A Guarani Way of Living

A Guarani Way of Living

Derek Dozier

Showing how we should and shouldn't treat the environment

In today’s modern day society everything is so structured. You wake up go to work or school for many hours come home eat dinner and get ready for bed. A continuous cycle of the same stuff over and over again. You are told what to do and how to do things about everything you do. To acquire certain things you must spend money on it, and the nicer the item, the more expensive it is. It’s not a way of “living”, it’s more a way of “getting through the day”. How about this, you spend a little time of the day doing some of the essentials such as taking care of the house, taking care of the children, and getting food and other resources. To get things that you like/want you just trade with someone, and you don’t have to abide by strict rules and demands of modern day living. Sounds nice, doesn't it? Well I just explained the life of the Guarani.

Picture of happy Guarani Children

The Guarani are and indigenous tribe located in the tropical forest of Paraguay and Brazil. They are a very close nit group of individuals that have little contact with the “outside” world and are very independent within themselves. I believe that if we all lived in a way like they do that the environment, the ecosystem, and the way of living would be much better, and less damaged. One thing that the Guarani does to ensure a better society as a whole is the way they spend their days. Unlike modern day people, they do not have to put on a suit and tie and work from 9-5, rather they actually spend very little of their day working. In the book Forest Dwellers, Forest Protectors, Richard Reed explains how most of the day is spent. The Guarani’s work time is either spent doing productive labor, or reproductive labor. Only 18% of the Guarani’s waking time is spent doing productive labor, such as hunting and gathering, and only 27% of the Guarani’s day is spent doing reproductive labor such as household cleanings and taking care of the children. This means out of their whole daylight hours they are only spending 45% of their time working, and with the remaining 55%, they are resting, relaxing, and socializing. What makes the Guarani’s way of living seem so much easier is that they use the area around them in a beneficial way and fit well within the ecosystem, rather than modern civilization, in which we try to separate ourselves from the environment and over power it.

Many feathers of a Macaw Bird the Guarani would use for trade

Another awesome thing about the Guarani is the way they acquire their goods. Unlike today’s modern day society, they are not spending hundreds of dollars on things that are not truly needed and over working themselves to try and pay for these goods. Instead, the Guarani get their things by trade. As explained by Richard Reed, there are three types of exchange that the Guarani participate in. The first being generalized reciprocity. The is trade between close kinship in which one is given something or gives something to someone with no expectation of getting or giving anything back. The second type of exchange is balanced reciprocity in which both parties are expected to trade items of equal value or importance. This is seen when trading with distant kinship and acquaintances. Lastly, they do negative reciprocity in which they trade something that has lesser value than what they are going to receive. Some things that are traded are foods, items used to make different medicines, and things such as nice looking shells or pretty bird feathers.

Although people can’t just put everything down and live like the Guarani, we can do things more efficiently and work together with the ecosystem rather than against it. For example, harvest energy from a natural source (wind, water, solar), recycle more items, use things that don’t require the burning of harsh fossil fuels, and growing things on your own rather than shopping from large corporations. The Guarani are a very efficient, and eco-friendly group that seem to have a nice life, which if people began to adopt some of their ways, people’s way of living may become a lot easier and nicer.

To learn more about the Guarani you can visit the available link: http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Norway-to-Russia/Guaran-s.html