One of my most vivid memories of the Guajiro Indians is of three horsemen with whom I never spoke. Late one morning, as I drove along the Caribbean coast of the Guajira Peninsula, I spotted them in the distance. They were slumped on their plodding horses, brutalized by the burning sun. But as I drew closer they heard my motor and straightened themselves. Then, from somewhere, each produced a short wooden stick, an animal prod. Guajiro men of substance sometimes carry them as symbols of elevated status, rather like the walking sticks of Victorian and Edwardian gentlemen in a distant, colder country. Each horseman, now sitting erect on a seemingly energized mount, rested one end of his prod on his right thigh and slanted the stick up and out at about a 45 degrees angle. It was an impressive sight. I never saw those particular horsemen again. But, "the three field marshals on parade," as I call them, tell us much about the Guajiro, who live in the Guajira Peninsula of northern Colombia and Venezuela. About four-fifths of the Guajira Peninsula, the cultural heartland of the Guajiro Indians, belongs to Colombia; the remainder is Venezuelan territory.
This vision of the "three field marshals" puts into focus Guajiro efforts at impression management. Why, we may ask, did the slumped horsemen disturb their accommodation to the heat and sun and become wonderfully transformed? Why, without turning to see who was coming, did they expend such energy and try to impress a person or persons unknown?
While numbers of Colombians tend to denigrate some of their country's Indians, many make an exception of the Guajiro. Indeed, they often express admiration for these Indians. They think of them as proud and independent livestock herders who sometimes engage in smuggling and other daring activities. The Guajiro, as some Colombians stereotype them, ride horses, mules, or donkeys, and the men are likely to be armed with pistols and rifles. Considered zealous in protecting their honor and kin, the Guajiro are thought to be implacable in avenging insults or injuries.
The popular stereotype of the Guajiro as proud, mounted, militant, and fiercely loyal to those whom they deem deserving of loyalty, resembles in significant respects a poetic image of the hidalgo, a type of nobleman of medieval Spain. Some Colombians accord the Guajiro admiration because, in effect, their stereotype of those Indians approximates certain romantic ideals that originated in the Old World. Those ideals, transplanted to the New World as part and parcel of Hispanic civilization, are still attractive to many contemporary Colombians and Venezuelans.
While none of my non-Indian Colombian and Venezuelan informants who live in or near the Guajira Peninsula explicitly liken the Guajiro to hidalgos, their descriptions of the Indians do sometimes suggest romantic images that seem hidalgo-like. Although numbers of Spanish authors viewed the hidalgo as something of an anachronism centuries ago, some Colombians and Venezuelans today invest various hidalgo-like qualities with positive value. Further, the Guajiro themselves support an hidalgo-like stereotype of themselves, both in describing their fellow Indians to outsiders and in some of their interactions with other Guajiro. Indeed, they tend to regard much of the stereotype as an ideal portrait of the Guajiro, one to which Guajiro should attempt to conform in ways appropriate to their resources and social standing.
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