Spirits, Dreams, and the Resolution of Conflict among Urban Guajiro Women

Guajiro Indian migrants to Maracaibo experience unaccustomed patterns of stress due to their experience of Ur life. Many of these migrants have managed to adapt traditional solutions, such as those contained in dreams, to these problems. Interviews were conducted with unacculturated Ur Guajiro women raised in the tribal culture. These women have suffered stresses due to lack of economic self-sufficiency, instability of the marital relationship, & the need to deal with Ur authorities. The Guajiro supernatural beliefs hold that the dead can intervene either benevolently or malevolently in human life, & that they commonly do so through dreams, which are real events, offering messages to the living. This reliance on dreams can serve as a means of dealing with stresses & conflicts. Review of three specific cases illustrates that dreams, whether they point to magical or rational acts, represent phenomenally real solutions to problems. W. H. Stoddard.