[Drinking as a cultural pattern of the Chaco aborigins].

Abstract

Drinking customs of aborigin groups (mataco-mataguaysos, guaycurúes, and chiriguano-chanés from Chaco) are studied, within the general framework of Phenomenology and phenomenological method. Drinking is considered as a "cultural behaviour"; the research aims at the essence, and therefore the meaning, through the eidos, of this cultural behaviour, and the "being" or Dasein, of the culture to which it pertains. The Lebenswelt of aborigins from Chaco includes three different ways of significance for the symbology of drinking: a) sacral drinking; implying mythical transmutation; b) apocalyptical drinking, implying religious "revelation", and c) annihilating drinking, implying self-destruction. A detailed description is made of the three patterns of drinking in several groups within the tribes studied, and of their symbolic contents and ritualistic operation. At the same time, theoretical approaches of several authors are discussed in relation to the subject, together with analysis of different fields from which the phenomena are studied, including Social Anthropology, Transcultural Psychiatry and Cultural Anthropology, and stressing the difference with current epidemiological approaches that use only epiphenomenological aspects, useful merely for practical assistance purposes, but not for a deep understanding of phenomena.