My friend John Palmer, who has died aged 69, was an anthropologist whose life was forever changed when he met the indigenous Wichí people of South America’s Gran Chaco region.
John was teaching English in Argentina as a gap year student in 1974. Intent on seeing every corner of the country, he travelled to the far north, and found himself in the Wichí’s homeland, an area little known even by most Argentinians. In the Wichí – who are so softly spoken their conversation is more like whispering – he encountered people whose qualities he hugely admired. He returned there in 1978, after university, for two years of doctoral fieldwork, living in the tiny community of Hoktek T’oi (“Stunted Lapacho Tree”). It was to become his spiritual home.
