Talk:Aché

Misc.
It's impossible to support Stroessner in just about anything, but the language - the diction, the connotations - in this article is simply not encyclopedic. Sources quoted are clearly far on the left. Zafiroblue05 06:08, 15 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I've revised the article and amplified sources. Care to make specific additional suggestions? --Carwil 18:07, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

The section titled "Cooperation during foraging" has some problems I hope a more experienced editor can fix. Some of the footnotes seem to be numbered incorrectly. If you click on footnote 21, for example, you will be sent to footnote 17, and as of this edit, there appears to be no footnote 21. The notes section run from 1 to 13 and then start again from 1 to 20.

This paragraph also includes the phrase "activities are frequently embedded into longer hunting segments that we have not coded as cooperative time." That sounds like what a scholar would say in a published paper. The phrase is not marked as a quotation as of this edit, though it might be a quotation. If it is not a quotation, could this phrasing, namely "we have not coded," imply original research? Davidus Quercus 18:14, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

NPOV cleanup
This article is part of the NPOV backlog. Since the disputed text seems to have been edited, and there has been no discussion suggesting further disagreement, the tag is removed. If you disagree with this, please re-tag the article with and post to Talk. -- Steve Hart 20:22, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I wrote much of this article, based on 1970's & indigenous movement sources which predate Phillippe Edeb's writing, with the exception of the bit on LINAJE. I appreciate others who are more knowledgeable to fill in the rest.--Carwil 15:59, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Axxn 12:05, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
It is not Strossner, but NTM which destroyed the Ache.

10 May 2007
From Jonathan Padwe (jonathan.padweATyale.edu):

As someone who lived in the Ache community of Arroyo Bandera for over 3 years (1994-1997), it is clear to me that this page contains a heavy bias towards the views of anthropologist Philippe Edeb, who has been quite critical of the work of Hill, Hurtado, the FMB, and most others who have sought to work with the Aché. There are legitimate concerns about many of the interventions into Aché society by outsiders, but this article fails to do justice to the complex cultural and historical forces that have influenced the role of outsiders in the lives of the Aché. As an increasingly fluent Aché speaker during the years I lived there, and probably one of only three to five truly fluent non-Ache speakers of the language at that time, I was not impressed by the ability of any outsider to understand their situation with the exception of the missionaries at Ypetevy, Hill and Hurtado, and, at times, the Catholic missionaries working with them. All of these outsiders were aligned with factions within the communities, and perhaps the most isolated and least generally respected of these outsiders were those aligned with the views described in this article, and especially of Edeb, who, in my opinion, was barely tolerated by the people he claimed to work with.

Furthermore, the discussion of genocide cites non-experts with no in-depth knowledge of the crisis. Indeed, in depth study of the political campaign arranged around the issue by Richard ARens, Mark Munzel and others demonstrates inconsistency, contradiction, and fabrication. This does not absolve the Paraguayan government or the international community of their role in facilitating the destruction of the Aché. However, the Aché genocide can only be understood within the context of the larger issue of the extermination of indigenous people throughout the Americas. And certainly the story of this difficult chapter in the history of the Aché should not be told without including the voices of the Aché themselves.

72.224.141.37 15:35, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

See my comment above. Welcome to the editing. I still haven't read Edeb on most of the issues involved.--Carwil 16:01, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

POV paragraph needs someone who's POV it is
Who's advancing this argument. Let's name them, "others" is nebulous.


 * Others, however, claim that the Global Forest Coalition allegations are poorly documented and have little bearing on reality. With the almost complete destruction of Paraguay's forest outside the reserve area, the notion that Aché nomadism could be continued is unrealistic at best. Claims of biopiracy overlook the fact that the employment of Aché in identifying forest resources was at the center of an attempt to involve the Aché in the management of the natural resources they continue to rely on, and which they continue to hold rights to, within the reserve. Finally, the idea that the creation of the nature reserve drove the Aché into the hands of missionaries is ludicrous, at best; by providing the Aché with non-missionary derived outlets for livelihood, it seems likely that the creation of the reserve lessened the missionaries' power over the Aché.

--Carwil 18:40, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I haven't figured out yet how to register under my name but I am working on that. I am Kim Hill, professor of Anthropology at Arizona State University. I have worked with the Ache for 31 years and speak the language fluently. I have published more than 135 scholarly articles and a book about the Ache. I'm sure Carwil is well intentioned but he is not qualified to write an entry on the Ache. This illustrates the weakness of an open access encyclopedia. Much of the information in this article is erroneous, some is blatant propaganda. I am working with a student to correct this and provide useful and accurate information about the Ache available to the public. I will have to reorganize the Wiki outline so I hope this is not too complicated. Jon Padwe's comments above are very useful, but any student looking for serious background information on the Ache should avoid Wikipedia because there is no control over content and no serious verification. This is exactly why most teachers and Univ. Profs ban Wiki as a source of information in student researched papers. Instead I suggest looking for scholarly articles about the Ache on Google, or checking out the books "Ache Life History" and "Anthropologist, Scientist of the People". My professional CV at the ASU departmental site lists all 135 articles that I have published about Ache culture, history, biology and ecology. The Ache life history book contains true and verifiable data concerning the so-called "Ache genocide" as well as detailed analyses of all other causes of mortality during the 20th century.

By the way, I dont know who did the edit labeled "others" but their views are essentially correct (the tone is unfortunate, but then so is the original irrational critique of Ache-instigated conservation research). The Ache have worked in conservation research to help manage their own use of resources in the Mbaracayu region for the past 15 years. There are several scholarly articles on this research (see the journal "Conservation Biology"). This research has not only helped in indigenous resource management, but has also generated a good deal of income for tribal members who are paid by funded projects as para biologists and patrol guards who keep outsiders and loggers off Ache reservations. The Global Forest Coalition has never visited the Mbaracayu Ache to my knowledge and appear to have relied on Edeb for their viewpoint. Edeb is a "persona non-grata" in all six of the legitimate Ache communities, and thus has little direct knowledge of anything happening amongst the Ache. He is intensely biased against any and all projects that are not designed and administered by him, and has no ability or qualifications to represent Ache views. He has created a puppet NGO, "Linaje" which is rejected by all six Ache communities, and seems mainly dedicated to producing self-serving propaganda (such as much of this Wiki article). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.162.254.206 (talk) 05:34, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Not even remotely neutral
Look, I actually agree that Stroessner was awful and it would be hard for any sensible person to come to a different conclusion about Paraguay's aboriginals other than that they were pretty badly hosed. But, NPOV remarks about the Colorado Party (even if I happen to agree with them), unsourced allegations about something not being genocide that look like they are there as a redit of someone's allegations of genocide... these are all good indicators that the rest of the article is not generally to be trusted. 134.58.253.57 (talk) 09:58, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Marriage practices
Another editor removed this passage from the article. I'm going to put it here on the talk page just in case anyone can find references for the material. -Uyvsdi (talk) 17:55, 3 January 2012 (UTC)Uyvsdi

"Marriages were not arranged, but determined mainly through female choice and first marriages for most females took place at or before menarche (about age 14-15). Divorce rates were high, but polygyny was uncommon (approximately 4% of marriages). Polyandry was occasionally reported (fewer than 0.5% of marriages). Most post-reproductive women had been married to at least 10 different men and had born children with at least two men. There were no patterns of prescribed marriage, but siblings, first cousins, and some individuals in ritual relationships were prohibited from marrying each other."

Free pictures avilable
There are some free historical pictures form the ethnological museum: --Nicor (talk) 11:59, 1 May 2014 (UTC)