Trails from a World Beyond

Book excerpt: The Ayoreo indigenous peoples have inhabited the Gran Chaco forests since time immemorial, until the forces of modernity, led by settlers, farmers and missionaries began to tear open their world and to pull them from it, like trees severed from their roots. Today, several small groups remain hidden, invisible to our eyes and avoiding any contact. TRAILS FROM A WORLD BEYOND tells the story of how author and activist Benno Glauser in the early 90's became aware of the presence of these groups and began to look for ways to support their resistance. TRAILS FROM A WORLD BEYOND is the story of a people's right not to be found, of their quest to recover what was lost in their forced finding, of their longing to return to themselves. It is the story of author, Benno's Glauser's, explorations and discoveries as he sets a path in defence of a people who know neither him nor the world he inhabits. It is the story of the meaning that their quest echoes in his own, and that of all of us. It is also the story of colonisation: of the compulsion to uphold one world that subsumes and destroys all others - and of the urgent need to restore a diversity of worlds, our own among them. TRAILS FROM A WORLD BEYOND invites you to let yourself be led along the tracks of the invisibles, into their world, where they, hunt, gather, and survive; to be, as they are, watchful and alert. Perhaps you will hunt and gather something you need for yourself, in your own life, in your world. You may recognize as your own a piece of soil, or a tree; glimpse in the shimmer of a memory a lost food, an abandoned place, your own forgotten community, or a way of being– and in their trails find hints of a future that may become possible again.