Resumen de Aesthetics and Performance of the Ishir of Paraguay. A Review of Ticio Escobar's The Curse of Nemur. In Search of the Art, Myth, and Ritual of the Ishir (Pittsburgh, PA: U of Pittsburgh P, 2007)

Marcela Mendoza

• Ticio Escobar conceived this book not as ethnography but as a reflection on the art of the Ishir (also called Chamacoco) of the Paraguayan Chaco. The result, however, turned out to be both, artistic analysis and ethnographic account. Escobar offers a personal interpretation of the Ishir religious and ritual expressions. He retells the Great Ishir Myth—the epic of the anábsoro—and their Great Ceremony, with vivid and beautiful descriptions of their body painting and featherwork.