The Aché, whose ancestral territories lie within the Mata Atlântica (Atlantic Forest) of eastern Paraguay, possess a rich body of material knowledge closely tied to the forest environment. Despite extensive anthropological research on this group—one of South America’s most significant formerly nomadic hunter-gatherer societies—this material heritage has received relatively little scholarly attention. Today, however, all Aché communities live in permanent settlements and rely largely on agriculture-based economies.
The Aché have endured a history marked by violent persecution, genocide, and profound social transformation. Over the last fifty years, these changes have accelerated through the forced “exit from the forest,” driven by state policies towards Indigenous peoples during Alfredo Stroessner’s dictatorship and the effective incorporation of the entire eastern region into the Paraguayan state. Subsequent pressures arising from the Itaipú hydroelectric project and the expansion of agro-industrial enterprises further displaced Aché communities and drastically reduced their forested lands.
Although important elements of their hunting and gathering traditions remain—particularly among elders in the community of Puerto Barra, Alto Paraná—this knowledge is disappearing rapidly in the face of contemporary cultural change. A central motivation for this project stems from concerns expressed by these elders themselves, who identify a profound break in intergenerational transmission. In response, the project seeks to produce a rigorous and comprehensive record of endangered material knowledge preserved by the generation that was forced to leave the forest. It also aims to provide the community, which curates its own museum within Indigenous territory, with a culturally grounded resource that supports the preservation of a heritage fundamental to Aché identity and historical continuity.
Using audio-visual documentation, ethnographic interviews, artefact drawings, planimetric documentation, and 3D modelling, the project records a broad corpus of increasingly vulnerable knowledge. Across four fieldwork campaigns, we collaborate closely with the community of Puerto Barra and, in particular, with the small number of individuals who continue to safeguard this ancestral material tradition.
The project documents the procurement, manufacture, and use of cedar-wood arrows and bows, woven carrying baskets made from forest plant fibres, polished stone axes, flutes used in the performance of pre’e lyrical songs, and contemporary cedar animal carvings featuring richly decorated scenes that express elements of an endangered Aché worldview. Joint excursions into the forest also enable the documentation of hunting and gathering practices, including the construction of contemporary versions of former nomadic camps, present-day procurement routes, the preparation of trees for the cultivation of edible larvae, foraging for food and raw materials, the harvesting of wild honey, and the capture of animals using bows, arrows, and traps. These expeditions further provide opportunities to record surviving tapir traps, together with community memories of their manufacture and use, which today remain important markers of ancestral territoriality.
The project is complemented by interviews exploring specialised knowledge of artefact production, traditional contexts of use, and their social, symbolic, and cosmological significance. Additional topics include memories of landscape and territory, experiences of mobile hunter-gatherer life, community history, genocide, dispossession, sedentarisation, and the worldview associated with them.
Finally, the project includes the documentation of selected Aché artefacts held in major museum collections, as well as the digitisation of photographs from Bjarne Fostervold’s historical archive. The results are shared through traditional craft workshops and public presentations at the Museo Verde in Puerto Barra and at leading archaeological and ethnographic museums throughout Paraguay, ensuring community access, intergenerational transmission, and wider public engagement with this endangered cultural heritage.
PI: Álvaro Falquina Aparicio
Collaborators: Márcia Lika Hattori; Gustavo G. Politis; Mirtha Alfonso Monges
Research Location: Aché Indigenous Territory, Puerto Barra, Alto Paraná District, Paraguay
Host Institution: Instituto de Ciencias del Patrimonio, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas / Institute of Heritage Sciences, Spanish State Research Council (Incipit-CSIC)
Top Banner Image: An elderly Aché hunter at Ñacunday Falls. Photo credit: Márcia L. Hattori, 2025.