works in the public administration or as day laborers in the surrounding farms, while the majority depends on social assistance and on what can be found in the surrounding environment. As Delio once said: “It is a new way of life that combines fishing and social welfare”.

## The advent of motorcycles on Wichí lands

To understand the current relevance of motorcycles, it is important to look back at their predecessor: the bicycle. In the Pilcomayo area, the first bicycles appeared after the installation of missionaries in the 1930s and, although people have largely continued to travel on foot, bicycles constituted the only means of transport until 2008. To refer to the bicycle, Wichí use the term *wäntlhaj*, meaning “ostrich”. This semantic extension is justified by the fact that just as this animal, when running to escape, moves in a zigzag pattern, leaving a winding and undulating track on the sandy ground, the bicycle also leaves a track that is never straight, because the driver has to avoid thorns, pits, animals and all sorts of other obstacles. Also, *yelataj* or the compound term *lataj-chinaj* is used. The word *yelataj* – or its apheresis *lataj* – means horse, while *-chinaj* is translated as iron or, more generally, is used to indicate that some object is made of some kind of metal. Iron-horse is therefore the most popular term to identify the bicycle. However, there is still no translation in Wichí language for the term motorcycles³⁸. The word *-wute*, saddle, which is also used to designate horses and bicycles is used without distinguishing between models, brands, and whether they are road or off-road motorcycles (Photo 1).

[Insert Photo 1]

**Photo 1.** The Leyenda 150 of the Appia is very popular for transporting heavy cargo, such as a few dozen fish. Photo taken by author.

The popularization of the motorcycle among the Wichí has been massive in even the most remote corners of the Chaco. Although it is possible to talk of “a motorcycle-fever”³⁹, this does not mean that everyone owns their motorcycle, but that they at least share one with their relatives. Several conditions have favored this expansion: the area opening up given the construction of new paved roads, the concentration of local people in a few villages instead of isolated settlements in
the forest, but above all the financial aids put in place since 2008 by the federal government. As Valentín says, “Our life has changed thanks to the social welfare allowances. That’s how most of us now own a motorcycle”. Today, it is enough to receive social allowances in order to obtain a loan from motorcycle sellers who set up shop in the village’s square on paydays. As long as people continue to pay the monthly installments, they will not be asked for insurance papers or a driver’s license.

Just as was previously the case for bicycles, motorcycles have been very quickly adopted. Through a snowball effect, in a very short time the majority of families tried to acquire at least one. Although it may seem trivial to mention, the motorcycle has the double advantage of significantly reducing transportation time while increasing the distances that can be covered. On a different level, it makes possible to fish for just a few hours a day, allowing for more free time or the possibility to practice other activities, which is particularly appreciated when the latter are remunerated. And finally, the motorcycle gives the fishermen the possibility to carry larger quantities of fish than those brought back by bicycle. This makes it a coveted machine nowadays, especially because opportunities to move away from the isolated communities and to settle in villages are multiplying. From Wichí perspectives, motorcycles do not oppose so-called ‘traditional’ practices such as fishing, but rather afford new possibilities to develop it. As I will show, they are at the origin of an increase in fishing efforts, and of the expansion of fishing grounds.

## Fishing in muddy waters: ancient skills and their motorization

In the Pilcomayo's muddy waters, throughout the dry season (April-October), the fish move up the river in a more or less continuous succession of schools. While for forest-dwellers this period of the year means “dearth” or “famine”, for river-dwellers the scarcity is absolutely relative, because it is also the time when the river becomes rich in fish. The upstream migration corresponds to the mating season. When the fish reach the upper basin, they are already pregnant and move downriver during the major floods at the end of November-December. Thus, fishing is practiced mainly by men during the dry season. Because of its abundance, the shad – locally known as sábalo (*Prochilodus platensis*) – is the most important fish. Nevertheless, Wichí also fish for countless other species, including dorado, surubí, armado, pacú, dientudo and boga.

Fishing is and has been one of the most significant activities in the Wichí economy, even more important than hunting for river-dwellers⁴⁰. At the beginning of the 19th century, E. Nordenskiöld stated that: “all the Pilcomayo Indians are zealous fishermen and the only ones who do not participate in fishing are those who live far away from the river⁴¹”. This practice was so important for their subsistence, that it was one of the main reasons for inter-community warfare, especially in times of drought⁴². In addition to river-dwellers, these clashes could sometimes involve forest-dwellers – to whom the fishermen still refer as *gente de afuera*, meaning “people from the outside” or “people from abroad” in relation to the centrality of the river – who would try to settle on the riverbanks during the fishing season notwithstanding the peril of poaching on the territory of other groups⁴³.

According to J-Å.Alvarsson, who has long worked with the Weenhayek communities of the Pilcomayo River, “when the fish is abundant, collective fishing is preferred, and when it is small, then individual fishing is preferred⁴⁴”. On both sides of the river, the fishing techniques are based on ancient skills and a very fine knowledge of the medium, depending on the range of environments and their seasonal variation, as well as the diversity of fish species⁴⁵. As Luis explains, “You can fish with bait you make: fruits, berries and other things found in the woods. With chañar
fruits you catch pacú and armado, and with charata (*Ortalis canicollis*) meat you catch armado. But everything has its time. It depends on the season because you can't always find everything in the forest and you can't find the same species of fish all year round". Besides using different baits depending on what they want to catch, fishermen carefully choose the fishing spots according to the time of the year, the season, the time of the day, the specificities of the bed and the water flow (Photo 2). As Tomás says: "We listen to the fish when they are coming and when they pass, we just have to open the net. There are several ways of fishing and there are different places where fish like to stay, rest or eat".

[Insert Photo 2]

**Photo 2.** A fisherman while evaluating the water's movements in order to choose the best place to enter. Photo taken by author.

Despite the image generally conveyed about the “conservative” character of Indigenous
fishermen⁴⁶, fishing techniques are extremely and constantly evolving. For example, in the second
half of the 20th century the Weenhayek modernized their fishing techniques and accentuated pre-
existing mercantile links until they became commercial fishermen⁴⁷. Today, fishermen can choose
to fish with a harpoon, with a scissor-net – two rods of about two meters long intertwined and tied
at one end with a *chaguar* fiber net – or a skirt-net – a round net of variable diameter whose outline
is weighted with sinkers. The second, recently introduced, is increasingly used to the expense of
the first because, as Lorenzo explains, “the skirt-net allows one not to dive into the murky waters
of the river and face the yacarés and piranhas that are increasing more each year”. However, as we
will see in the next section, in addition to these traditional tools and techniques nowadays
motorcycles have become an essential component of Wichí fishing practices.

Riding for fishing: dams, fences and motorcycles

The importance of motorcycles for fishing and the transformations that its adoption have generated are not irrelevant to the changes that, in recent years, have characterized the Pilcomayo River. As briefly mentioned above, due to a siltation process caused by the load of sediments imported from the upper basin, the waters end up invading the land. These floods, which characterize the rainy season, are followed by a longer season marked by drought. In order to mitigate this situation, the Argentinian and Paraguayan authorities, the two countries which share the lower basin, have agreed to carry out hydraulic works of water channeling (Photo 3). These interventions, which have been ongoing since the end of the 1990s, are locally known as “The Pantalón Project”. By building a dam to regulate the flow up to the Estrella swamp, and creating a new canal to share the waters between the two countries, this project aims to contain the waters in order to avoid new floods without affecting the irrigation of surrounding lands.

[Insert Photo 3]

**Photo 3.** The amphibious machine is clearing the entrance of the channel, which directs the Pilcomayo waters towards Paraguay. Photo taken by author.

These hydraulic infrastructures interfere with the fishes' seasonal migrations, which, unable to travel up the river, gather in marshes or find themselves in dry canals where they ultimately die by the thousands. As Valentín explains, this directly affects the fishermen: "While the works for
the Pantalón were going on downstream, it had become difficult for us to fish. They deviated the water and so blocked the fishes' ascent. All of us who live upstream hurried to go down the river before their mass death". For fishermen, motorcycles are the only means they have to travel dozens of kilometers away from their communities to fish, even if only for a few days. Fishermen have always expressed their disagreement with the waters' canalization, saying that it is a threat to their livelihood and way of life. Years later, they still complain about what they consider to have been a tremendous waste. As Lorenzo recalls: "These times we went to the Estrella swamp dam and it hurt to see so many fish piling up because they couldn't get upriver. Mountains of fish dead. It's a shame". This ecologic disaster is renewed each time the waters enter the Paraguayan channel and that, as a result, the Argentinean waterbed dries up⁴⁸.

At the same time, fishermen have to deal with the privatization of the riverbanks by Mestizo ranchers who install fences and barbed wire to ensure water access for their cattle. As Leandro recalls: "A few years ago, when the river dried up, we could ride on the riverbank to go fishing. Today, with all these fences, this would be impossible". Thus, for many fishermen reaching the river has become a real ordeal (Photo 4). As Maximo explains: "Some spots are now inaccessible and we have to find new fishing spots. We are forced to make a big detour by the main road to come to the river. Motorcycles allow us to do this quickly, on foot or by bike it would take too long". So, motorcycles seem to be an unavoidable means to bypass the fences of Mestizo ranchers. Even though this means finding new paths, making long detours and sometimes pushing further into lesser-known areas, fishermen can continue to get to the river solely by motorcycle. However, if up until now the adoption of motorcycles appears to be a reaction to imposed transformations, the following section will show how the fishermen have adopted the motorcycles to the point of making them an inseparable tool of Wichí fishing equipment, together with nets, baits and bows.

[Insert Photo 4]

**Photo 4.** One of the many fences that prevent fishermen from using the path along the river. Photo taken by author.

## The effects of motorcycles on fishing spaces and times

Until they had motorcycles, Wichí fishermen used to go on foot or by bicycle to fishing spots relatively close to their community, in order to be able to return during the day. As Laquin explains: "From Santa María, you could walk about fifteen kilometers to go fishing. Moving further away becomes a problem to get back". So, fishermen used to walk between 10 and 15 kilometers upstream or downstream in order to anticipate the passage of the fish schools near their community or to follow them after they had passed. Thus, fishing on foot allows a fisherman to exploit a stretch of about 30 kilometers of the river. By bicycle, the distances increase depending on one's ability to return loaded with daily catches. However, since the introduction of motorcycles, the range and spatial organization of fishery is changing. As Tomás explains, the effects of travel's motorization are clearly noticeable: "From Santa María we go fishing on foot and by bike a few kilometers away, but those who have a motorcycle can go much further. But this is something new. Before, very few people traveled so far".

In terms of distances traveled, having a motorcycle – which allows one to travel long distances with less effort – marks a turning point compared to fishing on foot or by bicycle. Fishermen now have the possibility to go towards or follow the fish up to 90 kilometers from their
community. According to Maximo, who lives in Tucumancito, “people from Puntana (90 kilometers upstream) who come here to fish are wasteful because they throw away the fishes’ fat”. Once, I met Eduardo on the road as he was coming back to Pozo el Tigre from Virtientes (35 kilometers downstream). He had been there “to see the first schools of the season” and “took advantage of it by fishing a lot”. As these two examples show, fishermen have increased their range of action following the introduction of motorcycles, which allow them to incorporate fishing spots that would previously have been considered out-of-reach. Moreover, this allows them to take advantage of their very accurate knowledge of the local environment, since they can now move quickly from one site to another depending on the presence and abundance of fish. As Tomás explains: “If we usually fish here close by, with the motorcycle we also move to spots where we know there are many fish at certain times of the year, but which were previously too far away”.

It also happens that groups of fishermen organize themselves collectively so that some of them descend gradually along the banks while others follow from afar on motorcycles. Marco explains this system: “We start fishing in Puntana and continue to Curvita, and sometimes even to Monte Carmelo or Santa María. When there are few fish, we enter the water at Santa María and continue to La Merced or San Luís. And we continue until we reach the meeting point where others are waiting for us with motorcycles”. Another common fishing practice is to set up camps on the riverbank and fish during the nights when the catch is at its highest. Today, because of the ease afforded by motorcycles to carry heavier loads and to move between the river and communities, the fishermen have turned these camps into real harvesting sites, permanently operating. Generally, at least two fishermen stay on the banks while another comes and goes by motorcycle from the village. This shuttle leaves loaded with the last of the freshly gutted fish and returns with other goods or with the fisherman who will take over (Photo 5). Thus, the use of motorcycles allows fishermen to come back to the village more often while keeping a regular presence on the banks.

[Insert Photo 5]

**Photo 5.** A precarious fishing camp on the banks of the river, with a motorcycle in the background. Photo taken by author.

Moreover, since the introduction of motorcycles the river is more easily accessible not only to fishermen who live near the banks, but also to forest-dwellers. As Roberto, who lives in Bella Vista, a community 40 kilometers from the river, explains: “Some people don’t like hunting and prefer to fish. Before it wasn’t possible but now that we have motorcycles, we can go back and forth every day”. While for the river-dweller the motorcycle makes it possible to widen their fishing grounds while reducing travel time, for the forest-dweller the motorcycle activates a new mobility between the forest and the river that previously was virtually impossible because it was too time consuming. Thus, the motorcycles reorder and reorganize traditional livelihood practices and, by extension, the spaces in which they take place. Namely, motorcycles are redrawing the borders – however porous and, in any case, never fixed – of fishing grounds; and fishermen are adapting their routine according to new opportunities given their travel’s motorization.

In addition to this fishing spatiality, since the adoption of the motorcycles the timing of the fishing is also changing. Going to the river on foot or by bike allows one to fish copiously for at least two months of the year, when the schooling of fish is at its peak. This changes drastically with motorcycles. Let’s take the example of Valentín, who tells what happens when the fishing season starts: “When people know that the first schools have started to come up the waters, they go fishing
at María Cristina (70 kilometers downstream) by motorcycle. Before, they used to fish closer because it took a long time to get there on foot". While motorcycles make it possible to integrate new fishing spots and access previously out-of-reach ones, they also make it possible to anticipate or extend the fishing season for several months. While fishing has always been a seasonal activity, motorcycles allow for almost year-round fishing by providing a way around such seasonal barrier.

## Between motorcycles and trucks: Wichí fishery mechanized

Motorcycles offer fishermen several options to increase their productivity. The speed of travel can be increased in order to cover longer distances and fish in several spots. In fish-rich years, the multiplication of these spots allows one to both increase productivity and reduce periods of poor fishing. In contrast, to compensate for fish-poor years, motorcycles allow individuals to reach some spots that were previously unexploited and increase their opportunities of catch. However, and above all, the motorcycle makes it easier for fishermen to sell their catch on the local market or to Bolivian businessmen who settle at the international border waiting for their catches (Photo 6).

As Alejandro explains, this is nothing new: "When I was young, we used to go fishing to Crevaux on Bolivian trucks. They left us on the banks and the trucks came back to wait for us in D'Orbigny. People brought back hundreds of fish and we landed on the banks to gut them before selling". This shows that fishermen are used to selling fish to truck drivers, who transport them from the Pilcomayo area to the highlands or sell them in the big city markets⁴⁹. The figure of the "Bolivian trucks⁵⁰" returns unceasingly in the discussions between fishermen: Will come or not? Today or tomorrow? How much will they pay? How long will they stay? A good overview of the functioning of this local market is provided by Tomás: "For us, the river-dwellers, the best we have is fishing. During the time when the shoals go up, we have to take the opportunity to sell to Bolivian trucks. We each catch up to 200 fish a day because they pay very well. We sell dorado and surubí per kilo and sábalo at variable prices depending on the size. They buy up to 12,000 fish at a time".

[Insert Photo 6]

**Photo 6.** A fisherman with his scissor-net caught a sábalo just below the international bridge between Pozo Hondo (Paraguay) and Misión La Paz (Argentina). Photo taken by author.

An occasional spell of wealth is considered irresistible for the fishermen because the temporary abundance of fish means fast money and temporary economic prosperity. In that regard, J-Å.Alvarsson has already talked about a kind of "fish fever"⁵¹. The expression does not sound inappropriate when related to Valentín's assertion that: "People go out very early in the morning and come back very late at night. They ride incessantly at full speed because they know they can earn a lot in a few days". We can thus understand Lorenzo's words that speak of his unwavering commitment during the fishing season: "When I go fishing, I target mainly the surubí, which is sold at a high price. When the schools go up and we can sell a lot, I don't even sleep, I spend whole nights at the river". So, it would seem that market penetration has changed the way fishermen use fishing resources or, rather, the way they perceive the surrounding environment⁵². This hypothesis is confirmed by Hector's words: "For us, the river is money. We sell the catches and we have enough to eat. Without the river, we could not live". This statement does not refer to the fact that without the river the people would remain without food, but rather to the fact that they would miss the opportunity to sell their catch and thus earn money to buy something else.
Three interview excerpts overlap and speak to the complexity of the relations that the Wichí
today have with the river. Valentín says: “We fish to give food to our family. If we sometimes go
beyond the limits, it is to buy sugar, bread, or clothes for the children”. On which Manuel rebounds:
“We have to take advantage of the river, especially during the fish-rich season. I sell my catch so I
can get enough to support my family by buying clothes or food”. Further complemented by Pedro,
who says: “If you catch 200 fish it is enough to feed your children or to buy a quilt”. In light of
these statements, two registers seem to be mixed: that of the “struggle for survival”⁵³ and that of
market integration. Often, fishermen sell the surplus or all their catches in order to buy other goods
that couldn’t be found in the forest, like pasta, flour, sugar, medicines, etc. But it also happens that
the money earned is reinvested for the purchase of other types of goods: clothes, refrigerators,
school material, televisions, etc. In this way, fish are no longer understood as simple foodstuffs,
essential for the family’s subsistence, but rather as wealth to be exploited. As Lorenzo explains:
“As soon as we sell the catch, we have enough money to buy bread or other things. At school the
children have to wear aprons and shoes, and we also have to buy them school materials that are
expensive”. So, a sort of post-traditional economy is taking shape, motivated by the fact that for
the great majority of Wichí today life is lived in the villages and no longer in the middle of the
forest.

In the Wichí society, fish commonly operate to maintain social ties and culture. Fish helps fortify the Wichí position towards neighboring groups, while also serving to keep links with the extended family. As Hector explains, “It is usual to keep enough for your family and redistribute the rest to others”. However, as Dino noted, these practices are changing and catches are no longer redistributed according to rules of kinship: “Before, it was usual for fishermen to come back from the river and share their catch. This is less and less common now”. Rather, they are offered for sale or integrated into a barter system. According to these statements, expanded trade networks and motorization led to catches becoming tradable commodities. For the majority of fishermen, the river is no longer a reservoir from which to obtain food for the household. Instead, it embodies a new market value and is transformed into a resource to be exploited. In other words, when productivity increases, the value that fishermen attribute to resources changes. So, the expansion of fishing grounds and the inclusion of new fishing spots implies a change in the Wichí perception of the river and, more broadly, their perception of the local environment.

Seeing by machines: the Pilcomayo River in transition

This paper has traced how Wichí fishery has changed since the adoption of motorcycles: they
reduce travel time and distances are no longer a problem. Moreover, they allow one to overcome
the inconveniences of an intractable river and new infrastructures that hinder fishing practices, as
well as to bypass Mestizo attempts to privatize the riverbanks. In a way, the fishermen are more
resilient to these sudden changes thanks to motorcycles. At the same time, I have showed how the
hold and spatial organization of fishery has evolved as motorcycles spread to the whole Pilcomayo
area. Fish is no longer caught only in the immediate environment, since motorcycles give access to
out-of-reach fishing spots. Thus, as other scholars have already noted on hunting and gathering
among Indigenous peoples⁵⁴, travel's motorization directly influences local geography and
economy. The rearrangement of fishing grounds and the inclusion of new fishing spots implies a
change in the Wichí's perception of the river and, more broadly, their perception of the local
environment. This directly impacts their way of considering the catches, and their integration into
the market economy seems to affect norms of reciprocity and gift giving. Indeed, while motorcycles allow them to integrate into the market, they further promote market penetration on their lands.

Beyond that, in this paper I have showed the advantages of “thinking through things⁵⁵”, meaning to think of motorcycles in order to grasp the multiple dynamics that involve them and which, in turn, they contribute to shaping. This approach has proven particularly useful when thinking about the role of machines in the social and spatial rearrangements that have been taking place in the Pilcomayo area since the introduction of motorcycles. At the same time, I sought to “take practices seriously⁵⁶” or, in other words, to think of humans in terms not only of what they are, but of what they do⁵⁷ and, more broadly, where they do it. Thus, instead of conducting a disembodied study of motorcycles by ignoring their spatial condition, I studied them in situ, in relation with the space in which they act and which, in turn, shapes the way they are used. Hence, to study the transformations of Wichí material culture by focusing on the ways in which it is put into practice in an everchanging environment, I point to the dynamic character of culture, which is never static, but rather always in the making.

To conclude, the example of fishing and motorcycles helps to clarify the transformations brought forth by travel's motorization as well as the new opportunities it offers. In light of what was shown, motorcycles seem to directly intervene in the transformations of Indigenous cultural worlds. Their adoption redefines Indigenous perceptions and relations with the surrounding environment, which is now understood from a new mechanized and motorized perspective of capitalization and exploitation. However, while it is true that motorcycles play a proactive role in this transition, it is also true that it is the very complex and above all very mechanical contemporaneity in which Indigenous people live that makes this relationship evolve – hence the importance of continuing research on how these peoples live in the age of machines⁵⁸.

<footnote n="1">¹ The project *Analyse comparée autour de la formation du savoir mécanique dans les sociétés amérindiennes de l'Atacama et du Chaco boréal (1950-temps présent)* led by N.Richard was funded by the French National Research Agency (2017-2021).</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² S.Revolon, P.Lemonnier and M.Bailly, 'Objets irremplaçables : Une introduction', *Techniques & Culture* 58 (2012), pp. 14-27.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ T.Dant, *Material Culture in the Social World. Values, Activities, Lifestyles* (Buckingham, Open University Press, 1999).</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ D.Miller (ed), *Material cultures. Why some things matter* (London, UCL Press, 1998).</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ G.Rose, 'Rethinking the geographies of cultural objects' through digital technologies: Interface, network and friction', p. 334, *Progress in Human Geography* 40:3 (2016), pp. 334-451.</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶ S.Kirsch, 'Cultural geography I: Materialist turns', *Progress in Human Geography* 37:3 (2012), pp. 433-441.</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷ S.Whatmore, 'Materialist returns: practicing cultural geography in and for a more-than-human world', *cultural geographies* 13 (2006), pp. 600-609; D.P.Tolia-Kelly, 'The geographies of cultural geography III: Material geographies, vibrant matters and risking surface geographies', *Progress in Human Geography* 37:1 (2011), pp. 153-160.</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸ P.Descola, *Par-delà nature et culture* (Paris, Gallimard, 2005); E.Kohn, *How Forests Think. Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human* (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2013).</footnote>

<footnote n="9">⁹ N.Richard, 'Aproximación al problema de los caminos, u odografía, en el Chaco y en la Puna contemporáneos', in P.Sendón and D.Villar, *Al Pie de Los Andes: Estudios de Etnología, Arqueología e Historia* (Cochabamba, Itinerarios, 2013), pp. 47-70; D.Villar, *Bolivia a vapor. Antropología histórica del barco cauchero (1880-1920)*, (Santa Cruz, El País, 2020).</footnote>

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ T.Ingold, *The Perception of the Environment. Essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill* (London and New York, Routledge, 2000).</footnote>

<footnote n="11">¹¹ e.g. J.LVergunst and T.Ingold (eds), *Ways of Walking. Ethnography and Practice on Foot* (London and New York, Routledge, 2008).</footnote>

<footnote n="12">¹² e.g. W.B.Kemp, 'The Flow of Energy in a Hunting Society', *Scientific American* (1971), pp. 105-115; P.J. Usher, 'The Use of Snowmobiles for Trapping on Banks Island', *Arctic* 25:3 (1972), pp. 171-181.</footnote>

<footnote n="13">¹³ e.g. D.M.Epstein and A.Valmari, 'Reindeer Herding and Ecology in Finnish Lapland', *GeoJournal*, 8:2 (1984), pp. 159-169; J.O.Habeck, 'Experience, Movement and Mobility: Komi Reindeer Herders' Perception of the Environment', *Nomadic Peoples* 10:2 (2006), pp. 123-141.</footnote>
<footnote n="14">¹⁴ R.Fraser, 'Motorcycles on the Steppe: Skill, Social Change, and New Technologies in Postsocialist Northern Mongolia', *Nomadic Peoples* 22 (2018), pp. 330-368.</footnote>

<footnote n="15">¹⁵ S.Schien and E.Halbmayer, 'The Return of Things to Amazonian Anthropology: A Review', *Indiana* 31 (2014), pp. 421-437.</footnote>

<footnote n="16">¹⁶ C.Gordon, 'The Objects of the Whites: Commodities and Consumerism among the Xikrin-Kayapó (Mebengokre) of Amazonia', *Tipití* 8:2 (2010). G.Gordillo, *Rubble: The Afterlife of Destruction* (Durham, Duke University Press, 2014).</footnote>

<footnote n="17">¹⁷ N.Richard, Z.Franceschi, L.Córdoba (eds), *La misión de la máquina: técnica, extractivismo y conversión en las tierras bajas sudamericanas* (Bologna, Bononia University Press, 2021).</footnote>

<footnote n="18">¹⁸ e.g. B.Bimber, 'Karl Marx and the Three Faces of Technological Determinism', *Social Studies of Science* 20:2 (1990), pp. 333-351; R.L.Heilbronner, 'Do Machines Make History?', *Technology and Culture* 8:3 (1967), pp. 335-345.</footnote>

<footnote n="19">¹⁹ J.W.Berry, 'Globalisation and acculturation', *International Journal of Intercultural Relations* 32 (2008), pp. 328-336.</footnote>

<footnote n="20">²⁰ P.J.Pelto and L.Müller-Wille, 'Snowmobiles: technological revolution in the arctic', p. 170, in R.H.Bernard and P.J.Pelto (eds), *Technology and social change* (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1972), pp. 166-199.</footnote>

<footnote n="21">²¹ G.W.Wenzel, 'Inuit and modern hunter-gatherer subsistence', *Études/Inuit/Studies* 37:2 (2013), pp. 181-200.</footnote>

<footnote n="22">²² R.M.Figueroa, 'Indigenous Peoples and Cultural Loss', in J.S.Dryzek, R.B.Norgaard and D.Schlosberg (eds), *Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society*, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011).</footnote>

<footnote n="23">²³ Usher, *The Use of Snowmobiles*, p. 171.</footnote>

<footnote n="24">²⁴ B.Collignon, 'The variations of a land use pattern: Seasonal movements and cultural change among the Copper Inuit', *Études/Inuit/Studies* 17:1 (1993), pp. 71-89.</footnote>

<footnote n="25">²⁵ T.Turner, 'Defiant Images: The Kayapo Appropriation of Video', *Anthropology Today* 8:6 (1992), pp. 5-16.</footnote>

<footnote n="26">²⁶ L.Coupaye and L.Douny, 'Dans la Trajectoire des Choses. Comparaison des approches francophones et anglophones contemporaines en anthropologie des techniques', *Techniques & Culture* 52-53 (2009), pp. 12-39.</footnote>

<footnote n="27">²⁷ Except for some non-contacted groups, all contemporary hunter-gatherer societies are integrated at some level in the global market, see: V.Reyes-García and A.Pyhälä, *Hunter-Gatherers in a Changing World*, (Springer, Geneva, 2017).</footnote>

<footnote n="28">²⁸ e.g. F. Santos Granero (ed), *The Occult Life of Things. Native Amazonian Theories of Materiality and Personhood*, (Tucson, The University of Arizona Press, 2009).</footnote>

<footnote n="29">²⁹ R. Hames, 'The Ecologically Noble Savage Debate', *Annual Review of Anthropology* 36 (2007), pp. 177-190.</footnote>

<footnote n="30">³⁰ I.Combès, D.Villar, K.Lowrey, 'Comparative studies and the South American Gran Chaco', *Tipití* 7:1, 2009, pp. 69-102.</footnote>

<footnote n="31">³¹ G.Gordillo and J.M.Leguizamón, *El río y la frontera. Movilizaciones aborígenes, obras públicas y Mercosur en el Pilcomayo* (Buenos Aires, Editorial Bíblos, 2002), p. 51.</footnote>

<footnote n="32">³² R.Montani and I.Combès, 'Etnonimia wichí: cien hipótesis para mil y un nombres', *Revista Andina* 56 (2018), pp. 227-269.</footnote>

<footnote n="33">³³ J.H.Palmer, *La buena voluntad Wichí: una espiritualidad indígena* (Buenos Aires, Grupo de trabajo Ruta 81, 2005).</footnote>

<footnote n="34">³⁴ J.N.Braunstein, 'El signo del agua: Formas de clasificación étnica wichí', p. 151, in I.Combès (ed) *Definiciones étnicas, organización social y estrategias políticas en el Chaco y la Chiquitania*, (Santa Cruz, El País, 2006), pp. 145-156; R.Montani, *El mundo de las cosas entre los Wichí del Gran Chaco. Un estudio etnolingüístico* (Cochabamba, Itinerarios, 2017).</footnote>

<footnote n="35">³⁵ cf. P.Arenas, *Etnografía y alimentación entre los toba-ñachilamole'ek y wichí-lhuku'tas del Chaco Central (Argentina)*, (Buenos Aires, The author, 2003).</footnote>

<footnote n="36">³⁶ R.Montani and G.Juárez, *Ijwalas ta pajche: Mahnyay ta iyejen p'ante Wichí ta ihi Muliyus, San Patlisyu lhoya Kale-hi* (Córdoba La Marmosa, CIHA, UNC, 2016).</footnote>

<footnote n="37">³⁷ cf. L.Córdoba, F.Bossett, N.Richard (eds.), *Capitalismo en las selvas. Enclaves industrials en el Chaco y Amazonía indígenas 1850-1950* (San Pedro de Atacama, Ediciones del desierto, 2015).</footnote>

<footnote n="38">³⁸ For an in-depth analysis of motorcycle vocabulary, cf. Anonymized</footnote>

<footnote n="39">³⁹ This expression comes from M-H.Pâpoli-Yazdi, 'La motorisation des moyens de transport et ses conséquences chez les nomades kurdes du Khorâssân', p. 106, *Revue Géographique de l'Est* 22 (1982), pp. 99-115. P. 106</footnote>

<footnote n="40">⁴⁰ J-Å.Alvarsson, *Campear y pescar. La organización socio-económica y política* (Villamontes, Universidad de Uppsala, 2012).</footnote>

<footnote n="41">⁴¹ E. Nordenskiöld, *La vie des indiens dans le Chaco*, p. 40, (Paris, Librairie Ch. Delagrave, 1912).</footnote>

<footnote n="42">⁴² cf. F.Bossett and A.Siffredi, 'Las relaciones interétnicas en el Pilcomayo medio: la guerra indígena y sus transformaciones (1882-1938)', *Población & Sociedad* 18:1 (2011), pp. 3-48.</footnote>

<footnote n="43">⁴³ A.Metraux, 'Ethnography of the Chaco', in J.H. Steward (ed), *Handbook of South American Indians* (Washington, Smithsonian Institution, 1946), pp. 197-370.</footnote>

<footnote n="44">⁴⁴ Alvarsson, *Campear y pescar*, p. 155.</footnote>

<footnote n="45">⁴⁵ cf. Arenas, *Etnografía; Montani, El mundo*.</footnote>

<footnote n="46">⁴⁶ This character has been discussed elsewhere by S.Muehlmann, 'How Do Real Indians Fish? Neoliberal Multiculturalism and Contested Indigeneities in the Colorado Delta', *American Anthropologist* 111:4 (2009), pp. 468-479.</footnote>

<footnote n="47">⁴⁷ Alvarsson, *Campear y pescar*, p. 158.</footnote>

<footnote n="48">⁴⁸ See, for example: 'Dique impide migración del sábalo en el Pilcomayo', *El Deber*, 2018, <https://eldeber.com.bo/bolivia/dique-impide-migracion-del-sabalo-en-el-pilcomayo_4959>; 'Hay miles de peces</footnote>
muertos a causa de la sequía en el río Pilcomayo', *El Deber*, 2020, <https://eldeber.com.bo/pais/hay-miles-de-peces-muertos-a-causa-de-la-sequia-en-el-rio-pilcomayo_200448>.

⁴⁹ The evolution of the fish market in the Bolivian Chaco is clearly explained by Alvarsson, *Campear y pescar*, chapter 7.

⁵⁰ ‘Queda prohibida la comercialización de sábalo tras declarar veda en el Pilcomayo’, *El Gran Chaco*, 2021, <https://www.diarioelgranchaco.com/2021/09/queda-prohibida-la-comercializacion-de.html>.

⁵¹ Alvarsson, *Campear y pescar*, p. 433.

⁵² This has already been noted elsewhere, e.g. R.Godoy, V.Reyes-García, E.Byron, W.R.Leonard and V.Vadez, ‘The Effect of Market Economies on the Well-Being of Indigenous Peoples and on Their Use of Renewable Natural Resources’, *Annual Review of Anthropology* 34 (2005), pp. 121-138.

⁵³ E.Nordenskiold, *La vie*, p. 40.

⁵⁴ M.Franzen, ‘Evaluating the sustainability of hunting: a comparison of harvest profiles across three Huaorani communities’, *Environmental Conservation* 33:1 (2006), pp. 36-45; S.Espinosa, L.C.Branch, R.Cueva, ‘Road Development and the Geography of Hunting by an Amazonian Indigenous Group: Consequences for Wildlife Conservation’, *PLoS ONE*, 9:12 (2014).

⁵⁵ A.Henare, M.Holbraad and S.Wastell, *Thinking Through Things. Theorizing artefacts ethnographically* (London and New York, Routledge, 2007).

⁵⁶ N.Thrift, *Non-Representational Theory Space, Politics, Affect*, p. 21, (London and New York, Routledge, 2007).

⁵⁷ T.Ingold, *Being Alive. Essays on movement, knowledge and description* (London and New York, Routledge, 2011).

⁵⁸ I borrow this expression from R.Montani, ‘La gente del bosque en la era de la máquina: lo residual de una misión’, in N.Richard, Z.Franceschi, L.Córdoba (eds), *La misión* (2021), pp. 153-168.
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<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>Map 1. The Pilcomayo region. Map made by author.</figcaption></figure>

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<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>Photo 1. The Leyenda 150 of the Appia is very popular for transporting heavy cargo, such as a few dozen fish. Photo taken by author.</figcaption></figure>

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<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>Photo 2. A fisherman while evaluating the water's movements in order to choose the best place to enter.
Photo taken by author.</figcaption></figure>

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<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>Photo 3. The amphibious machine is clearing the entrance of the channel, which directs the Pilcomayo waters towards Paraguay. Photo taken by author.</figcaption></figure>

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<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>Photo 4. One of the many fences that prevent fishermen from using the path along the river. Photo taken by author.</figcaption></figure>

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<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>Photo 5. A precarious fishing camp on the banks of the river, with a motorcycle in the background. Photo taken by author.</figcaption></figure>

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<figure><img src="image_8.png" /><figcaption>Photo 6. A fisherman with his scissor-net caught a sábalo just below the international bridge between Pozo Hondo (Paraguay) and Misión La Paz (Argentina). Photo taken by author.</figcaption></figure>

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