To Make Believe. Narrative Strategies in the Testimonies of the Last Ranquel People

Abstract

In this article I propose to analyze the narrations and conversations collected by Ana Fernández Garay (2002) as performances of bilingual narrators from the province of La Pampa (Argentina). The texts show a certain decline of the Ranquel, a variety of the Mapuche language. The few linguistic means and continuous code-switching do not seem to leave much room for make-belief techniques in the stories told. Nor do they seem to be necessary between sisters or spouses, for instance. Three myths, eight animal stories, sixteen monologues and another eight conversations about events in the past will allow a comparative analysis of the narrative strategies of make-belief in these texts. By comparing fictional stories (epew) with historical narratives (ngütram) I identify certain widespread strategies of make-belief (especially repetition). I relate these results to theories of belief as possible knowledge, as elaborated by María Inés Palleiro and her group of investigations (2008).