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Kracke2010 PDF
Kracke2010 PDF
Anthropological Linguistics
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Waud H. Kracke
ofIllinoisat Chicago
University
64
Marielena uses rameñumi in this way through all of the dreams that she
told me. I have rarelyheard the same speaker use the two terms in alternation
in tellinghis or her dreams; the use ofone or the other seems to be a preference
of the speaker rather than a marking of any contrast in meaning. In one
instance,Marielena's motherGabriela used the term rameñumiin describingto
me how, in her childhood,her motherhad tried to reassure her that the night-
mare that had just terrifiedher was a transient event.12Her motherused the
term to characterize her daughter's nightmare image as evanescent and her
daughterreplied,insistingon her feelingthat the image was real, but accepting
that it was transitory.It was not used by either as a substitute forra'ú. Still,
that bringsout the implicationofthe substitutionof rameñumi'temporarily'for
ra'ú as a marker of the dream discourse. It emphasizes the evanescence of
dreaming,the transientnature ofthe dream.
Let us look at the cognates of ra'ú in Kagwahiv. There is one principal close
cognate:the noun ra'úv,13a noun ofcomplexmeaning which includes references
to dream-imagesamong its significata.This noun basically means a representa-
tion ofsomething.A pictureof a house, ongá, can be referredto as ongá ra'úva.
If a child picks up a stick and pretends in play that it is an arrow, u'yva, the
stick is u'yva ra'úva. In talking about a dream, the term is used forthe dream
image of something; if you dream of a fish,pirá, the image of the fish in your
dream ispira ra'úva.
But the term also has other referentsthat intrude into a semantic domain
signifyingsomethinglike 'soul' or 'spirit' or 'lifeforce,center offeeling'. In food
taboos (Kracke 1990), when someone eats a forbidden species, the offended
animal in certain cases (paca, piranha) retaliates by "biting the liver" of the
offender(or ofhis or her child), or "bitinghis or her ra'úv" (hu'u'u ahe ra'úva).
In the case of deer, it "stamps on the ra'úv" (opyvondyahe ra'úva). The ghost,
añáng, is oftenreferredto by the term ha'uvagwéra 'the formerra'úv . A dying
person's ra'úv is said to go out to visit his or her close relatives, appearing to
them in their dreams to announce its departure.
Notes
Acknowledgments. This articleis based on a paperpresentedin the symposium on
"Re-Presentation ofDreams"organizedbyLaura Grahamat theNinetieth AnnualMeet-
ingoftheAmericanAnthropological Association, Chicago,22 November1991.Revisions
weremadein 2005 and 2009.
Transcription. In thetranscription ofKagwahivused in thisarticle,y is a highback
'
unrounded vowel,likeRussian¿1; is glottalstop;r is flapped;e is as in Englishpet;o is
likethea in Englishcall] ñ is a palatalizedn,as in Spanish.
1. Actually, I do notfindtheremarkin theEnglishtranslationoftheFerencziwork
referred to (Ferenczi1950),thoughthedreamsoftheHungarianpatientsthatFerenczi
interpretsin that articleofferample materialto documentsuch an assertion.In a
footnote to the article,however,thetranslator,ErnestJones,does make the comment
that the sense of one dreamin Hungarian"dependson a play on wordsthat is not
translatedbytheauthor"(Ferenczi1950:121n. 1).
2. The titleofmy I988 paper was borrowedfromDescartesvia O. K. Bouwsma
(1965),whotookthetitleforhis articleon theepistemology ofdreaming fromDescartes's
famousexclamation, "I have oftin sleepbeendeceived.. . ."
3. The abbreviation NP standsfor"nounphrase."It mayrefereithertothemanifest
contentofthedream,orto thedream'saugury - whatthecontentofthedreampredicts.
4. Dreamstoldwithcode-switching, witha considerableadmixtureofPortuguese,
maystillutilizethera'u formin portions toldin Kagwahiv,ormaydispensewithit ifthe
overallstructure becomesmorePortuguese.
5. He adds the exampleokyjera'u 'dreamedofbeingafraid',and cross-references
[r]exara'u 'to dreamof. . .' (1982:57),literally,'tosee ... in a dream'.
6. This is the first"linguistically informedreferencegrammarof Cuzco-Collao"
(Mannheim1991:117).In Wanka(CentralPeruvian)Quechua,Aikhenvaldreports,cit-
ingFloyd(1999),that"thedirectevidentialis used in recounting dreams,as iftheywere
partof'everydayexperienced reality'"(Aikhenvald2004:345).
7. The Spanishoriginalofthispassage is as follows:
(1) Hechoshistóricos o prehistóricos ....
(2) Escenas de leyendas,fábulaso cuentos....
(3) Actosocorridos antesde que el hablantetengauso de razón....
(4) Acciónque realizael hablantemientrasse encuentraen un estadoinconsciente,
ya de borracho, ya en sueños
(5) Hechos que transcurrieronsin que haya participado per sonalmenteel
hablante;éste sabe de ellossolamenteporintermediario de otraspersonaso de
otrasfuentesde información ....
(6) Situacionesnuevas,fenómenos que el hablanteacaba de descubrir....
8. Schlichter (1986:47,49, 51) also opposesevidentialsto markersofdoubt("dubita-
tive") in her discussionofevidentialsin Wintu.Jacobsenalso notes Swadesh's 1939
intermediary rolein introducing theterm"evidential" bygrouping theNootka"quotative
and inferential togetheras 'modesofevidence'"(1986:4).
9. JakobsoncitesBoas as holdingup Kwakiutlevidentialsas an exampleofepis-
temologicalaccuracy:"In his last publishedlinguisticstudy'Language and Culture'
(1942),Boas wittilyremarkedthatwe wouldread our newspaperswithmuchgreater
satisfaction if,in the same way as Kwakiutl,our language,too,wouldcompelthemto
statewhethertheirreportswerebased on self-experience, on inference,oron hearsay,or
thereporter had dreamedit" (Jakobson1944*192).In fact,Boas thereonlyrecommends
distinguishing"whethertheir reportsare based on self-experience,inference,or
hearsay"(1942:182);he doesnotmentiondreamingas a sourceofjournalistic knowledge.
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