The Chaco War Environment, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Edited by Bridget Maria Chesterton
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication The Chaco War: environment,
ethnicity, and nationalism
Data
/ Bridget Maria Chesterton.
pages cm Includes bibliographical ISBN 978-1-4742-4884-6 ISBN 978-1-4742-4889-1
references
(hardback) -ISBN
and index.
978-1-4742-4887-7
(ePub) 1. Chaco War, 1932-1935. 1973- editor, author. F2688.5.C4732016 989.207' 16-dc23 2015030760
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Contents List of Illustrations
vi
List of Maps
vii
List of Tables
viii
List of Contributors Introduction: War 2
ix
An Overview of the Chaco
Bridget Maria Chester ton
"Same as Here, Same as Everywhere": Social Difference among Bolivian Prisoners in Paraguay
3
Channeling Chaco War
5
21
Union Activism in La Paz before and after the Chaco War, 1920-1947
4
Elizabeth Shesko
Luis
M.
Sierra
43
Modernity: Nature, Patriotic Engineering, and the
Ben Nobbs- Thiessen
67
Paraguay Guazu: Big Paraguay, Carlos Fiebrig, and the Botanical Garden as a Launching Point for Paraguayan Nationalism
6
Bridget Maria Chesterton and Thilo F.Papacek
Indigenous Peoples and the Chaco War: Power and Acquiescence in Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina
7
Energy and Environment
Erick D. Langer
9
Bolivian Oil Nationalism
113
in the Chaco War
Carlos Gomez Florentin 8
91
135
and the Chaco War
Stephen Cote
157
Engraving Conflict: The Chaco War in a Shell Case
Esther Breithoff
177
Bibliography
191
Index
209
Illustrations 1 Prisoners in Encarnacion
Cathedral, undated.
24
2 Home of Carlos Antonio Lopez and Carlos Fiebrig in the Botanical Garden, Asuncion, Paraguay.
92
3 Port of the Botanical Garden, Asuncion, Paraguay.
93
4 Max Schmidt at the Botanical Garden, Asuncion, Paraguay.
95
5 "Region Chacoana (vecindad del Rio) laguna con casa lacustre, para ellaboratorio
biologico," Botanical Garden,
Asuncion, Paraguay.
98
6 "[ardin Botanico: seccion Argentina caminito apepui," Botanical Garden, Asuncion, Paraguay.
100
7 The zoo at the Botanical Garden, with "deer" and "ostrich;' Asuncion, Paraguay.
101
8 Mennonite cow bells made from Chaco War shell cases.
181
9 Details on reverse side of decorated shell case.
183
10 Reverse side of decorated shell case.
185
11 Butterfly detail on reverse side of decorated shell case.
186
Contributors Esther Breithoff anthropology
received
her
PhD
in modern
conflict
archeology
and
at the University of Bristol, UK, in 2015, where she also completed
a master's degree in historical archeology of the modern world. Esther earned her bachelor's degree in archeology and Hispanic studies at University College Dublin, Ireland, and also spent a year reading history and anthropology
at
Pontificia Universidad Cat6lica de Chile. Her PhD thesis looks at the landscapes and material culture generated by the Chaco War and its aftermath, and people's interaction with these in Paraguay. Bridget Maria Chesterton is an associate professor of history at Buffalo State. She earned her PhD at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 2007. Her research is focused on the southern cone of South America. Her publications include The Grandchildren of Solano L6pez: Frontier and Nation in Paraguay, 1904-1936 (2013); "Composing Gender and Class: Women Letter Writers during the Chaco War, 1932-1935" in the Journal of Womens History; and "A White Russian in the Green Hell: Military Science, Ethnography, and Nation Building:' co-authored
with Anatoly V.Isaenko in the Hispanic American Historical Review.
She has also published various book chapters for Spanish-language Her future projects include a monograph-length consumption
publications.
text on the Stroessner years and
in Paraguay.
Stephen Cote received his BA in political science (1985) and his MA in international
studies (2005) at the University of Connecticut,
and his PhD in
Latin American history at the University of California, Davis (2011). He was a visiting assistant professor in the Department
of History of Ohio University in
Athens, Ohio, for three years and at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington,
for one year. His current book manuscript
explores political and
social aspects of Bolivia's petroleum sector since the late nineteenth
century. He
has published articles in World History Connected and Environmental History. Carlos Gomez Florentin is a PhD candidate in history at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is a Social Sciences Research Council International
9
Engraving Conflict: The Chaco War in a Shell Case Esther Breithoff
The Chaco War has been described as the bloodiest conflict of twentieth-century South America. It may come as a surprise then that it remains largely unheard of outside Paraguay and Bolivia. Although numerous Bolivian and Paraguayan
members
personal diaries from both
of the military
yield insights
into the
challenges and horrors experienced by the soldiers, many of these sources seem to concentrate
on the logistics of the war. The often extreme
nationalistic
undertone of the diaries (especially in the Paraguayan case) leads one to question the validity of certain accounts. Besides a small number of exceptions (including the chapters represented
in this volume), both the Spanish and the English
scholarly sources tend to focus on the military history and diplomatic aspects of the conflict. Although
thorough
and highly informative,
they cover a very
specific angle of the war and are thus aimed at an equally specific audience. Military histories are essential to our understanding
of any war, but they are
not the only way of analysing armed conflicts and their legacies. As the chapters in this book clearly demonstrate,
the Chaco War can and should be studied from
a variety of perspectives. This chapter will adopt the necessity for the multidisciplinary
approach
of modern
conflict archeology toward the study of the
material culture of the Chaco War and its aftermath. Not an archeology in its conventional
sense, modern conflict archeology applies research methods from
a wide range of different fields such as anthropology,
material culture studies,
cultural geography, and military history to the material remnants
created by
recent conflict. By doing so, it moves beyond the mere collecting of artifacts and listing of battles and weapon types, and instead reveals the human beings behind the objects.' In
Paraguay,
archeological archeology.
archeology
training
remains
is unavailable,
The Secretaria
Nacional
underdeveloped.
Modern
scientific
and no universities
offer degrees
in
de Cultura
the Gabinete
de
houses
The Chaco War
178
arqueologia
y paleontologia,
and knowledgeable
which employs Ruth Alison Benitez, a passionate
tecnico who is in charge of mostly rescue excavations in the
country. Unfortunately, her and the institution's enthusiasm to save Paraguay's archeological country
national
training
heritage
and adequate
relies on foreign specialists
are not matched fieldwork
and genuine efforts by any professional
equipment.
As a result, the
(with financial resources)
to carry out
research on national territory. In June 2013, the first ever archeological excavation of a Chaco War site took place in the Paraguayan Chaco. In collaboration
with
the Secretaria Nacional de Cultura and logistical support from the Ministerio de Defenso Nacional (RC 1 Cnel Valois Rivarola, Pozo Colorado), I directed the "Campafia
arqueol6gica
Fortin Nanawa," The aim of the project was to dig
various test trenches inside the old military fort and to establish the potential for an archeology of the Chaco War. Hidden away in dense scrubland on private property, the site was exceptionally well preserved, with the trench system still clearly delineated. Despite the small scale of the excavation, the abundance of finds was overwhelming
both beneath
and especially above the ground. Today, almost eighty years after the cessation of violence, the Chaco landscape remains littered with war debris. Metaphysically too, the war survives. There are numerous with screams, shots, and the thrumming
accounts of the bush reverberating
noise of passing airplanes at the dead of
night; the bush is alive with echoes of the war.' Although a great deal is concealed from view by layers of sand and thorny thicket, the archeological
evidence of
conflict is nonetheless visible everywhere. Standing inside Fortin Nanawa, one finds oneself in fact surrounded buttons, medicine
by archeology. Trenches, empty bullet cases,
bottles, and parts of military vehicles have withstood
the
ravages of weather and time. Some tree trunks are marked with bullet holes in which the occasional projectile is still stubbornly piercing the bark. Today, much of the Chaco War material culture and, more importantly, the personal stories it carries, have survived right before our eyes.
Modern conflict archeology in the Chaco In its essence, archeology concerns itself with the understanding past through
the study of material
remains.
of the human
There is a general view that
archeological work is always done with a trowel and brush in hand. It is, however, a common
misconception
that all archeology
is hidden underground
need of excavation. Although digging can be an important
and in
part of archeological
Engraving Conflict: 'The Chaco War in a Shell Case
179
research, it is not always essential or even necessary. Professionals specializing in Roman archeology, for example, are not only digging for Roman coins and wine vessels. They record surviving structures and amphitheaters,
above ground such as Roman towns
and spend hours in archives working
through
the vast
amount of written sources available. The same applies to twentieth- and twentyfirst-century
conflict sites. Although
automatically
better preserved.
these sites are more recent, they are not
On the contrary, younger sites are frequently
situated closer to the earth's surface and thus at a greater risk of destruction. many cases, sites of conflict are deliberately during or immediately and/or construct
sabotaged
In
or hidden from view
after conflict situations in order to cover up war crimes
an acceptable post-war
date means that twentieth-
narrative. Moreover, being recent in
and twenty-first-century
conflict sites often fall
outside of what is considered old enough to be of archeological value and worth saving. On many occasions, war debris is seen as exactly that: industrial junk not worthy of consideration.
Once they have ended, modern wars such as the Chaco
War leave in their wake scarred landscapes, industrial junk, which requires description theoretical
framework
of modern
rotting body parts, and a sea of
and analysis using the practical and
conflict archeology, with a special focus on
material culture studies.'
One man's trash is another man's treasure It is often our trash that can reveal the everyday and often seemingly irrelevant or hidden stories of humankind.'
As the site of Fortin Nanawa has shown, one
can still stumble across war material in remote corners of the Chaco bush today. Nonetheless, the bulk of metal debris was cleared in the years after the war by the military, the Mennonites,
and the indigenous population.
In fact, the industrial
litter proved to be a welcomed source of metal for the indigenous and Mennonite inhabitants
of the area, who up until then had been largely dependent
on local
natural resources. Both groups began collecting the discarded objects and one man's trash thus became another man's treasure. The assembled bits and pieces of army vehicles, oil canisters, barbed wire, and empty shell cases were recycled into practical items for everyday use." The removal of war debris was, however, not without its dangers, as many of the shells and grenades would have still been volatile. Once considered
safe for
reprocessing, the object was often reshaped in order to adapt it to its new usage. Occasionally,
a metal item was melted down, rendering
it formless in both
180
The Chaco War
meaning and matter, before it was reshaped into a new object with a completely novel purpose. Debris is thus not inert matter without any social and/or economic value. On the contrary, the recycling, re-use, and re-interpretation of material constitute part of a continuing social process that is "open to varied forms of expression and entanglement." In the case of recycled war debris, much of it can be considered as belonging to a category of items known as "trench art:' Nicholas J. Saunders has defined the concept of trench art as "any item made by soldiers, prisoners of war and civilians, from war materiel directly, or any other material, as long as it and they are associated temporally and/or spatially with armed conflict or its consequences:" For the purpose of this chapter, I will focus on one kind of trench art-the decorated artillery shell case as an example of "three-dimensional testaments to the experiences of war" that reveal themselves as "objectifications of the self"" and act as a "resource for the exploration of meaning in objects." People's physical creation and manipulation of these objects result in the materialization of their emotional, spiritual, ideological, esthetic, and economic values. Manmade objects are thus culturally constructed entities bestowed with what Igor Kopytoff termed a "cultural biography."? Like human biographies which are continually changing throughout people's lives,the values attached to objects are in constant flux too, creating the notion of different things mean different things to different people at different times. Objects thus have their own form of "communicative agency"!' and people's interaction with them can alter the message they convey.
The Chaco War in a shell case At the end of the war, thousands of artillery shell casings littered the Chaco scrubland. A number of empty shells were collected by Mennonites from Colonia Fernheim and transformed into agricultural implements such as cow bells. Practicing pacifism, it is somewhat ironic that members from this religious community turned an object originally produced to kill into a tool employed in the cultivation of land and, subsequently, life." While countless spent shell cases were left in the bush, a small number were picked up by soldiers during the war. Stuck in trenches for weeks on end without any actual fighting, the men were often left with little to do to pass their time. As resources were limited, they were forced to become inventive.With war debris all around them, the soldiers began to recycle the material and attach new meanings
Engraving Conflict: The Chaco War in a Shell Case
Figure 8
181
Mennonite cowbellsmade from ChacoWar shellcases.
Source:Phototakenby author.
to them. In his mernoir, ex-combatant Anibal Zotti, for instance, remembers soldiers fabricating card games from thick cardboard ammunition boxes and preparing their scarce breakfast inside used gas canisters." Because of both their availability and physical properties, empty artillery shell cases acted as readily available substitutes for paper, while bayonets and knives served as pens. Their smooth surface permitted men to express their experiences in carving, making their transformation both physical and symbolic. Ironically, the precise object that caused so much fear and grief on the battlefields and in the trenches now presented a temporary escape from exactly those horrors. The interplay between human being and shell case thereby grants the latter a new meaning. The shell is no longer just a hollow instrument of death but an objectification of personal memories. Decorated Chaco War artillery shells boast a diverse range of decorative motifs, ranging from floral and faunal designs to human representations and religious symbolism. The re-occurring motif of the Paraguayan coat of arms indicates that most modified shell cases seem to have been made by Paraguayans. Many of the shells are also dated and carry place names, signatures, and dedications, facilitating a possible identification of the artist. The decorated shell case is undoubtedly the most iconic (and ironic) of all trench art objects." Highly explosive,the artillery shell was,and still is,produced to kill. During the First World War, it became the embodiment of the destructive powers of industrialized armed conflict. Due to the nature of its trench warfare and the horrors that enfolded inside them, the Chaco War turned into a South American version of the Great War. Bruce W. Farcau called the 1933 bloodbaths of Nanawa the "Verdun of the Chace," a "meat grinder" that took the lives of countless young men. IS At the start of the Chaco War, neither Bolivia nor
182
The Chaco War
Paraguay had a domestic weapons industry. Both governments amount
of weaponry,
including
artillery
shells, from
acquired a vast
Europe
and North
America." The deafening sound of and continuous threat from artillery shells became integral parts of the soldiers' existence in the Chaco. In his war diary, Paraguayan
soldier Felino Paniagua uses a musical metaphor
to recount the
auditory experience of shellfire: "The artillery and mortars ejected their grenades and shells that spread death, horror and terror in a roaring symphony?" In their constant
struggle to stay alive in the deadly blend of natural and
industrial forces, the men thus had to be alert at all times. Bolivian soldier Emilio Sarmiento has described their ears as "little antennae" that detected every sound and intrusion.
IS
The menacing
sound of artillery fire kept haunting
the men
beyond the battlefields. Although weeks and months spent inside filthy trenches dulled the soldiers' senses, the cries of war had lingered on inside of the men only to suddenly resurface at night long after the war had finished as Bolivian writer and Chaco War veteran Augusto Cespedes vividly remembers: "[ ... J far away from the war, all the noises deposited in my nerves woke up during the middle of the night, followed me in my delirium, like the noise of a train."? The impact artillery 75 MP.M/928
shells had on soldiers is furthermore
engraved
in a
Schneider shell casing dated 1929. The object belongs to a private
collection that totals sixty-three Chaco War shell cases now located in the USA. The collector
received the shells from a fellow trench art aficionado
whose
Paraguayan friend had saved them from a garbage dump. They now form part of an extensive trench art collection that includes pieces from different conflicts all over the world. The obverse side of this shell case depicts the Paraguayan coat of arms complete with lion, staff and liberty cap, wrath and "Paz y lusticia" (Peace and Justice). It also names Fortin Nanawa as a place and May 5, 1933 as a date. The reverse side of the shell case shows a depiction
of a field gun with five
soldiers dressed in uniform kneeling behind it. Below the field gun, the artist engraved a protective shield sheltering three more soldiers. The men are kneeling around an ammunition
box from which they are passing artillery shells to their
comrades loading the field gun. The attention to detail and artistic skills reflected in the engraving suggest a strong personal dedication
on behalf of its creator.
Decorating this shell case would have been time- and energy-consuming,
as well
as a technical challenge. The choice of motif would therefore have been unlikely to be random. For one reason or another, the soldier who depicted the field gun felt strongly about this piece of artillery. Was he one of the men loading or firing it? Or is the decoration on the shell case a silent reminder of the deafening noise that undoubtedly
announced
death to numerous of his comrades?
Engraving Conflict: The Chaco War in a Shell Case
183
Figure 9 Details on reverse side of decorated shell case.
Source: Photo taken by author.
Considering
the richness in artistic talent and the diversity in decorative
motifs and messages, it is perhaps surprising that the Chaco War's engraved shell cases have so far been completely overlooked. The exhibition areas of national museums
such as the Museo de la Defensa Nacional in Asuncion, the Museo
Fortin Boqueron
in the Chaco, and the Museo Historico
Duarte Alder in Paraguari uniforms
are crammed
Gral. Div. Enrique
with different kinds of weaponry,
and all sorts of other paraphernalia
dating from the Chaco War.
Although each museum has a number of shell cases on display, none revealed decorations
on closer inspection. Three engraved artillery shells were, however,
stacked on top of a cupboard in a little room away from the exhibition area in the museum in ParaguarL Similarly, the Museo Portin Boqueron revealed a further decorated artillery shell case hidden inside a cardboard box inside the museum's storage room. Why those trench art pieces do not form part of the general exhibition remains open for debate. People might simply not know what to make of the shells, as they do not belong to any familiar category of wartime objects. As the artistic skills applied to the various shell cases vary greatly, some of the objects might not be deemed "pretty" enough to go on display. On the other hand, shells that are adorned with floral designs may not be considered suitable reflections
of the masculine
culture
ethos. Yet, when it comes to uncovering needs to transcend
embedded
within
Paraguayan
military
the stories inscribed in the shells, one
the purely military nature of the decorations
to reveal the
person, not just the soldier, behind the engravings. This issue is illustrated
by another
decorated
shell case from the private
collection located in the United States. The example is a 1911 75mm Schneider shell case with the inscription:
The Chaco War
184
To my unforgettable and beloved grandmother/Republic from your grandson EC [?).20 The inscriptions produced
of Paraguay/Souvenir
are made up of tiny zig-zag lines, which were most likely
with a bayonet or other type of knife. The dedication
grandmother
to a beloved
evokes the image of a young homesick soldier engraving the shell
case somewhere in the remoteness of the Chaco. Separated from his loved ones by hundreds
of miles of dense bush, the thought of his grandmother
must have
filled the man with a sense of melancholy for a better, safer life far away from the deafening sound of artillery fire and the smell of rotting bodies. Thousands of young men swapped their ploughs for rifles, determined "patria Guarani," On the shell case, this deep-seated
to defend their beloved
devotion to homeland
and
Guarani heritage" is expressed in the depiction of the national coat of arms with its olive and palm branch
wreath surrounding
a five-pointed
star. With the
possibility of a premature death constantly looming over the soldiers, the initials on the shell might represent the artist's intention to preserve part of himself in the shell case that, unlike him, may some day find its way to his grandmother's home. The most evocative decoration
on the shell case is perhaps the butterfly
depicted on the reverse side of the case. Strikingly, the delicate beauty of the butterfly stands in stark contrast with the destructive power of the artillery shell itself. Consistent
with the other imagery, the simple yet appealing insect design
is made up of tiny zig-zag lines. Butterflies are common in the Chaco, and the artist might have simply engraved what he observed in the Chaco bush. Maybe his grandmother
had a special liking for these winged creatures and the latter
came to act as a reminder
of family members
left behind?
In his memoir,
Paniagua recalls an episode in which himself and his comrades had been walking under the burning Chaco sun without a drop of water for a whole day when they suddenly saw thousands
of butterflies fluttering around in front of them. He
describes the yellow and white swarm as a "carpet interwoven with the attractive colors of these fragile creatures of nature:'22 The men soon realized that the butterflies were hovering over a puddle of water. Beside themselves with thirst, the soldiers imitated the butterflies and threw themselves to the ground, crushing some of the insects in the act. Desperate, the men tried to soak up the foul water with a dirty tissue or the corner of their mosquito net." The butterfly on the shell case might be the embodiment artist. Like the butterflies abundant.
of a similar harrowing experience suffered by the
in the Chaco, moments
Unless remembered
in personal
like these must have been
diaries such as Paniaguas,
these
ephemeral episodes often slip through the cracks of time and go unmentioned
Engraving Conflict: The Chaco War in a Shell Case
Figure 10 Reverse side of decorated
185
shell case.
Source: Photo taken by author.
in general history books. Discussing trench art pieces, Saunders argues that they "increasingly
emphasize the common
soldier's experience of war.?" Decorated
artillery shells thus act as unconventional experiences to be materialized in objects.
recording devices that allow personal
The Chaco War
186
Decoding adornments
these embodied
experiences
is not always straightforward
as
on shell cases often appear to have mere esthetic qualities. As already
noted, the butterfly engraved on the Chaco War artillery shell might not be purely ornamental.
The butterfly
is a highly symbolized
creature,
and the
butterfly motif has been widely used across different times and cultures. The ancient Greeks, for example, saw the butterfly as a representation soups Due to its metamorphosis
of the human
from egg to caterpillar to pupa, from which it
finally emerges complete in its winged splendor, the butterfly is often considered a symbol of rebirth and transformation." underwent
a change comparable
was a physical transformation
During the Chaco War, the soldiers
to that of the insect. In numerous
cases, this
at the end of which the soldiers, like the butterflies,
emerged unrecognizable. The destructive power of industrialized
warfare wreaked havoc on the human
body and left countless men with missing limbs and disfigured faces. Although not every soldier returned with serious physical damage, each man suffered a severe psychological
transformation.
Since the end of the war, Paraguayan
historians and members of the military have written a myriad of books about the
Figure 11 Butterfly detail on reverse side of decorated shell case.
Source: Photo taken by author.
Engraving Conflict: The Chaco War in a Shell Case
conflict and the national interwoven
187
military. Many of these are highly subjective
with nationalism.
This has resulted in a romanticized
soldier's emotional transformation.
and
view of the
In the eyes of the nationalist, a man's bravery,
pride, loyalty, and love for his "patria' turned him into the supreme Guarani soldier who was not afraid to die for his country. This glorification of the Guarani soldier and his at times almost superhuman
qualities undermine
the true nature
of mechanized wars and their effects on the human mind. Although most of the young men were undoubtedly
devoted to the defence of their homeland, they
were certainly not prepared for the inhospitable
nature of the Chaco bush and
the horrors of modern warfare that they were to face. The appalling conditions in the trenches experiences
and the massacres on the battlefields were deeply traumatic
that transformed
carefree young men into empty shells of their
former selves.
Concluding comments Zotti observed that "The man in the battle deserves more respect than the battle itself'?" By looking at engraved Chaco War artillery shells as pictorial testaments of industrialized
war, modern conflict archeology allows us to see beyond the
shell's mere practical military function and reveal the human beings and their stories hidden within the carvings. In fact, the shells act as objectifications feelings of those who experienced
war. They form tangible memories
of the that are
often excluded from history books. However, the personal stories of hope and dreams, loss and affection, constitute just one of many layers that make up the shells' cultural "biography:' For almost a century, these biographies have remained in flux. Produced
in European and North American
objects of death and destruction,
ammunition
factories as
the artillery shells have become platforms of
self-expression, war souvenirs, valued collectables, secondary museum exhibition pieces, and archeological
case studies. Finally, the Chaco War was a war of
materiel, and the study of its physical remains therefore constitutes an integral part in our understanding
of not only the conflict itself but the people involved.
Notes For a detailed study of modern conflict archeology, see Gabriel Moshenska,
Archaeology of the Second World War: Uncovering Britain's Wartime Heritage
The
The Chaco War
188
(Barnsley: Pen and Swords Books, 2012); Nicholas J. Saunders, "Worlds Apart: Modern Conflict Archaeology
and Battlefield Archaeology;' Arheo 27 (2010): 45-55;
Nicholas J. Saunders, Killing Time: Archaeology and the First World War (Stroud: Sutton, 2007); Nicholas
1. Saunders
(ed.), Beyond the Dead Horizon: Studies in
Modern Conflict Archaeology (Oxford: Oxbow, 2012); Colleen M. Beck, William Gray [ohnson and John Schofield (eds.), Materiei Culture: The Archaeology of TwentiethCentury Conflict (London: Routledge, 2002); John Schofield, Combat Archaeology: Material Culture and Modern Conflict (London: Duckworth, 2005). 2 Gast6n R. Gordillo, Landscapes of Devils: Tensions of Place and Memory in the Argentinean Chaco (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004). 3
For a detailed introduction
to the field of material culture studies, see Tilley et al.
(eds.), Handbook of Material Culture (London: SAGE Publications, 4
2006).
William L. Rathje and Cullen Murphy, Rubbish!: The Archaeology of Garbage (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001).
5 Esther Breithoff, "The Many Faces of the Chaco War: Indigenous
Modernity
and
Conflict Archaeology;' in Beyond the Dead Horizon: Studies in Modern Conflict Archaeology, edited by Nicholas J. Saunders (Oxford: Oxbow, 2012),146-158. 6
Joshua Reno, "Your Trash Is Someone's Treasure: The Politics of Value at a Michigan Landfill," Journal of Material Culture 14, 1 (2009): 30,43.
7
For a definition and extensive study on the trench art from the First World War, see Nicholas J. Saunders, Trench Art: Materialities and Memories of War (Oxford: Berg, 2003).
8
Saunders, "Worlds Apart", 51.
9
Saunders, Trench Art: Materialities and Memories of War, 163.
10 Igor Kopytoff, "The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization
as Process'; in
The Social Life of Things, edited by Arjun Appadurai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 64. 11 Christopher
Tilley, "Introduction:
Metaphor, Materiality and Interpretation;'
in The
Material Culture Reader, edited by Victor Buchli (Oxford: Berg, 2002), 25. 12 Esther Breithoff, "The Many Faces of the Chaco War;' 156. 13 Anibal Zotti, Siempre Vivos: Memorias de un ex-Combatiente
de la Guerra del Chaco
(Asunci6n, Paraguay: Imprenta Militar de la Direcci6n de Publicaciones
de las
FEAA. de la Naci6n, 1974), 123, 150. 14 Saunders, Trench Art: Materialities and Memories of War, 53. 15 Bruce W. Farcau, The Chaco War: Bolivia and Paraguay, 1932-1935 (New York: Praeger, 1996), 103. 16 Mathew Hughes, "Logistics and the Chaco War: Bolivia versus Paraguay, 1932-1935;'
The Journal of Military History 69, 2 (2005): 415. 17 Felino Paniagua, Con los pies descalzos: entre el polvo y la sed (Asunci6n, Paraguay: Ind. & Corn., 1994), 155. Author's translation.
Engraving Conflict: The Chaco War in a Shell Case
189
18 Emilio Sarmiento, Memorias de un Soldado de la Guerra del Chaco (Buenos Aires, Argentina: el cid editor s.r.l., 1979),70. Author's translation. 19 Augusto Cespedes, Sangre de Mestizos: Relatos de la Guerra del Chaco (La Paz, Bolivia: Libreria y Editorial "Iuventud," 1973), 108. 20 A mi inolvidable y querida abuela/Repub/ica Author's translation.
del Paraguay/Rdo. de su nieto EC [?]
It is difficult to discern the exact initials. EC is the author's
guess. There are a further four undiscernible
initials engraved in the shell case. Two
of them (U or V and M or NJ) are separated by an olive branch-like 21 For an extensive study on the roots of Paraguayan nationalism the Guarani soldier, see Bridget Maria Chesterton,
plant.
and the concept of
The Grandchildren of Solano
L6pez: Frontier and Nation in Paraguay, 1904-1936 (Albuquerque:
University of New
Mexico Press, 2013). 22 Felino Paniagua, Con los pies descalzos: entre el polvo y la sed, 44. 23 Ibid., 44, 45. 24 Nicholas J. Saunders, Trench Art: Materialities and Memories of War, 13. 25 Gene Kritsky and Ron Cherry, Insect Mythology (Lincoln: iUniverse.com, 2000),9. 26 Ibid., 7-9. 27 Anibal Zotti, Siempre Vivos, 84.
Inc.,
