Lengua y artefactos en la etnografía wichí de Alfred Métraux

Abstract

Alfred Métraux’s publications and some unpublished writings are reviewed in order to assess the place of native language and artifacts in his ethnographic works on the Wichí people of the Gran Chaco. A mere gaze at his « Ethnography of the Chaco » in the Handbook of South American Indians or the Wichí collections he provided for different museums, show that Wichí material culture played a crucial role in Métraux’s research. The same cannot be said of Wichí language. This is precisely why an edited and translated version of the myth of « Woodpecker and the daughter of Sun », which Métraux collected during his fieldwork and left unpublished in his field notebooks alongside others stories, is presented. Finally, the importance of this « new » version of the myth is briefly discussed.

Keywords

• Métraux
• Matacoan
• material culture
• Wichí language
• mythology