NUNC COCNOSCO EX PARTE

THOMAS J. BATA LI BRARY

TRENT UNIVERSITY
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Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology

General Editor: Jack Goody

26

FROM THE MILK RIVER

For a full list of titles in the series, see p. 303
From the
Milk River:
Spatial and
temporal processes
in Northwest
Amazonia
CHRISTINE HUGH-JONES
Research Fellow, New Hall, Cambridge

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

CAMBRIDGE
LONDON NEW YORK NEW ROCHELLE
MELBOURNE SYDNEY
Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP
32 East 57th Street, New York, NY 10022, USA
296 Beaconsfield Parade, Middle Park, Melbourne 3206, Australia

© Cambridge University Press 1979

First published 1979

Printed in Great Britain at the

University Press, Cambridge

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

Hugh-Jones, Christine, 1943-
From the Milk River.
(Cambridge studies in social anthropology ; 26)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
Based on the author’s thesis, Cambridge University,
1977.
1. Barasana Indians. 2. Tucano Indians. 3. Macii
Indians (Papury River watershed) 1. Title.
F2270.2.B27H82 980'.004'98 78-73126
ISBN 0 521 22544 2
FOR LEO AND TOM

J131S1
But I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.
BOB DYLAN
CONTENTS

List of figures, tables and maps page x

List of myths xii
Preface xiii
A ckno wledgemen ts xviii
Orthography XX
Introduction 1
Focus of the study 1
Physical setting 3
History of white influence 5
Changes in traditional life 9
The unit of study 11
Social structure 13
Introduction 13
The units 14
Tukanoans and Makii 14
My use of technical terms for Tukanoan units 15
A note on exogamy and language 17
The model 18
Exogamous Groups 19
The phratry 21
The sib 22
The local descent group 22
The model applied 22
Territory 25
Names for groups 26
The internal organisation of Exogamous Groups 26
Functions of social-structural units 30
Ideology of descent 33
Origin of sibs 38
The longhouse and its inhabitants 40
Composition of the longhouse group 40
The longhouse setting 43
The longhouse 45
Contents

The longhouse interior 46

Social and economic organisation of the longhouse community 49

3 The set of specialist roles 54

Erosion of the system 54
The specialist roles 56
Politico-economic domain: chiefs-servants 57
Metaphysical domain: dancer:/chanters-shamans 60
Domain of competitive intergroup relations: warriors 63
Analysis 64
Analogy with life stages 65
Analogy with external relations 69

4 Kinship and marriage 76

Introduction 76
The O-generation categories 77
Marriage rules and preferences 83
Negative rules 83
Positive rules 84
Analysis of marriage rules and preferences in relation to
specialist roles 87
Marriage practice 93
Obtaining wives 93
Wife-getting methods as a function of social distance 97
General considerations 100
Continuous and symmetrical organisation of the models 100
General value of the models 102

5 The life-cycle 107

Introduction 107
The end of life 107
Life and death 107
Events after death 109
The elements of the individual separated at death 112
The beginning of life 114
Ante-natal development 115
Post-natal development 117
Birth 123
Naming 133
Menstruation 134
The practice 134
The nature of the menstruating woman 136
Menstruation in myth 137
Menstruation in the life-cycle 139
Male initiation (He wi) 142
The practice 142
The He wi cycle 145
Changes that take place during He wi 147
Contents

Metaphors of change: contact with the ancestral world 148

Metaphors of change: rebirth 149
Metaphors of change: change through paint 149
The sacred instruments and female rites 152
The natural and social 155
Summary of the life-cycle 159
Perpetuation of Pira-parana society 161

6 Production and consumption 169

Introduction 169
The sexual division of labour 170
Manioc 174
Production 174
Analysis of the manioc process 180
Meat: analysis of production 192
Structuring time by production and consumption 200
Secular production and consumption 200
Production and consumption on ritual occasions 204
Reintegration through food consumption 213
Interpretation of foods 217
Starch 217
Cooked meat 222
Pepper pot 224
Cultivated plants and social models 226

7 Concepts of space—time 235

Introduction 235
Horizontal space—time 238
Description of horizontal systems 238
Synthesis of horizontal systems 251
Vertical space—time 257
Synthesis of horizontal and vertical space—time 266
Horizontal to vertical 266
Vertical to horizontal 269

8 Conclusion 275

Appendix 1: Named groups 282

Appendix 2: Kinship terminology 287

Works cited 291

Index 293
FIGURES, TABLES AND MAPS

Figures
1 Units of social structure 23
2 Anaconda journeys 34
3 Tripartite classification of Exogamous Group ancestors compared
with marriage relations between Exogamous Groups 37
4 The longhouse setting 44
5 Ground-plan of longhouse interior 47
6 Relation between concentric and hierarchical arrangements of
specialist roles 56
7 Concentric organisation of specialist roles and longhouse structure 70
8 Functioning of internal and external aspects of specialist roles 74
9 O-generation kinship terms 78
10 Simplified kinship terminology for male ego 79
11 O-generation kinship relations 82
12 Symmetrical and continuous organisation of specialist roles and
O-generation kinship categories 103
13 Transference of shamanic activity to body of client 121
14 Aspects of child development 124
15 Metaphors of birth 127
16 Life-cycle of the body 130
17 Elements of the soul 135
18 Loss of Romu Kumu's spiritual power 139
19 Continuity of female generations 141
20 Differentiation of ritual according to presence of He\ presence of
women; patterns of paint on body 151
21 Body paint in He wi cycle 153
22 Aspects of alternation of generations 163
23 Manioc processing: cassava, juice and hiari 175
24 Processing and products of bitter manioc 176-7
25 Cycle diagram of cassava production 181
26 Alternative interpretations of manioc-separation process 191
27 Comparison of meat production and reproduction 193
28 Reverse cycle made in the myth of No-Anus Spirit 199
29 Coca processing 202

x
Figures, tables and maps

30 Structuring time by food and drug consumption 205

31 Production and consumption of protein, manioc and coca 211
32 Sequence of food shamanism following He wi 214
33 Transformation of female body liquids 225
34 Old house site planted with pepper and tobacco 229
35 Comparison of movable and immovable systems of space—time 238
36 The earth's surface 240
37 Alternative models of river system of earth 242
38 Comparison of typical longhouse setting with conceptual
longhouse setting 245
39 Models of house as body and womb 247
40 Horizontal models of universe as womb 250
41 Models of horizontal space—time 252
42 Comparison of linear and concentric orders of horizontal
space—time 255
43 Alternative models of vertical structure of cosmos 259
44 Relationship between vertical planes of house, longhouse setting
and universe 265
45 Relationship between vertical and east—west horizontal axes of
universe 268
46 Incorporation of Underworld into longhouse setting 273

Tables
1 Comparison of authors’ use of terms for Tukanoan social-
structural units 16
2 Composition of longhouse groups 42

Maps
1 The Vaupes region 4
2 The Pira-parana and surrounding areas 7
LIST OF MYTHS

Note *starred items are reproduced in fuller form in Stephen Hugh-Jones 1979,
part V.

*Manioc-stick Anaconda and the origin of exogamous marriage 88

Live Woman in the Underworld 110
*Excerpts from myths about Romi Kumu 137
(\) Romi Kumu's life in the sky 137
(2) Romi Kumu's immortality 137
(3) Romi Kumu steals the sacred Yurupary instruments 137
(4) Fire is stolen from Romi Kumu 137
(5) Warimi steals poison from Romi Kumu's father 137
Frog Wife 166
*The origin of manioc 182
*The original planting of manioc 183
Dragonfly’s daughters 185
*Yeba,s penis 185
The poisoning of White Spirit 187
* Yeba in the Vulture’s land 188
No-Anus Spirit 197

*Origin of cultivation of coca 212

*Manioc-stick Anaconda and Macaw 261

xii
PREFACE

The field research for this book was carried out in Colombia between
September 1968 and December 1970. Twenty-two months of this
time was spent in the field. I took part in a joint project in which
Stephen Hugh-Jones and I were to study a group of Tukanoan Indians
and Peter Silverwood-Cope was to study a group of semi-nomadic
Maku. By careful choice of field location, we hoped to report on each
side of the symbiotic relationship between specific groups of Tuka-
noans and Maku. However, as is the way with fieldwork projects, our
plans had to be modified as soon as we had made our first exploratory
trip down the Pira-parana. We had chosen this river because most of
the Tukanoan population were still living in traditional longhouses,
but it was not until we got there that we learnt that it was barely ever
visited by Maku and that there were no ongoing Maku—Tukanoan
exchanges. Peter Silverwood-Cope left to study the Maku on the
Maku-parana, a tributary of the Papuri (see map 1 below and
Silverwood-Cope 1972). Although we could not follow our original
plan, various ideas that the Pira-parana Indians hold about the Maku
are presented here.
Throughout our stay in the Pira-parana, we had to weigh up the
advantages of making close ties with a single community against the
disadvantages of having little comparative data and relying on a mere
handful of adult informants. We decided in favour of close ties with a
single community. This was partly to avoid living through the diffi¬
culties of establishing our position as participant observers more than
once. We found that by far the most satisfactory and congenial way
of doing our research was to live in a communal longhouse, partake in
communal meals and help in productive activities (in as much as our
fumbling efforts counted as ‘help’)- In fact, this seemed the only way,
as we had a long period of language learning ahead and we also had to
xiii
Preface
dissociate ourselves from certain aspects of ‘the white role’ if we were
going to understand many facets of Indian culture. Our success in
establishing our position within a longhouse depended upon finding a
way in which we could reciprocate our hosts’ hospitality in a general¬
ised way, rather than exchanging our gifts item for item. Solutions to
these problems developed over time and, in spite of never being
resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, the question of gifts became less
nerve-racking over the months.
While we remained in a community of Barasana (Meni Masa sib, see
appendix I for lists of sibs) located on Cano Colorado (see map 2
below) for most of the time, we also accompanied our hosts on many
short visits and spent longer periods in several other communities.
Together, we made extended visits to Makuna (Saira) on Cano Kome-
yaka, Barasana (Kome Masa) on the central Pira-parana and two com¬
munities of Bara (Munganyara) on upper Cano Colorado. I also visited
a Tatuyo (Hamoa) community in the Pira-parana headwaters.
The Vaupes economy is marked by a strict sexual division of labour.
This meant that we spent most of each day apart, each engaged in
activities in which it would have been impossible for the other to par¬
ticipate. At times I found the female role irksome and depressing.
Quite apart from such indignities as having to eat breakfast after my
husband and having to sit out on most formal occasions, I suffered
from the conviction that everything important was going on in the
men’s world and that I was not learning the exciting things about Pira-
parana society: I was a few years too early to have been armed with a
‘raised consciousness’. However, there was no choice but to stay in a
deserted longhouse for most of the day or to accompany my com¬
panions in their repetitive round of manioc work. Progress seemed
slow as I gardened, peeled, grated and sieved. Much of the time the
work was too hot and tiring for conversation and, when it was not,
the women were often conversing in several different languages. I
must have been a dreadful liability, but my friends put up with my
technical inefficiency, rude interruptions and foolish questions and,
along the way, I learnt a great deal about the domestic round. It is
unlikely that I could have learnt the same things in any other way, or
even that I would have made the necessary effort to learn them,
because I did not realise at the time that they would be an important
part of my analysis. In fact, I came to enjoy much of the daily routine
for its own sake, but the process of writing up my field material has
lead me to appreciate its theoretical significance too. A large part of
Preface

the analysis contained in this book is concerned with the structure of

secular life and its relation to the other structured domains, such as
kinship, myth and ritual, which are usually given preferential treat¬
ment in interpretive monographs.
I hope this book will be considered a contribution to the ethno¬
graphy of Vaupes Indians, but this is not its primary object. My aim is
to present Pira-parana society as an integrated system. The analysis has
grown out of my own attempt to make sense of the data in relation
to each other and therefore, although I have obviously been influ¬
enced by some types of analysis more than others, in no way is this
an exercise in a particular style of interpretation. Originally, I began
to write about social structure in the conventional, limited sense of
the word. I wished to give an account of kinship groups, the operation
of marriage rules, the discrepancy between ideal models and practical
behaviour and so on. I abandoned this project because it seemed to
me that social structure was not a legitimate isolate and that the most
interesting aspects of it could not be understood from within. How¬
ever, in a sense, a concern with social structure is still basic to this
work because much of the analysis is a response to the question of
how to present an ‘open-ended’ society as a system. It is not simply
that the boundaries of ‘the society’ are indistinct or subject to fluc¬
tuation; Pira-parana society is part of a wider complex whose distinc¬
tive feature is the lack of bounded groups..Instead, there are a great
many exogamous patrilineal groups connected by marriage ties in an
open-ended network. We are all familiar with segmentary models but
these presuppose a primary, all-embracing unit. Once the rule of
exogamy is attached to the highest-level units, we are obliged to recog¬
nise that a very different type of system exists. Even the well-tried,
but misleading, feature of common language must be discarded as a
defining feature of ‘the society’ (or ‘a society’) because, in this case,
languages are attached to exogamous groups. I believe that it is poss¬
ible to represent a social system without recourse to the notion of ‘a
society’, but it is the analysis of concepts of space and time, of life¬
cycle development and of other phenomena outside the realm of kin¬
ship and marriage, that have convinced me of this.
The nature of my enterprise, in attempting to show the inter¬
relations between different aspects of Indian life, has certain impli¬
cations for the form of this book. It is difficult to represent the inter¬
connectedness of the diverse material in linear narrative form and,
therefore, to help the reader there are both a large number of diagrams
Preface

and a large number of cross-references. The style of writing is neces¬

sarily rather condensed because a wide range of material has had to be
fitted into a reasonable space. It is easy to miss essential pieces of
information, but the chapter sub-headings are listed in the contents
to assist in their retrieval. Throughout, I have made extensive use of
myth but, for reasons of length, I have included only much reduced
versions and short episodes of myth. I have included a list of the
myths given whole or in part in the text, and indicated which of these
are reproduced at greater length in Stephen Hugh-Jones (1979).
Although more complete versions of the myths to which I have
referred would be interesting for their own sakes, they would not be
directly relevant to the analysis here.
In order to stress the relative autonomy of this work, I have not
peppered the text with references to standard theoretical works. Nor,
with a few exceptions, have I incorporated other people’s data into
this book, either as supporting evidence or as comparative material.
The data from which I work are very similar to those collected by
other anthropologists from groups elsewhere in the Vaupes and, of
course, from the Pira-parana itself, but the analysis I attempt is differ¬
ent from other extant works in either type of theoretical approach
(broadly speaking, mine is a modified structuralist one) or scope, or
both. Also, as suggested above, the notion of a discrete society (or
societies) is completely inappropriate throughout the Vaupes: it
therefore seems theoretically desirable to preserve the point of view
of a small set of communities living on Cano Colorado as far as poss¬
ible. This reflects the Indian perspective, for each longhouse com¬
munity is the centre of its own world. Secondly, and following from
this, the Vaupes and surrounding areas are a rich field for comparative
study but, if material from different groups is fused together, the
basis for comparison is destroyed. This work should be seen as a stage
prior to comparison - an attempt to understand a single perspective
in depth in order to see what can be meaningfully compared. Thirdly,
this book is long enough as it is, without additional ethnographic
examples.
I have, however, made considerable use of my husband’s analysis
of Barasana initiation ritual (S. Hugh-Jones 1979) which is also based
on our joint fieldwork. In some respects my analysis starts where his
left off. I have provided the ‘general ethnography’ within which his
work on initial ritual belongs but, in this case, instead of the particu¬
lar analysis following the general ethnography, it has been the other
Preface

way round. Our separate books are intended to be complementary

rather than overlapping.

Cambridge C. H.-J.
August 1978
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My sincere thanks are due to very many people whose generosity has
made this book possible. Of these I can only mention a few, but any¬
one who has undertaken the same kind of task will know that there
are countless more.
The research on which this book is based was financed by the
British Social Science Research Council. Their grant also lasted
through part of the writing-up period, and in addition I received help
from Darwin College and the Board of Graduate Studies, University
of Cambridge, with the preparation of the manuscript. I am very
grateful to all these institutions.
Professor Sir Edmund Leach supervised my doctoral thesis and it
is due to the understanding, advice and unfailing support that he
offered over many years that this book has reached its present form.
My warmest thanks are for the people of Bosco’s longhouse on
Cano Colorado who allowed us to share their life, their food and
their knowledge. In particular, I thank Paulina who generously took
care of me throughout my stay. The people of Umero’s house,
Maximilliano’s house, Ignacio’s house and many more were welcom¬
ing hosts and warm friends. Together, the people of the Pira-parana
showed us a way of life for which I feel lasting admiration and great
nostalgia. I apologise to them for any errors I have made.
In Colombia we received invaluable help and hospitality from
Professor G. Reichel-Dolmatoff, Dr F. Marquez Yanez and others of
the Instituto Colombiano de Antropologia; from Monsenor Belarmino
Correa, Padre Manuel Elorza and others from the Prefectura Apos-
tolica del Vaupes; and from Joel and Nancy Stolte, Richard and
Connie Smith, David and Jan Whistler and several skillful pilots — all
members of the Summer Institute of Linguistics. Dr Fred Medem, the
Bright family, the Bahamon family, Rosnelle Baud and countless
xviii
A cknowledgemen ts

other people made our stay a great pleasure and gave us many differ¬
ent kinds of help.
Both during and since fieldwork, I have benefited from the field
notes, advice, information, encouragement and friendship given by
anthropologists with experience among South American Indians.
Above all, I have appreciated the open and generous spirit with
which these have been offered. Among these friends are Bernard
Arcand, Kaj Arhem, Patrice Bidou, Irving Goldman, Paul Henley,
Jean Jackson, Pierre-Yves Jacopin, Tom Langdon, Howard Reid,
Peter Riviere and Peter Silverwood-Cope, but there are many others.
I must offer very special thanks to Terry Turner for reading drafts of
this work in different stages of elaboration, and providing inspiration
through his extensive and illuminating comments. It is impossible for
me to do justice to the extent of his help in the text, but let me say
now that I have made use of his rare gift of creative criticism
throughout.
Many people here in Cambridge have treated me with warm sym¬
pathy. In particular, my children, Leo and Tom, have put up with a
great deal of interference from their paper sibling.
Finally, there is no way I can thank Stephen, my husband, enough
for his part in this book. I have made extensive use of his field notes,
his insights into Barasana culture, his time, his energy and his remark¬
able domestic skills. The bulk of this book was written after he had
completed his own analysis of Barasana ritual and so I have had all
the considerable advantages that this entails. To say that I could
never have produced this work without him is certainly no cliche.
ORTHOGRAPHY

The Barasana orthography used in this book follows that developed by Richard
Smith (n.d.) of the Summer Institute of Linguistics. This orthography uses sym¬
bols chosen to conform to that of Colombian Spanish. For English readers I have
substituted the symbols ‘h’ and ‘ny’ for ‘j’ and ‘ri’; I have also not used the sym¬
bol ‘q’, as it has the same value as ‘k’ which I use instead of ‘c’.
Vowels
Un-nasalised Nasalised
a as in mask a
e as in egg e
i as in z'nk 1
0 as in orange 6
u as in scoop u
similar to the German ii 4
Consonants
b similar to buy but with prenasalisation (mb)
k as in /rite
d prenasalised as in and
g as in go but with prenasalisation (ng)
h as in house
m as in man (phonologically a variant of b, conditioned by a contiguous
nasalised vowel)
n as in nose (phonologically a variant of d, conditioned by a contiguous
nasalised vowel)
ng as in tongue (phonologically a variant of g, conditioned by a con¬
tiguous nasalised vowel)
ny as in Spanish marzana (phonologically a variant of y, conditioned by a
contiguous nasalised vowel)
p as in pen
r between r and 1 in English
s similar to English ts as in boars
t as in rime
w as in wine
y as in yam

xx
1
Introduction

Focus of the study

Pira parana Indians see themselves as existing within an ordered cosmos
created in the ancestral past. The world of their present-day experi¬
ence is a residue or product of the ancestral doings related in myth,
ritual chants and shamanic spells. From their own point of view, this
cosmos and the mythical deeds associated with it control their con¬
temporary social life and provide a moral framework for present-day
action. Here, I work the other way round - from the inside out.
Instead of starting with the cosmology, I start with the building of
basic units of social structure, families and patrilineal groups, through
marriage and procreation. I begin by showing how different phases of
that temporal processes are associated with different spaces within
and around the longhouse and end by showing that the very same
‘space—time’ principles underlie the structure of the cosmos. I argue
as if the basic principles of social structure were primary and the cos¬
mos was a reflection of these but I do not mean to imply that there is
a simple relation of cause and effect between the two or that they
should be seen as ‘infrastructure’ and ‘superstructure’.
The anthropologist must regard the ancestral cosmos as an imagin¬
ary projection of present experience, but at the same time it is a pro¬
jection which both controls present experience and forms an integral
part of it. There is therefore a sense in which each world — the ances¬
tral one and the present-day secular one — regulates the other. This
interdependence is reflected throughout my study, because, although
I work outwards towards the ancestral cosmos, I am forced to refer
to my goal throughout. Without recourse to myth and exegesis I
would be quite unable to construct any model of the present-day situ¬
ation, because I would be unable to ‘see’ it. For instance, it is quite
1
Introduction
impossible to understand the simplest fact about Pira-parana social
structure without first understanding ‘imaginary’ descent from the
founding anaconda ancestors.
The theme of the book is more complex than the isolation of an
inner structural level and an outer cosmological one would suggest,
for I show that there is a compatibility and coherence between the
various domains of experience which typically form the chapter head¬
ings of the social anthropologist’s monograph. I demonstrate that
‘social structure’, ‘kinship and marriage’, ‘the life-cycle’, ‘politics’,
‘economics’ and ‘religion’ are ideologically integrated just as they are
also inextricably bound together in concrete behaviour. In this sense
the book is an attempt to overcome the distortions and limitations
resulting from the establishment of those anthropological sub¬
disciplines which separate off categories of data in a manner reflect¬
ing anthropologists’ professional interests rather than the nature of
the societies they study. In the case of the Vaupes Indians, there is
special reason to avoid such a rigid classification of data, because
questions about almost any aspect of life are answered by the telling
of mythical episodes, and in myth there is no convenient separation
into discrete institutions.
People actually spend their time living, taking decisions, experienc¬
ing biological changes and promoting changes through their own
activity. Even though anthropologists may choose to regard them as
‘actors’ who are continually ‘expressing social relationships’, this
does not seem to be the way they regard themselves. At the same
time, there is obviously a sense in which their culture and its insti¬
tutions may be maintained in spite of the changes that are occurring
on all fronts. I therefore describe Pira-parana society in terms of
dynamic processes which take the form of repeated cycles. Even the
systems of classification which seem to provide a fixed, ‘static’ frame¬
work for positive action can be conceived of in terms of dynamic pro¬
cesses. Thus the structure of descent groups, of the cosmos, of the
life-cycle, of a meal and so on are all created by movements of people,
ancestral beings or other elements through space and time. It is be¬
cause these structures are created in this way that they possess the
power to engender further creative change — this, at least, is the way
in which I believe Indians see things, and it is also instructive for the
model-building anthropologist.
The book contains a series of discussions of these separate pro¬
cesses, all of which contribute to the composite phenomenon of
2
Physical setting

social reproduction - by which I simply mean the continuity of a

population with a recognisable culture and set of social institutions.
In the following chapter, I set out a model of Pira-parana descent-
group structure and discuss its relation to the data from which it is
drawn. Then I describe the process of reproduction of the local
community through formation and dispersal of family units. In chap¬
ter 3, I take the specialist-role system associated with the internal
classification of descent groups and show that its structure is related
to the formation and dispersal of family units and also to the range
of different types of communication with the outside groups that
are potential sources of wives. In chapter 4, I describe certain aspects
of kinship and marriage, concentrating on the role of marriage in
creating close relations between opposed exogamous groups, which
thus promotes changes in the network of intergroup relations over
time. In chapter 5, I describe the life-cycle rituals in order to elucidate
Indian concepts of the life process with its interwoven physical and
social aspects. Chapter 6 is devoted to processes of production and
consumption, particularly of food and ‘drugs’. I show how these are
integrated with the ritually elaborated life processes outlined in the
previous chapter. Finally, in chapter 7, I discuss the concepts of
space—time which unite all these different processes, and develop a
general model of space—time systems which accounts for the relation¬
ship between the world of present-day Indian experience and the
ancestral past.

Physical setting

The Pira-parana and its tributaries lie between 70 and 71 degrees W.

and the main stream crosses the Equator roughly halfway along its
length (see map I). This part of the Northwest Amazon area is just
inside the Colombian border with Brazil and lies in the administrative
district of the Comisaria del Vaupes.
Geologically the area is the southern fringe of the Guiana shield.
Most of the land lies around 700 feet, with isolated hills and moun¬
tains standing above the surrounding forest. Apart from a few open,
sandy areas with tough and sparse vegetation and swamps with miriti
palms 0Mauritia flexuosa), there is a general forest cover. From the air
this is dense green with an occasional flowering treetop; from the
river it is an impenetrable and richly varied tangle of trees and
creepers, but once in the forest, shaded by the canopy far above, it is
3
4
Map 1 The Vaupes region
History of white influence

damp and sombre and surprisingly open. It is only on the river, where
a huge tree has fallen, or in a man-made clearing, that the colours are
light and bright and it is possible to feel a sense of space and distance.
The average rainfall for the Vaupes is around 3500 mm but there
is great local and annual variation (Instituto Geograflco Agustin
Codazzi 1969). There are two rainy seasons and two dry ones: a long
dry season lasts from December to March; heavy rains fall until
August or September and then a short dry season is followed by more
rains. The temperature varies between 20 and 35 °C throughout most
of the year, except during the aru or friagem, a cold spell character¬
ised by fine drizzle, when it may drop to as low as 10 °C. Even in the
dry seasons there is frequent rain, but the relative lack of it can be
seen in the height of the rivers. At the wettest times of year the rivers
flood the adjacent forest and all the lower ground becomes water¬
logged; at the driest times, sandy banks and the rocks and dead
branches lodged in the river beds are exposed.
The people of this area are scattered in small longhouse communi¬
ties situated by rivers and separated by anything from half-an-hour’s
to a day’s journey. They prefer to travel by river, even if it means a
longer journey, but there are also many paths in use, particularly in
headwater areas.
The Pira-parana and some of its tributaries are full of rapids and
waterfalls which are rightly considered treacherous by both Indians
and white travellers. The relative isolation of the Pira-parana from the
encroaching white society and culture can be mainly attributed to
the problems of travel. The establishment of mission airstrips has
naturally been a major factor in opening up the area. Because the
Pira-parana is an affluent of the Apaporis to the south, but is also
accessible from the Vaupes system, its inhabitants have been influ¬
enced by whites from both directions.

History of white influence

This book is partly a salvage operation: because of the nature of the

analysis, I emphasise the traditional aspects of Indian life at the
expense of the features resulting from deculturation. Although I do
incorporate processes of change into my analysis, these are changes
within a traditional institutional framework and not changes of that
framework itself. However, I do not want to give any false impressions
about Pira-parana people as I knew them in 1970, and the following
5
Introduction
account of their recent history is intended to set the record straight.
When I use the ‘ethnographic present’, I refer to the period of my
fieldwork - no doubt things are different now.
The first mention of the Pira-parana dates from the mid-eighteenth
century (Bruzzi 1962 : 22). However, it was not until 1965 that the
first mission outpost was established by North American Protestant
missionaries belonging to the Summer Institute of Linguistics. This
was closely followed by other SIL posts, so that in 1970 the Pira-
parana had four, corresponding to the four main languages spoken
along its course. The Catholic mission was established in 1968. The
sudden influx of missionaries was accompanied by the appearance of
many anthropologists, adventurers and students of this and that so
that, rubber gatherers aside, Indians saw more non-Indian strangers in
several years than they had done in as many centuries. However, the
shock of change was not quite as great as this sudden influx would
imply, because for many decades the Pira-parana had been surrounded
on all sides by peoples whose ways of life had been more severely
interfered with by missionaries and rubber gatherers than had their
own. As an index of this, by the time of our fieldwork, the Pira-
parana, adjacent parts of the upper Tiquie, a few isolated areas on the
Papuri system (such as Cano Inambu where Jean Jackson did her
research) and, to the south, parts of the Apaporis system, were the
only areas where Tukanoan groups were still living in longhouses. In
most cases these were not built to the traditional size but they did, at
least, conform to the traditional structure.
In the Pira-parana area, the influence of the rubber trade was first
felt in the latter half of the nineteenth century and the industry
reached its height in the first decade of this century. After that it
went into a gradual decline until the Second World War brought a
sudden increase in demand. By 1970 there were rumours that the
market was approaching total collapse and that government support
for the industry was to be withdrawn. The rubber gatherers (caucheros)
entered the Pira-parana from the Vaupes and Apaporis and, in most
cases, carried off the able men by force, often killing others and raping
women. Many Indians tell how the reprisals against the brutal intruders
were also extended to fellow Indians who had directed them to hidden
longhouses. The location of longhouses was an indication of white
activity, because Indians fled to the headwaters and concealed ap¬
proaches to their longhouses when times were bad, and then moved
back to the larger rivers as white people withdrew.
6
7
Map 2 The Pira-parana and surrounding areas
Introduction
Besides reducing the population and disrupting social life in these
ways, the rubber trade introduced new diseases on a large scale. It
also changed Indian culture and aspirations by creating new needs for
white men’s merchandise. But the caucheros did not purposefully
attempt to change Indian culture from within by altering patterns of
social and domestic life. Their very lack of interest in Indians as any¬
thing beyond a workforce to be ensnared in an eternal credit system
meant that those who escaped their recruiting drives continued to
live in a traditional way. By the period of our fieldwork, the methods
of caucheros were less violent, but nevertheless very variable. Many
Indians bom in the upper Pira-parana were permanently living in
rubber camps on the Vaupes or beyond, while others in the lower
Pira-parana worked regularly on the Apaporis for a part of each year.
The missionaries played a complementary role to the caucheros:
proclaiming themselves to be against the economic exploitation of
Indians, they set out to convert and ‘civilise’. The first missionaries to
enter the Colombian Vaupes area were Montfortians, who settled
along the Papuri following an exploratory voyage in 1914. They
destroyed longhouses and burnt ritual goods, and forced the inhabi¬
tants to build wattle-and-daub villages, each with its own church. The
manner in which they waged their war against sin softened over the
years, especially with the replacement of the Montfortians by
Colombian Javerians in 1949, but the aims remained basically the
same until around 1970 when there came a wave of radical question¬
ing of missionary policy from within. As the methods of persuasion
became more gentle, the bond between Indian and missionary
strengthened in economic content. The labour required to build air¬
strips and to feed and maintain mission headquarters and boarding
schools was bought with manufactured goods. As these became indis¬
pensable, Indians found themselves dependent on mission centres and
so the inflationary spiral of demand for manufactured goods began.
Such demands are met by working for the missions and this both
accelerates the acquisition of mission values, and increases mission
power by augmenting capital resources such as airstrips, buildings and
so on. In this way, the act of earning manufactured goods strengthens
the acculturative force and so creates the desire for more goods.
Many Pira-parana Indians had visited mission centres outside the
Pira-parana area long before missionaries visited them and all were
familiar with the elements of Christianity. The Vaupes marriage sys¬
tem, which requires each man to find a wife from beyond the area
8
Changes in traditional life

occupied by his own linguistic group, creates a network of alliances

which facilitates the spread of missionary culture well beyond the
limits of missionary activity. However, at the time of my fieldwork,
the disparity between longhouse life in the Pira-parana and mission¬
ary village life in the surrounding areas seemed to have dampened the
exchange of women across the divide, so that Pira-parana society
taken as a whole was relatively endogamous and culturally distinct
(in terms of existing culture rather than traditional culture) from the
rest of the Vaupes.
The influence of the four North American SIL teams working on
the Pira-parana during the time of our fieldwork was almost purely
economic. Their policy was to sell merchandise in exchange for
labour, food and artifacts and to offer limited medical aid. Mean¬
while they would concentrate on a few suitable candidates for con¬
version, but by far the greater part of their energy was devoted to
language learning. Each team (a married couple in all cases on the Pira-
parand) would spend stretches in a small house built alongside a long-
house. These were interspersed with periods at a large residential base,
outside the Vaupes area, where work among Colombian Indians was
administered and co-ordinated. The second stage of true evangelising
and education had to await New Testament translations and had hardly
got under way in the oldest-established Pira-parana post before we left.

Changes in traditional life

As a result of white activity, Pira-parana Indians had steel axes,

machetes and knives, aluminium cooking pots, some shotguns, fish¬
ing nylon and hooks, cotton hammocks, clothing, matches, beads
and so on. They still used plenty of ceramic pots and some string
hammocks and blowpipes, all of which they made themselves.
Women wore home-made skirts or full dresses made from manu¬
factured cotton textiles, while men were sometimes clad in G-strings
alone and sometimes in ready-made trousers and shirts. Stone axes
were never used, but the older men could remember when there were
only very few steel axes which were circulated from house to house
for felling cultivation sites.
These white goods must have produced considerable changes in
the Indian economy. The time required to fell trees, build houses,
collect firewood and peel manioc is so much reduced by the use of
steel that there can be no doubt that potential productive capacity
9
Introduction
has increased. We know from descriptions of travels in the past that
longhouse size has actually decreased, but it is reasonable to assume
that cultivation size has increased. In fact it is impossible to imagine
otherwise, because even now, with the help of steel, the annual fell¬
ing lasts several weeks and the women’s daily round of cultivating
and processing manioc and gathering firewood absorbs very nearly all
the daylight hours. It would be impossible to achieve the same output
with instruments of wood, stone, tooth and bone. The older women
describe a number of edible, wild starchy roots which are never col¬
lected now; this also suggests that manioc production used to be on a
smaller scale.
The use of shotguns and fish-hooks has changed the entire style of
hunting and fishing, particularly in its social aspects. These are now
mostly individual pursuits: the individual puts in a great deal of time
searching for game or waiting for fish to bite and brings in a relatively
small catch at the end of the day. In the past much more time was
spent in preparation for capturing fish and game: traps, blowpipe
darts, arrows and other devices were made with considerable expense
of time and effort - often communal effort. My impression is that
the result of these indigenous methods was larger but more infrequent
catches, corresponding to the larger scale of each enterprise. Shotguns
and fish-hooks and line do not lend themselves to group expeditions,
and they may well have been additional factors in the breakdown of
large longhouse groups in many regions. Lastly, there is no doubt in
Indian minds that shotguns are to blame for the present poverty of
game in most of the Pira-parana area.
Hand in hand with the economic changes has come the decline in
intergroup hostilities. This is one of the most difficult of the processes
of change to assess because there was evidently an intermediary phase
when much of the killing among Indians was directly related to white
activity. Indians give two reasons for the cessation of hostilities
among themselves: one is the general upheaval, dispersal of groups
and terror caused by the arrival of whites; the other is the order to
stop killing issued by the priests. I think it is safe to assume that
whatever the direct or indirect effects of the missionaries on fighting,
the decline was under way long before they arrived. It is likely that
the scale of fighting decreased even before the first caucheros arrived
in the Pira-parana, because many traders must have already used this
known thoroughfare linking the Vaupes and Apaporis.

10
The unit of study

There were Indians alive in 1970 who had been involved in isolated
killings but not in the full-scale raids made by their forbears. Evi¬
dence that the Pira-parana groups were once warlike comes from their
own stories as well as from the content and explicit purpose of ritual
which is designed to make men fierce. Broadly speaking, most people
know and agree about famous intergroup encounters and can plot
many of the consequent migrations.
Besides the fighting and shifting alliances which occurred between
resident Tukanoan groups, Indians often mention a time when canni¬
bal tribes swept through the Pira-parana; they even point out a cave
with smoke-blackened walls where they claim their ancestors lived in
hiding. The cannibals are commonly said to have been Barea gawa,
probably Bare Indians from the northeast, close to the Casiquiare
canal, and Hode gawa, Carijona, from the west.

The unit of study

In this book the categories ‘Vaupes Indians’, ‘Pira-parana Indians’ and

‘Barasana’ are used. Whenever Indian words are included, these are in
the Barasana language unless otherwise stated. The rather confusing
use of terms requires some explanation. The river Pira-parana and its
affluents are inhabited by a number of separate peoples, including
the Barasana. The area covered by the Pira-parana river system forms
the southwestern part of the Vaupes region, which overlaps from
Colombia into Brazil. The other rivers of the Vaupes region are part
of the Vaupes river system, whereas the Pira-parana flows into the
Apaporis to the south (see map 1).
The Tukanoan groups of the Vaupes region are related by common
cultural patterns, by their use of Eastern Tukanoan languages and by
their participation in an open-ended social system based on the
exchange of women between exogamous patrilineal descent groups.
These exogamous groups are the peoples such as the Barasana,
Tatuyo, Desana etc. Generally speaking, each of these exogamous
units has its own language, but, in the exceptional cases where
language and descent boundaries do not coincide, there is enormous
confusion in the use of these two criteria for distinguishing groups.
The confusion is made worse by the use of group designations in
Spanish, Portuguese, Lingua Geral and a great number of Tukanoan
languages. The terms are applied by missionaries, linguists, anthropo-

11
Introduction

logists, Indians and others - each having their own reasons for wish¬
ing to stress particular defining characteristics.1 ‘Barasana’ is a case in
point: it applies to both a language which is also spoken by the
Taiwano (regarded as a descent category) and a descent category
which also includes speakers of Makuna (regarded as a language cat¬
egory). However, I use ‘Barasana’ to refer to a descent category,
except where it is quite clear that I mean a language. Barasana is a
word of unknown origin, current among whites but not used as a
self-name except in dealing with whites.
Since the Barasana are obliged to marry out, they in no way con¬
stitute an autonomous social unit; nor do ‘the people of the Pira-
parana’, since these include members of descent groups which are
mainly based on other rivers, as well as women who have married in
from outside and sisters who will marry out of the area. However,
all my data come from people living on the Pira-parana, and the
population does at least cover several intermarrying exogamous
units. Also, as mentioned above, there is a tendency towards en¬
dogamy in the Pira-parana area taken as a whole.
In spite of all these reasons for regarding the Pira-parana as the
unit of study, inhabitants of each geographical area and each local
community consider themselves to be at the centre of a spreading
system of intermarrying groups which theoretically has no geo¬
graphical or social limits. This means that it is most important to recog¬
nise the incorporation of Pira-parana dwellers into the greater Vaupes
system, and also their links with the culturally slightly different
groups to the south, such as the Yukuna, Tanimuka, Letuama and
Matapi.

1 The Summer Institute of Linguistics have made matters worse by calling the Bari language
‘Northern Barasana’ and the Barasana language ‘Southern Barasana’. This is reputed to be
because they regard ‘Bard’ as an unsuitable name: bara means ‘love-charm’ or ‘aphrodisiac’
in some Tukanoan languages.

12
Social structure

Introduction

The character of Vaupes social structure is such that no model can

come close to the ‘facts’ as revealed by field research. The anthropo¬
logist’s social structure must be pieced together from a muddling mass
of statements that Indians make about kinship connections, group
names, ancestral derivations, linguistic affiliations, geographical sites
and so on. These statements employ named descent groups, named
languages and named geographical features, and the categories based
on these different criteria do not necessarily coincide with one
another. Besides, changing identity, conflicting ideas about group
membership and group status, and also the fission and fusion of
groups are all in the very nature of the traditional system. It may
well be that those groups living in the Pira-parana region, on the edge
of the Vaupes culture area, are less stable than those living on the
River Vaupes itself or on its principal affluents.
Of course, similar reports of uncertainty and flux in indigenous
classification of groups are far from uncommon in anthropological
literature, and it has often been possible to represent these poten¬
tialities for change by means of simple segmentary models of social
structure. However here, as we shall see, this would not be a very
satisfactory course because, at an ideal level, the internal organisation
of the most important groups is fixed: there are divisions into five
sub-units each of which possesses a specialist occupation. This set of
specialist roles provides an explicit indigenous model which prohibits
the proliferation and confusion of sub-units but, nevertheless, the
changes still occur in practice, with the result that the existing situ¬
ation differs from the model in many ways.
I must emphasise that in this book the focus is on the properties
13
Social structure

of the model. This means that a mere description of the constant

features of social structure, with details of existing groups (as, for
example, in Goldman 1963), is not enough. However, the question of
the relation of my more formal model to contemporary practice can¬
not be ignored and will be treated in some detail. As the analysis
progresses in the following chapters, it will become clear that, although
the model assumes a fixed internal structure for major groups, this
same fixed structure embodies dynamic features especially appropri¬
ate to a situation of changing intergroup relations. However, the
dynamic aspects can only be appreciated by enquiring beyond the
conventional limits of social structure and this cannot be done until
the model has been set out. To make the presentation as clear as poss¬
ible, the model is described first and the extent to which it is an
accurate reflection of the social groupings which people recognise in
practice is discussed afterwards. This treatment of the larger struc¬
tural units is followed by an account of local longhouse communities
and of how these are reproduced over time. Before proceeding to the
model some preliminary points must be made about the relation of
Pira-parana Indians to other Vaupes Indians; the use of technical
terms for social-structural units; and the relation of these units to
patterns of language affiliation. Let me say at the outset that I am
well aware that much of the material in the remainder of this chapter
is not easy to understand, but I do not believe it can be simplified
without distorting the data.

The units

Tukanoans and Makii

The Indians of the Vaupes fall into two major categories: Tukanoan
and Maku. ‘Tukanoan’ is essentially a linguistic category referring to
affiliation to one or another of a group of languages known as
‘Eastern Tukanoan’ and exclusively represented in the Vaupes area.
Sometimes the Tukanoans are simply called ‘Tukano’ but, since this
term is also the name of one particular Eastern Tukanoan language, I
shall not use it in the more general sense here. The culture of all these
Tukanoan groups is based on extensive cultivation of bitter manioc
and the people live, or used to live, by rivers in large communal long-
houses. Groups speaking Arawakan languages and living on the fringes

14
The units

of the Tukanoan area are similar in culture to the Tukanoans rather

than the Makii.
Maku are differentiated from Tukanoans by both language and life¬
style. There are two distinct Maku languages which have so far proved
difficult to classify in terms of major South American language groups.
Maku are found in interfluvial areas where they lead a semi-nomadic
life alternating between village settlements and hunting treks. They
cultivate some of their own manioc but rely heavily on forest prod¬
ucts, particularly game. They still maintain their traditional exchanges
with riverine Tukanoan groups in which meat, curare (poison for
blowpipe darts) and labour are given in exchange for cultivated prod¬
ucts (Silverwood-Cope 1972, Jackson 1973b). It is not entirely clear
to what extent Maku have been gradually adopting the life-style of
Tukanoan groups over the last decades, for their present life-style is
certainly closer to the Tukanoan one than earlier accounts suggest.
Although Tukanoan groups of the upper and middle Pira-parana,
from where my data come, had no relations with the Maku, their
ideas about Maku culture are an integral part of their system of social
classification. Where I mention Maku here, I refer to a conception of
Maku held by certain Tukanoan groups. Many aspects of this charac¬
terisation bear little resemblance to the actual Maku or to the Maku’s
ideas about themselves, as described by Peter Silverwood-Cope (1972)
for the Colombian Maku and Howard Reid (personal communication)
for the Brazilian Maku. The discrepancy might not have been so great
in the past, but it is likely that it always existed to some degree.

My use of technical terms for Tukanoan units

The Tukanoans are divided into patrilineal, exogamous descent

groups with further internal divisions according to patrilineal descent.
In the two serious attempts to describe Tukanoan social structure,
there is only partial agreement about the technical terms for differ¬
ent levels of grouping (Goldman 1963, Jackson 1972). Goldman
writes of ‘tribe’, ‘phratry’ and ‘sib’ among the Cubeo, while Jackson
writes of ‘phratry’, ‘language-aggregate’ and ‘sib’ among the Bara. For
simplicity of comparison I also use the terms ‘sib’ and ‘phratry’ in
Jackson’s sense, but I use two terms, ‘Compound Exogamous Group’
and ‘Simple Exogamous Group’, in place of her ‘language-aggregate’
as indicated in table 1.

15
Social structure

Table 1 Comparison of authors’ use of terms for Tukanoan social-

structural units

Exogamous Units

Goldman tribe2 — phratry sib

(Cubeo)
Jackson phratry language- sib
(Bara and aggregate2
neighbours)
C. Hugh-Jones — phratry Compound or Simple sib
(Barasana and Exogamous Group
neighbours)

“indicates the author regards language as defining feature.

The application of the term ‘phratry’ to units of different order by

these two authors reflects a significant difference in the social structure
of the Cubeo and Bara for, although each is a language-bearing unit, the
Bara are also a single exogamous unit while the Cubeo are composed
of three intermarrying exogamous units. However, I believe that by
concentrating on descent and exogamy rather than language in defin¬
ing units of social structure, the two groups can be fitted into a basic
pattern common to all Tukanoan peoples. Although I do not consider
language to be a useful defining feature of groups at any particular
structural level, I do not mean to underestimate its extreme import¬
ance nor to imply that differences between the Cubeo and Bara in
this respect should be overlooked. I have simply tried to set out a
model which emphasises the common ground rather than the differ¬
ences between Tukanoan groups.
The four types of grouping to which I refer are all patrilineal
exogamous descent groups, and so I use the terms ‘Compound
Exogamous Group’, ‘Simple Exogamous Group’ or just ‘Exogamous
Group’, written thus with capital initial letters, to refer to specific
Vaupes institutions. I make the rather awkward distinction between
‘Compound Exogamous Group’ and ‘Simple Exogamous Group’ to
account for a type of internal structure among groups of sibs which
has not been reported in the Cubeo or Bara ethnography (the internal
structure of Exogamous Groups is the subject of chapter 3 ) This dis¬
tinction will not be relevant in the following chapters, for I shall
16
The units

just refer to these as 'Exogamous Groups’ in order to avoid the use of

the more cumbersome term. However, it is important to make the
distinction here in order to show how my model society corresponds
to the groups that are recognised in practice.

A note on exogamy and language

The unit I have called a Compound Exogamous Group is ideally a

language-bearing unit; the same applies to a Simple Exogamous Group
in cases where this exists on its own and is not organised into a Com¬
pound Exogamous Group with other like units. In practice the
boundaries of units at this level are usually co-terminous, or almost
so, with linguistic boundaries. This means that in the vast majority of
Vaupes marriages, the partners have different first languages and
there are sometimes four or more different language groups repre¬
sented in a single longhouse. Men and women speak the language of
their own descent group throughout their lives and another language
is only used under the following circumstances:1
— if the hearer does not understand the speaker’s patrilineal language — a
relatively rare event unless the two come from widely separated groups.
— when imitating or reporting speech uttered in another language.
— if the person has been brought up in a foreign patrilineal community of
different language affiliation to his or her own. This is also rare because
the child's agnates make every effort to prevent it.
— if the speaker is an old woman who has lived her married life isolated
from speakers of her own language. In this case she may make a partial
or total switch to her husband’s language but, on the other hand, pro¬
vided her own language is generally understood, she may well continue
to use it exclusively.

From the basic rule that patrilineally inherited languages are

spoken at all times, it follows that conversations between individuals
speaking different languages are commonplace. Conversely, the case
of husband and wife speaking the same language is regarded as anom¬
alous. Indians accept that affinal groups sometimes share a single

1 This does not create any problems in mutual comprehension unless the parties come from
widely separated geographical areas. Each person is brought up in a longhouse with mem¬
bers of several different language-bearing exogamous groups and is continuously exposed
to all the languages represented in his or her field of social interaction. Since it is clear
that children cannot be learning language from their mothers (who speak the languages of
foreign descent groups), nor from adult descent-group men, as they spend most of their
time apart from men, it follows that they must learn from the older, co-resident children.

17
Social structure

language but they regard this as ‘wrong’ and try to account for the
missing language in terms of battles and migrations. The Cubeo
appear to be an exception here since there is no evidence that they
regard language exogamy as the ideal state of affairs.
The ideal coincidence of language unit and Exogamous Group
boundaries leads Indians to use language as a way of talking about
descent. They often indicate Exogamous Group membership by say¬
ing an individual ‘says . . . ’ repeating a stock phrase in that person’s
patrilineal language.2 Minute variations of pronunciation, vocabulary
and even speaking style are used to support claims about the internal
organisation among the sibs of an Exogamous Group. For example, I
was assured by a member of a middle-ranking sib that the most senior
sib of his group speak with an exaggerated, forceful delivery while
the lowest-ranking group mumble and blur their words.
Jackson’s research among Papuri groups, which are nearer to the
centre of the Tukanoan area than Pira-parana groups, shows that the
ideal coincidence of linguistic and descent boundaries is almost per¬
fectly matched in practice. The number of exceptions among Pira-
parana groups probably reflects their marginal position at the south¬
western extreme of the Tukanoan culture area in the same way that
the exceptional language situation among the Cubeo probably
reflects their extreme northerly position. However, the empirical
exceptions to the rule that language- and descent-group boundaries
coincide are so numerous among groups which share the common
features of descent-group exogamy and ranked sibs with the central
Tukanoans, that I feel justified in discarding language as a distinctive
feature of Exogamous Groups. I think this decision might, in the end,
lead to a better understanding of the social role of multilingualism in
the Vaupes because it allows language exogamy to be treated as a
variable instead of an invariant feature of the Vaupes system (see
Sorenson 1967, Jackson 1974).

The model

The clearest way of presenting my model of Vaupes social structure

is to start with Exogamous Groups and, after discussing their internal
organisation, to move on first to larger units and then to smaller
units. This is because the Exogamous Group with its five-fold internal
2 The exemplary phrases most often used may be glossed as, ‘that is the way it is’, thus
tobahiro bahiaha is the phrase chosen to indicate Barasana language-group membership.

18
The model

structure is the most significant portion of the model, and the more
inclusive phratric groupings are both ill-defined and awkward to
understand without any knowledge of the nature of the constituent
Exogamous Groups. The entire account is difficult to grasp without
some preliminary population sizes but, unfortunately, there are no
reliable sources known to me and only rough indications can be given.
An official population figure of 5280 given for the entire Vaupes
region (Rodriguez 1962) was unfortunately a gross underestimate.
Figures reproduced in Dostal (1972 : 393—6) suggest a population of
over ten thousand, divided into ‘social and linguistic groups’ which
roughly correspond to my category of Compound Exogamous Groups
(or Simple ones where these exist on their own). With the help of
this breakdown we may estimate figures of between two hundred
and one thousand members for such Exogamous Groups, with the
central Vaupes groups at the higher extreme and the marginal ones at
the lower extreme. The Tukano themselves are more numerous than
this but it is difficult to say to what extent, because many groups
which are not considered Tukano by descent speak the Tukano
language and therefore get included in estimates. The size of a sib is
from one to fifty or so members in the Pira-parana area but there
may be larger sibs elsewhere in the Vaupes.

Exogamous Groups

Exogamous Groups are collections of sibs arranged in a hierarchical

order, modelled on the birth sequence of an agnatic male sibling
group. This principle of birth order, which I shall call ‘seniority’, is
found at every level of organisation within an exogamous unit so that
each individual, each sub-unit within each sib and each sib itself has a
unique position in the order composed of similar units. Among sibs
of an Exogamous Group there is a ‘first bom’, a ‘next born’, a ‘next
bom’ and so on to the ‘last born’. Each sib is either an ‘older brother’
or a ‘younger brother’ from the point of view of any other sib.
The distinction I have made between Simple and Compound
Exogamous Groups is also a matter of internal organisation. There are
five hierarchically organised specialist roles, each of which is allocated
to a single sib, so that five sibs belong together in a functionally integ¬
rated unit. These roles, in descending hierarchical order, are chief,
dancer/chanter, warrior, shaman and servant. A Simple Exogamous
Group is a unit containing one set of these roles while a Compound
19
Social structure
Exogamous Group contains more than one set. A Simple Exogamous
Group may exist on its own or it may be part of a Compound
Exogamous Group composed or two or more Simple Exogamous
Groups arranged in accordance with the seniority principle from first
to last born.
From the descriptions of ideal behaviour associated with sib-
specialist roles the internal organisation of the set of five roles can be
shown thus:
chief and servant: reciprocal roles in the politico-economic domain
dancer/chanter and shaman: complementary roles in the metaphysical
domain
warrior: single role in the domain of ‘natural’ intergroup relations, directed
outwards and opposed to the same role within the internal organ¬
isation of affinal Exogamous Groups
This can be represented as follows:
politico-economic relations: chief.servant
ritual relations: dancer/chanter.shaman
external relations: warrior
(birth order 1 2 3 4 5)
The specialist roles thus give the order among a set of sibs an additional
feature of symmetry about the central position. This symmetry de¬
pends on the recognition of three domains of social activity each with
a characteristic mode of social interaction. In this way a simple hier¬
archy based on time intervals (between serial births) is converted into
a complex system of relationships linked to a comprehensive model
of social and cosmological organisation. I believe this model has
special significance among the dispersed and semi-autonomous long-
house groups into which the Tukanoan population of the Vaupes is
organised. It is not just a theory about a certain kind of social struc¬
ture, it also contains the more comprehensive and fundamental idea
that there is a structured organisation of Indian society as a whole
(see ch. 3).
An Exogamous Group, Compound or Simple, occupies a continu¬
ous territory described in terms of the rivers that structure it. The sibs
of each Simple Exogamous Group are arranged along rivers so that
the seniority order from first born to last bom reflects an upward
journey from river mouth to headwaters, and the Simple Exogamous
Groups of a Compound Exogamous Group are arranged in the same
way.

20
The model

The phratry

The phratry is an association of Exogamous Groups united by the

rule of exogamy but not occupying a continuous area. Thus there are
relations of ‘brotherhood’ between certain geographically separated
Exogamous Groups. These relations may be expressed in either a
strong or weak form. The strong form is hierarchical: the separate
Exogamous Groups are arranged as a set of agnatic male siblings in
exactly the same way as described for lower-order units. The only
formal difference between the arrangement of more than one Simple
Exogamous Group into a Compound Exogamous Group and the
arrangement of Compound or Simple Exogamous Groups into
phratries is in the geographical separation of the units in the latter
case. This formal distinction is backed up in practice by the sharing
of language and strong sense of common identity, which exist at the
level of Compound or Simple Exogamous Group, but not at the level
of phratry. The weak form of phratry structure is non-hierarchical,
with the separate Exogamous Groups arranged as uterine siblings
amongst whom there is formal equality. Any given group may regard
some of their uterine sibling groups as ‘people waking-up mother’s
children’ (masa yuhiri hako ria), and others as hako ria, ‘because
they marry our mother’s people’. These last might be called ‘de facto
hako ria\ people who are unmarrigeable because actual marriage
practice proves them to be ‘affines of our affines’. From the vari¬
ability of relationship between the constituent Exogamous Groups, it
is evident that phratric organisation is not at all clear cut. It should
be considered an uppermost limit of exogamic organisation at which
the consistency between the viewpoints of separate groups breaks
down in a fundamental way.
Because it is difficult to maintain a meaningful distinction between
the model and its application with respect to the phratry, some fur¬
ther points about the practical situation may be included here. While
the ties between some major Exogamous Groups, such as the Tukano
and the Bara, are universally known and rigorously respected in the
observance of exogamy, it is fruitless to look for an overall organisation
of Vaupes Exogamous Groups into discrete phratries. The brothers or
mother’s children of a given Exogamous Group may intermarry with
separate groups which are also classified as brothers or mother’s chil¬
dren. Besides, the very existence of three types of link between

21
Social structure

Exogamous Groups - agnatic sibling, original uterine sibling and de

facto uterine sibling - suggests that this is a weak and variable form
of organisation. It seems likely that in practice this phratric level is
emphasised when there is minimum territorial flux, allowing marriage
patterns between Exogamous Groups to become stabilised. Con¬
versely, it seems to break down as Exogamous Groups move and are
forced to look to new neighbours for wives.

The sib

The internal organisation of the sib is hierarchical, with small descent

groups, founded by a living or recently dead ancestor, ordered from
first born to last born. The identification of separate units within this
seniority continuum depends upon the size of the genealogical gap
between one descent group and another. These sub-units of a sib are
simply shallow un-named descent groups whose size and number
varies with the size of the sib and degree of differentiation required
by the context. Either a whole sib or a sub-unit of a sib gives rise to a
local descent group.

The local descent group

As I use this term here it refers to a group of close agnates who form
the core of a longhouse population. It differs from the preceding
categories because descent and residence operate together in determin¬
ing local descent-group membership. Also, there are many people who
do not technically belong to any local descent group; among these
are all married women who live among their husband’s descent-group
members. By contrast, all the previous categories based on descent
criteria are comprehensive in that every individual belongs to a cat¬
egory at each particular level - a sib, an Exogamous Group and a
phratry: membership of such groups is never forfeited on marriage or
because of change of residence, as it is in local descent groups. The
various social-structural units are represented in fig. 1.

The model applied

The problem inherent in all attempts to define social structural units

in the Vaupes is that Indians are more concerned with the types of
relationship (hierarchy etc.) outlined in the model above than with
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23
Social structure

the precise definition of social boundaries. They do not have any neat
named categories equivalent to the ones I have used to describe my
model; instead they use expressions like "one people’ (koho masa),
‘one pile’ (koho tubua), ‘children of one man’ (singu ria) or ‘other
people’ (ngahera) to describe relations between a great number of
named groups. Sometimes the named groups overlap in membership,
and sometimes they act as ‘sliding’ categories covering a more or less
extensive population, depending on context. Naturally, the group
membership and location of residence of the informants influence
statements about individual or group identity, and there are frequent
assertions, backed up by myths, that particular claims to membership
of certain groups are false. In spite of the difficulties, there is a fairly
high degree of consistency about the broad outlines of intergroup
relations, and it is mainly the details of interrelations between sibs
that differ. This may be observed in other ethnographers’ attempts to
set out the existing situation (e.g. Bruzzi 1962, Goldman 1963.) For
the benefit of other Vaupes specialists, I include my own attempt for
the Pira-parana region in appendix 1.
As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, social change is at
the heart of any question about the relation of model to reality in
the Vaupes. The model I have described is of a sharply defined and
fixed system which only crumbles at the upper limit of exogamic
organisation. I have emphasised hierarchy and the fixed number of
specialist sibs per Simple Exogamous Group, yet, in practice, there is
evidence of continual change at all levels both within the traditional
system and as a result of white influence. Raiding, typical of the tra¬
ditional life-style, often resulted in the massacre or migration of sub¬
stantial groups. Besides this, the small size of sibs, even granted that
they were larger in the past, must have made them extremely vulner¬
able to normal population fluctuation. As for the influence of white
society, there is no doubt it has led to vast depopulation and rearrange¬
ment of groups on the ground. The consequent deculturation has
eradicated many of the traditional functions of social-structural insti¬
tutions and loosened the cohesion of social units at all levels. All this
can be summed up by saying that we know there have always been
changes of fusion and fission and changing identity of groups within
the total system, but it is only for the last one hundred years that we
can be sure of the broad direction in which the total system has
altered. This has been towards smaller communities, a minimum of
physical violence and a decrease in ritual elaboration. Inevitably, my
24
The model applied

account of Vaupes society and ideology hovers between the observed

present and Indians’ idealised version of the past with which they give
meaning to the present. Without confining myself to simple ethno¬
graphic description. I can see no way round this. The best I can do is
give some general idea about the applicability of my model, which
belongs to this imaginary past-and-present, to the situation on the
ground during my fieldwork.

Territory

While occupation of a continuous territory is an ideal feature of each

type of descent category up to, but not including, the phratry, in
practice there is considerable overlap between descent-group terri¬
tories. Indian accounts of group history suggest that there has been a
strong tendency for sibs or sub-units of sibs to move back to their
original position within their Exogamous Group territory after a
period of exile, but they have by no means always done so. In the
long run, descent ideology must adjust to sever the close ties between
geographically distant groups. Indians are able to describe recent
instances of this, but descent-group identity dies hard and there is
never a neat pattern of continuous, exclusive descent-group territories
at any one time.
Although main river and downstream locations are definitely
regarded as more prestigious than sidestream and headwater ones,
there is no exact correlation among Pira-parana groups between
descent seniority and location. However, there is a general correlation
for the units of the large Compound Exogamous Group to which our
home community belonged, and Patrice Bidou has commented on
the strictly maintained correlation amongst the sub-groups of the
Tatuyo sib with which he worked (1976).3 Goldman describes a clear
practical association of the same kind among the Cubeo, but it re¬
mains to be seen whether residence among central Tukanoan groups
bears out this association.

3 It does seem that the groups more culturally and geographically oriented towards the
Apaporis, into which the Pird-parand flows, are closer to the ideal pattern than those
oriented towards the rivers of the Vaupds system. The Pird-parand, flows away from the
Vaupds affluents and from the centre of Vaupds culture. It may well be that this geo¬
graphical feature presents those groups having strong affinal ties to the people living on
the Vaupds river system with conflicting ideals. Part of the prestige of downstream resi¬
dence is associated with increased social interaction and yet, for these upper Pird-parand
groups, downstream residence represents increased social isolation.

25
Social structure

Names for groups

In general, groups at the phratric level do not have names; instead,
named Exogamous Groups are listed and described as ‘one people’
(,koho huna or koho masa). Compound Exogamous Groups, or
Simple ones where these exist alone, can usually be identified by
name from any given point of reference, but these names are often
rejected as self-names. Descriptive names of the form ‘children of
Such-and-Such Anaconda’ are sometimes used at both Exogamous
Group and phratry level.
Sibs are named groups in a way that more inclusive units are not.
In fact, the identity of a sib is so intimately bound up with the name
that, in a sense, the name is the sib. Disputes about sib membership
take the form of insisting that a person or descent group belongs to
one named sib and not another, instead of argument over genea¬
logical details. In their absence, people are often referred to in terms
of sib membership to avoid the use of personal names. However,
there is also a reticence about mentioning a person’s sib-name to his
or her face, and individuals often substitute a more inclusive descrip¬
tive name for their own sib-name in conversation. Thus, Indians often
made statements of the form, ‘We are not Wamutanyara [sib-name in
Bara language], we are Fish Anaconda descendants [Exogamous
Group name].’ This slight tendency to avoid direct personal use of
sib-names must be seen in relation to the much stronger avoidance of
individual personal names in address. Sib-names have much in com¬
mon with personal names for there are joking and derogatory sib-
names in the same way that there are joke-names paired with male
personal names.

The internal organisation of Exogamous Groups

There is a certain amount of confusion and disagreement about the
exact ordering of sibs within a Compound or Simple Exogamous
Group, but there is broad consistency over which portion of the
seniority hierarchy any particular sib belongs in and, usually, com¬
plete agreement over the first and last sibs. Even when he does not
really know the ordering of a group of sibs united by observance of
exogamy, an Indian will stick to the convention of listing them from
first born to last born, thus demonstrating the force of the hierarchi¬
cal principle.
26
The model applied

In practice, it is difficult to find neat examples of the allocation of

the five specialist roles to a simple cohesive set of five sibs, although
the Meni Masa, our hosts, belonged to one such set. More often, a set
of sibs is recognised as forming a cohesive hierarchical unit and yet
only some of the specialist role identifications are known. Such a set
is likely to contain more than five sibs existing at the present day and,
in addition, a variety of extinct sibs whose hierarchical status is not
clear. However, data from the Pira-parana show that even when all
five roles cannot be clearly identified among a cohesive set of sibs,
the notion of the functionally interdependent set of roles provides an
important model of cohesion. For instance, a particular sib will be
‘their shamans’ rather than ‘our shamans’, and this implies a separate
functioning of ‘them’ as opposed to ‘us’, even though the remaining
roles are missing amongst ‘their’ sibs. The reality corresponding to
my Simple Exogamous Groups consists of such bounded units. These
are usually localised and arranged hierarchically within a more exten¬
sive hierarchy of sibs, which corresponds to my Compound
Exogamous Group. The importance of the specialist role model in
creating smaller, bounded, localised units within large Exogamous
Groups with a wide geographical spread and high population leads
me to expect the same principle to operate throughout the Vaupes.
Stephen Hugh-Jones mentions fragments of evidence for similar sys¬
tems among the Baniwa (1979 : 149); Goldman reports that at least
some elements of the system exist among the Cubeo (personal com¬
munication) and Howard Reid, recently among the Maku, was told
that both the Desana and the Tukano divide into a number of local¬
ised sub-units, each containing a set of sibs differentiated by their
specialist roles. It therefore seems likely that this type of sub-division
is found throughout the Vaupes and that central groups, such as the
Tukano (fifty sibs reported by Fulop 1955) and the Desana (over
thirty sibs reported by Reichel-Dolmatoff 1971), fit the category of
Compound Exogamous Groups as used here.4
The function of the specialist role system is more problematic. It
is an ideological system and can be analysed as such whatever its prac¬
tical functioning: it is this approach that the present-day anthropo¬
logist is bound to adopt. The content of the role categories can be
4 H. Reid says that an informant told him these groups were divided into a number of local¬
ised sub-units each consisting of a set of specialised sibs. The set of specialist roles he gave
was the same as the one I describe, except that the warrior role was missing, making a
total of four roles. This may have been omitted on purpose, since the more acculturated
Desana and Tukano are reluctant to admit their warlike past.

27
Social structure

drawn from the specialist individual roles existing in present-day

society there are dancers, chanters and shamans - and from ideal¬
ised descriptions of the other roles of chief, warrior and servant.
However, speculation about the past is inevitable. Indians of the Meni
Masa warrior sib say that in the past their sib occupied a single long-
house and each of the four other specialist sibs of the set also occu¬
pied a single longhouse on the same site. Each performed the appro¬
priate role for the benefit of the others. They support this image of
truly specialist sibs by saying that they themselves did not know how
to dance because the Rasegana, their immediate seniors and ‘dancers
and chanters’, performed this role on behalf of the whole Simple
Exogamous Group. Only when the Meni Masa decided to stop raiding
did they learn how to hold their own dance rituals from the Rasegana.
At present, there is occasional reference to such a system: members
of a ‘dancers-and-chanters’ sib may be invited to perform their tra¬
ditional function at a ritual staged by another longhouse group; the
‘servant’ sibs are treated with less respect than others. But in general,
the specialist roles essential to a functioning of present-day society
are performed in an individual capacity. Individual specialists are not
confined to sibs of the same speciality — indeed, such a system would
be unworkable because the sibs of a Simple Exogamous Group tend
to be too spread out for individuals from each sib to gather together
in a single place and benefit from each other’s specialist skills.
At present, possession of one ritual role does not exclude an indi¬
vidual from possessing another, and for any specialist role there are
degrees of competence and recognition. Within a large longhouse
there is usually at least one individual with some degree of compe¬
tence in each of the roles of chief, dancer/chanter and shaman. It is
thought especially appropriate if, within the group of brothers form¬
ing the elder generation of the core descent group, the distribution of
specialist roles follows the seniority order. The eldest brother should
be the headman, the youngest a shaman and the middle brother
either a chanter or a dancer. In a set of longhouse groups which meet
regularly for ritual purposes, there will be at least one important
specialist shaman, one chanter and one dancer of wide renown; thus
the distribution of the ritual roles depends largely on the fact that
they are indispensable for the functioning of a ritual community.
Among my data there are two different principles at work regard¬
ing the functioning of the specialist-role system. According to Indians’
accounts of the past, the specialist roles operate exclusively among
28
The model applied

the five sibs of a Simple Exogamous Group. Although the relations

between these are modelled on the relations between individual
males of an agnatic sibling group, an actual agnatic sibling group
belongs to one or other particular sib and therefore cannot be intern¬
ally differentiated by specialist role. However, at the present day,
such of the specialist-role system as remains appears to operate
according to a segmentary principle, because the set of roles appears
both among sets of sibs and sets of siblings. There is some evidence
that the specialist roles also appear among sub-sections of a sib and
this would be entirely consistent with a segmentary principle. By its
very nature, a segmentary specialist-role system precludes a single
consistent specialist role for any person apart from the very first born
and the very last bom within the entire Exogamous Group. Only for
these two individuals could sib role, sib sub-section role and sibling
role coincide. The general lack of consistent role identification for
individuals, together with the need to fill the roles, results in a system
of specialisation resting more upon relative personal aptitudes and
ambitions than social-structural status.
I would like to suggest a hypothesis (which, unfortunately, can
never be proved in view of the progressive disintegration of traditional
social systems) that the ‘sib-only’ principle and the ‘segmentary’ prin¬
ciple represent adaptations to different degrees of geographical dis¬
persion of a Simple Exogamous Group. According to this hypothesis,
the ‘sib-only’ principle is the ideal one, associated with the idealised
past and also with a concentration of the entire Simple Exogamous
Group on one site; the ‘segmentary’ principle starts to operate when¬
ever the Simple Exogamous Group spreads out. It may be that there
has never actually been such a concentration of Simple Exogamous
Groups either on one site or along one stretch of river, and that the
functional integration of sets of five sibs has always been an ideal,
rather than a practical reality. After all, the sibs of a Simple Exogamous
Group lend themselves better to expressing such an ideal than do units
at lower levels of social differentiation, because sibs are named and
change more slowly than smaller units.
The set of five roles would seem, in fact, to stabilise not only the
identity of sibs but the structure of the Simple Exogamous Group
itself. It is a ‘conservative’ model which makes incorporation of new
sibs from outside or fission of sibs within more difficult. When it is
considered without the associated specialist roles, the hierarchical sys¬
tem amongst the sibs of a Simple Exogamous Group is much weaker
29
Social structure

as a stabilising force. The hierarchical principle readily enables the

Exogamous Group to accommodate new outside groups (though
more easily at the bottom of the hierarchy) as well as splits within.
Besides, by itself, the hierarchical system does nothing to determine
the interdependence between brother sibs and nothing to divide the
large Compound Exogamous Groups into smaller units with a high
degree of internal interaction. The fixed nature of the five-role sys¬
tem means that, on the one hand, change in the composition of
Simple Exogamous Groups is inhibited but, on the other, when
migrations and population fluctuations force such change, the sys¬
tem of specialist roles loses coherence. There is constant tension be¬
tween the ideal system and the practical relations between groups on
the ground. Even so, however great the divergence between the ideal
and practice, the practical situation is described in terms of the five
specialist roles as far as possible, because these represent order and
interdependence within a local exogamous unit.

Functions of social-structural units

At all levels up to, and including, the phratry, exogamy is a funda¬

mental function of social units based on patrilineal descent. The way
in which marriage alliances involve units at different levels is dis¬
cussed briefly below (pp. 3If, 85). Apart from exogamy and from
the internal organisation of Simple Exogamous Groups according to
specialist sib roles, the functions of the larger exogamous units are
mainly expressed in rights over ritual property. The rights reflect
descent structure, so that the Simple Exogamous Groups making up
a Compound Exogamous Group may own ritual property of very
similar, but not quite identical, form. In the same way, the geographi¬
cally separated Exogamous Groups making up a phratry have one or
two rights in common, and these are frequently cited as evidence that
they should not intermarry. At the lower level, the sibs of a Simple
Exogamous Group share virtually identical rights over ritual property
and any substantial differences are regarded as evidence of illegit¬
imate status within this cohesive set of sibs. The basic principle
operating in the distribution of these rights is clear: exogamy is the
corollary of shared descent, and shared descent receives its signifi¬
cance from ancestral power which is transmitted along patrilineal
descent lines. The transmission of such power, as we shall see, is
intimately connected with male-dominated ritual, and so it is quite
30
The model applied

appropriate that variation in rights to ritual items should mirror

descent ties between groups. In fact, from an Indian point of view, it
would be more accurate to say that ritual property is part of the con¬
tent of descent ties.
‘Ritual property’ is a loose designation covering sets of names for
sacred musical instruments (Yurupary), sets of personal names, sets
of dances, sets of chants about ancestral origins, traditions of origin
expressed in myth, various ritual ornaments, varieties of cultivated
plants and other ritual paraphernalia. Language could also be included
in the list for, although it is not strictly speaking ‘ritual property’, it
is ideally descent-determined and is the medium of expression of
many of the items above. Non-ritual items and techniques are also
associated with descent groups, so that particular weaving styles,
species of roofing leaf, cooked dishes and so on are described as
belonging to one or another group. However, although no hard and
fast distinction can be made, these are regarded less as part of the
inherent nature of the groups who own them and more as random
idiosyncracies.
Nowadays, the members of a phratry, Compound Exogamous
Group or Simple Exogamous Group never collect together for any
purpose. To what extent this is due to geographical dispersion in the
case of Simple Exogamous Groups is not clear (see p. 28). In prac¬
tice, it is the longhouse group that is a virtually autonomous, co¬
operative and functionally integrated unit for the purposes of econ¬
omic production, consumption and the rearing of children. While this
autonomy is maintained in day-to-day secular life, the longhouse com¬
munity depends upon other communities for marriage arrangements,
attendance of rituals, incorporation into a wider political community,
particular kinds of communal food-getting expedition and certain
articles of trade. Each large longhouse community has a social field
or neighbourhood extending around it in such a way that the social
fields of nearby longhouses overlap considerably. These fields consist
of a number of communities who regularly exchange ritual invitations
with the home community, and whose members may join the home
community on camping expeditions to fish or exploit seasonal forest
products.
The communities making up the social field of a particular long¬
house community may be affiliated with the same sib, a different sib
of the same Exogamous Group or else with a different, affinal sib:
typically there are all three kinds. The social fields are not precisely
31
Social structure
defined; geographical closeness, common descent and existing affinal
ties are the three most important factors in determining the attend¬
ance of rituals, but often quarrels develop between particular com¬
munities related in these ways and frequency of interaction drops. It
is clear from this pattern that, whatever else they may be, the descent
units are not corporate groups except at the level of the local descent
group. Part of the conceptual difficulty in describing Vaupes social
structure, at least as I found it in the Pira-parana area, is the overlap
of a comprehensive system based on descent and exogamy with a
practical local organisation into longhouse communities, each of
which perceives other communities as more-or-less distant outsiders.
It is difficult to isolate wider political communities because raid¬
ing and killing have ceased and there is no pressing need for military
solidarity. In ideal terms political relations would, of course, have
been dominated by the internal structure of the Simple Exogamous
Group and the external relations with affinal units of the same type.
Political relations are now bound up with marriage relations, shaman¬
ism and prestige gained through ritual activity. The hierarchical struc¬
ture of descent groups plays a negative part by preventing those from
very low positions in the seniority hierarchy of a Simple Exogamous
Group or sib from becoming renowned leaders. Doubtless, political
relations always had these same components but, according to Indian
accounts, previously, the resort to physical violence led to political
alliances of numbers of longhouses and the emergence of powerful
leaders. Now there is strong resentment of individuals who seek power
over people outside their own longhouse community; threats of
violence are relatively empty and differences in political prestige are
achieved through the staging of rituals or through shamanic reputation.
The social field composed of longhouse communities that regularly
attend the same rituals is clearly also the field of operation of prac¬
tical political prestige. The recognition of important individuals tends
to draw together the social fields of the longhouse communities of a
geographical area so that they overlap more with each other than they
do with those of communities outside the influence of the important
man.
Sometimes, the headman of a house which holds frequent rituals is
also a shaman (in spite of the ideal separation of the roles of chief and
shaman), and such people build up a local reputation which is soon
reflected outwards as they become the butts for accusations of evil
shamanism made by more distant groups. The general picture is one
32
The model applied

of a social field extending around each longhouse, the fields over¬

lapping in such a way that relatively dense areas of interaction are
created. These areas show a relatively high rate of endogamy, relatively
friendly and stable relations between the communities and a relatively
autonomous ritual life. They cannot contain two longhouse leaders of
wide renown without their being competition between them, which
is likely to weaken this social cohesion. The areas tend to be geographi¬
cally, as well as socially, defined although ease of communication is
naturally more important than distance ‘as the crow flies’.

Ideology of descent

In the Pira-parana area each exogamous group above sib level is

derived from an anaconda ancestor. In some cases these anacondas
represent phratries but in most they represent a Simple Exogamous
Group or a Compound Exogamous Group. In any case, there are dif¬
ferent versions of the origin of any given group and the best I can do
here is to give a general outline of the nature of ancestral anacondas.
They originated in the east beyond the Water Door (Oko Sohe)
which lies at the mouth of the Milk River (Ohekoa Riaga). The Milk
River is the main river of this earth into which all other rivers flow;
Indians who have travelled far downstream with whites identify the
Milk River with the mainstream Amazon. The ancestral anacondas
swam up the Milk River, stopping at numerous sites distinguished by
rocks, rapids and other landmarks. These sites, at which the ancestors
danced, are associated with mythical events which occurred on the
ancestral journeys. The theme of a great number of these is the orig¬
inal obtaining of ritual objects and plants which are group-specific
and which are used by the living to recreate mythical times. Some of
the sites, particularly those towards the mouth of the Milk River, are
mentioned in all the anaconda journeys but others are particularly
associated with the journey of one anaconda. The separation of the
journeys becomes more marked towards the end, for the anacondas
separated and travelled up different rivers and, finally, the sibs derived
from each anaconda were deposited in turn along the route. In the
last stages of their journeys — those covering the rivers just beyond
the territory of the present-day descendants — the anacondas swam
up to the headwaters of various affluents and down again. They were
seeking good settling places, but many sites had to be rejected because
of the mystical dangers located there.
33
Social structure

The process of populating the earth with people is called ‘people

waking-up’ (masa yuhi-) and each sib recognises a string of sites as its
own ‘people waking-up houses’. At these sites, the anacondas emerged
from the water, became groups of ancestral people and danced. The
sites represent serial stages of differentiation in the course of the
journey: the Water Door is the population waking-up door for all the
different peoples, then there are people waking-up houses common to
all the sibs embodied in a single anaconda and, finally, special ones
for each sib (fig. 2A).
There are various Indian theories about the precise nature of the
ancestral anacondas and the means of ‘birth’ of the sibs. It is generally
acknowledged that the sibs are represented by sections of the ana¬
conda’s body in such a way that the head or tongue is destined to be
the first-born sib (chiefs), and so on in descending hierarchical order
until the tail, which is destined to be the last-bom sib (servants).
According to different versions, the sibs are separated, ‘bom’ or
created in the appropriate hierarchical order by serial vomiting, by

A ANACONDA JOURNEYS AS CONTINUOUS PROCESSES

LAND:
WATER:
DESTINATION increasing differentiation
WATER DOOR
[EAST]

B ANACONDA JOURNEYS AS REPEATED 2-PHASE CYCLES

PEOPLE
ON LAND LAND (DANCING ROUND)

ANACONDA
IN WATER
WATER (SWIMMING ALONG)
[EAST]
Fig. 2 Anaconda journeys
34
The model applied

the ancestral body breaking up or by disembarkation as from a canoe.

Once deposited at their traditional sites they are conceived of some¬
times as groups and sometimes as single ancestors.
The nature of the anaconda ancestors turns upon the idea that a
single entity may be perceived or conceived of in different ways
depending upon the point of view of the experiencing subject. A com¬
mon view is that the ancestral anacondas were anacondas in the water
but that whenever they came on land at the waking-up houses, they
were transformed into groups of people who danced and performed
ritual. This view implies that the final depositing or dispersal of the
sibs on land is seen as the irreversible end of a gradual transformation
achieved by leaving the water and re-entering it many times (see fig.
2B). The transformation from water to land is explained by equating
the anaconda with a canoe from which people disembark or with a
skin or mask (sudi) which the people shed as they leave the water.
However, it is on the relation between river and land, rather than the
mechanical means of the transformation, that we should concentrate.
This relationship is given additional content by an alternative view
that ‘anaconda’ is just a way of describing ancestors which has no
reference to the characteristics of present-day anacondas. The ances¬
tors were processions of people who walked up the dry river beds
leaving the imprints of their feet and sacred paraphernalia in the still-
soft rock where we can see them today. It is only from the point of
view of our land-based, present-day society that these ancestral paths
are rivers and so the ancestors are ‘anacondas’. We thus have two
views: one, that ancestral anacondas in the water are equivalent to
ancestral people on land and the other, that water and land is a latter-
day distinction which repeats the ancestral distinction between jour¬
ney and stopping point. This ancestral distinction is perhaps better
described in more general terms as one between transformation or
creation, and results or finished product. In this way, the relationship
between water and land on one hand and that between creation and
finished product on the other becomes analogous. At the same time
another relationship, between procession in single file towards a
destination and dancing in a circle, is associated with the previous
two. Linear procession and dancing are the physical modes typical of
the water-creative and land-resultant phases.
land water
(west) results creation (east)
circular dance form linear journey
35
Social structure
The significance of these analogous relationships will be discussed
below (pp. 61,67).
From the set of relationships shown in fig. 2, certain critical
features of anacondas emerge. They are at home in water and also on
the river bank and they are long and relatively undifferentiated in
form. These two features make them suitable for representing medi¬
ation between river and land and a hierarchical order respectively.
However, in spite of the firm idea that Exogamous Groups have ana¬
conda ancestors and are aquatic in origin, the names of the anacondas
themselves suggest a higher-level classification of Exogamous Groups
according to ‘cosmic habitats’ — water, land and sky. It is impossible
to arrange Exogamous Groups into three neat and mutually exclusive
categories on this basis, just as it is impossible to arrange Exogamous
Groups into a pan-Vaupes phratric pattern. Nevertheless, Indians refer
to these categories in direct conversation as well as in myth as if they
did reflect descent categories. They claim, for instance, that Water
Anaconda People (Makuna) and Fish Anaconda People (Bara) are all
one people who should not intermarry because they are all from
inside the water. In the same vein, they sometimes claim that it is
really only these true water people who arrived in anaconda form
originally, whereas other group ancestors are merely named like ana¬
condas. In keeping with this, the charter for intermarriage between
Fish Anaconda People and Yeba People (Bara and Barasana) is a myth
in which Fish Anaconda’s daughter, a true anaconda in form, comes
on land and marries Yeba, who is initially a jaguar. Yeba means
‘earth’ in many Tukanoan languages (although in Barasana it is restric¬
ted in meaning to this ancestor) and the Barasana claim that their
dead souls can be seen on earth as jaguars, while those of the Bara go
to underwater houses. Now Yeba, besides being a jaguar, is son of
Meni Hino, Meni Anaconda, who travelled from the Water Door. The
Sky Anaconda People (Tatuyo) are the other major affinal group
with respect to the Barasana and, as their name suggests, they are
associated with sky beings, including eagles. The dual anaconda and
non-water-people status of some groups is resolved in Indian thought
by the same kind of relativism that we have seen to operate above in
the case of anacondas and people. Indians say that anacondas can
emerge from the water onto land or straight into the sky, swapping
their anaconda masks for jaguar or eagle masks and thus, although
each of the three major cosmic habitats has its large ancestral preda¬
tory creature, these creatures are simply transformations of one another.
36
The model applied

I do not mean to press the ethnographic aspect of this rather com¬

plicated subject any further because the more minute details of group
origins are embedded in numerous myths and we have seen enough
no longer to expect systematic ideologies of origin. A more detailed
analysis of the Tatuyo case is presented by Bidou (1976). This work
serves to underline the problem, for two very different sets of data
on ideology of origin were collected from adjacent Tatuyo sibs. This
means that even the notion of an agreed Tatuyo ideology is imposs¬
ible. However, if there are few generally agreed myths of origin, there
are at least general principles underlying the variety of myths. The
Exogamous Groups are all equivalent in their possession of anaconda
ancestors and these ancestors establish their true territories as well as
providing a model creative process for each. At the same time, rules
of exogamy create similarities and differences between these groups.
The analysis of the kinship and marriage system will show that a
minimal model of a Vaupes marriage system requires three equivalent
exogamous groups (be they phratries or of any other order). I suggest
that this fact may well be associated with the tripartite classification
of anaconda ancestors into land, air and water. The underlying unity
of anaconda, jaguar and eagle fits the requirement that the exogamous
groups be equivalent. The relations between the habitats are tri¬
angular, in the sense that one can move from any one to any other
just as any one of the groups can marry any other. Real jaguars,
eagles and anacondas are natural mediators between these habitats
and the inclusion of Fish-Eagle Anaconda as an Exogamous Group
ancestor (Tukano) covers the least obvious connection, that between

CHIEFS * >
TATUVO SKY
eg eagle DANCER/ ^_
CHANTERS -*

WARRIORS 7

SHAMANS *~ ->

SERVANTS *—• >

EARTH > WATER

eg JAGUAR eg FISH

A EXCHANGE OF B ANCESTRAL C EXOGAMOUS GROUPS

WOMEN BETWEEN CREATURES e.g. TATUVO
EXOGAMOUS GROUPS AS MEDIATORS NO INTERNAL MARRIAGE

contest with C

Fig. 3 Tripartite classification of Exogamous Group ancestors compared with

marriage relations between Exogamous Groups

37
Social structure
water and air. The triangular pattern of relations between the three
habitats and intermarrying groups contrasts with the hierarchical
relations between sibs and siblings. I shall argue later that these, too,
are reflected in the cosmic structure of the universe, in which the
same elements — water, earth and sky — are related in a different way.
These different relations in no way contradict the first set for, if my
understanding of Indian ideology is right, the incorporation of
elements into different structures or processes where they receive
different meanings is not only possible, but actually an essential
feature of such ideology.

Origin of sibs
At this point we must retreat further into the ancestral past, beyond
even the Anacondas, to explain that all Exogamous Groups are chil¬
dren of the Primal Sun and each regards the Sun as ‘father’ of its own
particular group ancestors. In fact, the Sun, the ancestral anaconda
of a given group, and often a string of other named anthropomorphic
beings, are fused together in a way which is best described as ‘pre-
descent’. These beings are sometimes arranged in generations of
father-and-son relationships, sometimes called elder and younger
brothers and sometimes said to be separate manifestations of the
same entity; conversely, the same name often applies to father and
son alike. Repeated questions from the anthropologist about who is
son of whom and which beings are ‘the same’ leads to worse con¬
fusion. The only conclusion can be that the relationship between
name and individual, between father and son and between elder
brother and younger brother, are not three separate types of relation¬
ship in ‘pre-descent’ terms as they are today. Indians stress that the
original ancestral beings, collectively called He masa, did not know
sexual procreation and just came into existence, one from another.
Since it is the periodicity established by marriage, sexual reproduction
and growth of families that creates discrete generations and sibling
groups and also, as I show later, serves to distribute names, it is under¬
standable that these distinctions should not have the same significance
before sexual reproduction.
The origin of sibs marks the end of this ‘pre-descent’ era. While
these are the body of the ancestral anacondas, other versions of their
creation make them products of sexual reproduction. It is clear in the
myth of Yeba’s marriage to Fish Anaconda’s daughter, Yawira, that
38
The model applied

the origin of Barasana sibs occurs simultaneously with the develop¬

ment of sexual reproduction and alliance between exogamous groups
— Indians specifically say that the myth describes the origin of all
these things. In fact, normal sexual reproduction is developed during
the course of the origin of sibs, for the ancestors of the eldest sibs are
bom after Yeba made love to Yawira with his fingers, and those of
the younger sibs are the product of normal sexual intercourse (see
appendix 1).
The sib ancestors married women of opposed exogamous groups
and the sib populations increased over the generations. Stories of
these first generations of sib ancestors are typically concerned with
fights, migrations, marriages and the stealing of sacred paraphernalia.
Although they include 'impossible’ episodes, they are very obviously
different from the myths to which I refer in this book: the beings in
the stories are members of existing or extinct groups instead of
anthropomorphic creatures, celestial bodies or strange spirits. The
stories in which they figure presuppose a world populated by descent
groups composed of ordinary people (no longer He masa), in fact, a
world in which the social and cosmic order is already established.
Without entering into the difficult subject of the relation between
myth and history, I can best explain the situation by saying that there
may be a parallel between the way in which Indians regard the ‘descent
era' and the way in which the western layman regards history.
The generation in which sib ancestors are established, and the fol¬
lowing ones in which the present-day descent lines are established,
can roughly be described in genealogical terms, and sometimes the
group membership of the wives is included. There is little consistency
between accounts for any given group except in the set of names
involved and the positions of one or two key ancestors. The patri¬
lineal genealogies are told with emphasis on the male sibling groups
and on the correspondence between the seniority order of these and
the seniority order of their respective groups of descendants today.
The teller also invariably points out that present-day people possess
the same names. In any genealogy extending beyond two generations
the names of one generation are repeated again in the next but one
and teller and listener alike get hopelessly muddled. This alternation
of a limited stock of names, which is maintained in present-day
naming practice, inhibits the accumulation of genealogical knowl¬
edge. It is also consistent with the marked stress on agnatic sibling
ties at the expense of father—son ties.
39
Social structure
Between the genealogies of the first ordinary people and the gene¬
alogies extending back from the living there is a gap. Occasional
characters associated with raids, particular shamanic acts and so on
may be picked out from these dark ages in group history, and it is
clear that Indians do not believe that the one or two recently dead
generations they can outline tack directly onto the founding gener¬
ations. However, instead of needing consistent genealogical know¬
ledge as a measure of time and identity, they are content with the
conviction that there are genealogies. They frequently refer to a
patrilineal genealogical principle, explaining that over the course of
time sets of brothers give rise to descent groups ordered by senior¬
ity, but they can rarely fill in more than one or two of the key names
in such a process. The minimal emphasis on genealogy is perhaps sur¬
prising in a society where patrilineal group membership depends
firmly on descent, but I hope to show that this is quite consistent
with other aspects of the relationship between the present and the
ancestral past.
Finally, the credentials of a genuine sib lie in its relationship with
the ancestral past. The sib must have arrived from the Water Door as
part of an anaconda ancestor and it must have its appropriate waking-
up house. It should have a set of sacred He instruments (Yurupary:
see initiation, pp. 142ff) and various other sacred items derived from
the body of the anaconda (or one of his other manifestations) which
act as a guarantee of this ancestral link. People prove that a sib —
invariably a senior one — is claiming false status in precisely these
terms. They say that a relatively recent forbear of a genuine sib
made the members of the false sib out of wild creatures (mice and
worms in two particular versions) in order to increase his workforce.
Then, when he tried in turn to address the leader of his workers as
‘affine’ (tenyu), ‘mother’s child’ (hako maku) and ‘younger brother’
(bedi), the leader refused to answer. In the end he was obliged to call
the upstart ‘elder brother’ (gagu). The stories go on to show that the
sacred paraphernalia possessed by such groups is nothing but a col¬
lection of commonplace objects.

The longhouse and its inhabitants

Composition of the longhouse group

The longhouse group contains a local descent group as a core and the
40
The longhouse and its inhabitants

rest of the population is made up of wives of descent-group members

and individuals whom I shall call ‘extra residents’. Longhouse com¬
munities are in a continual state of flux. Also, Vaupes Indians are
constantly visiting other longhouse communities so that it is often
difficult to know whether non-local descent-group members are
regarded as temporary residents or long-term visitors. In any case,
they are never fully integrated into the ritual life of the community
and are only rarely allocated permanent screened compartments
within the house. These extra residents may be from the same sib,
the same Exogamous Group or an affinal Exogamous Group in
relation to the local descent group. If they are from the same sib
their status as outsiders to the local descent group derives from the
fact that they have closer agnates elsewhere. However, the married
males among extra residents are nearly always from an affinal
Exogamous Group and are related to the local descent group by a
direct affinal tie through wife or mother; they are usually waiting to
establish their own houses and cultivations. There is evidently a
strong resistance to the confusion or merging of those descent groups
which lie within the same Exogamous Group and yet are separated
by their relative positions in the seniority order, for these are very
rarely represented in a single longhouse group.
The local descent-group members are united by such close agnatic
ties that the founding group of agnatic siblings is almost always
represented among the oldest living members or the previous, dead
generation. Thus the senior generation are either agnatic siblings or
patrilineal parallel cousins. Smaller communities may contain a single
nuclear family; however, these are invariably living in houses too small
for communal rituals and thus are dependent upon a nearby, larger
community for ritual life. In the past, when it seems that longhouse
communities were very much larger, local descent groups must have
been much deeper in structure and extra residents were probably
much more numerous. In order to give an idea of the size and com¬
position of present-day communities in the Pira-parana area, I include
a table (table 2) based on thirteen particular communities. These are
the community of our fieldwork location and twelve surrounding
ones, which together occupy a continuous but irregular-shaped area
centred on the upper reaches of Cano Colorado. Each of the twelve
communities interacts with the home community during rituals but
the regularity of interaction drops towards the periphery of the area.
The table shows clearly that the incorporation of extra residents is
41
Social structure
Table 2 Composition of longhouse groups (in order of population
size)

Local
Local descent-group House size:
descent-group members’ Extra Total dance/
Headman members wives residents population non-dance

Felisiano 20 6 3 29 D
Santiago 14 4 8 26 D
Cristo 15 6 2 23 D
Rufino 18 6 0 24 D
Boscoa
(home
community) 7 3 5 15 D
Atuni 10 1 0 11 D
Manueli 7 2 0 9 D
Americo 5 3 0 8 D
Domingo (1) 6 1 0 7 —

Domingo (2) 4 1 0 5 —

Benjamin 3 1 0 4 —

Pedru 4 0 0 4 —
Paua 3 1 0 4 —

aPau’s household is also part of Bosco’s, since they retain their compartment in Bosco’s long-
house and live there some of the time. The numbers given for Bosco’s do not include Pau’s.

restricted to the larger communities which invariably live in ‘dance

houses’ — those with a central space large enough for communal
dancing on ritual occasions. One of the factors determining incorpor¬
ation of extra residents is the ambition of a longhouse headman to
increase his followers so that he will have the necessary numbers and
economic potential to hold frequent ritual gatherings. Extra residents
have a special obligation to pull their economic weight in the com¬
munity since they depend on the goodwill of the headman much
more than local descent-group members do. The steady economic
surplus produced by a large and successful community also plays an
important part in making incorporation of extra residents possible.
Extra residents who stay for a long time and fell cultivations are
rarely organised into balanced productive units - nuclear families
(complete or incomplete) containing at least one adult of each sex.
Such a balanced productive unit would be much more likely to set up
42
The longhouse and its inhabitants

a small house of its own than to tolerate the authority of a headman

from a different descent group.
For our purposes here, we may ignore the existence of extra resi¬
dents and treat the life and internal organisation of the longhouse
community as referring to the community of local descent-group
members and their wives.5 Indians regard this as the ideal community
and the strong desire to see children grow up among their close
agnates, speaking their patrilineal language and taking part in descent-
group marriage arrangements and rituals, prevents a high rate of
deviance. The ideal that a widow should marry the dead husband’s
brother is very often followed and this, too, prevents small children
from leaving their local descent group.

The longhouse setting

In the Pira-parana area there is no recognition of fixed territorial

boundary marks associated with either longhouse communities or
more inclusive units. However, virtually every landmark in the forest
or along the river has some significance in the myths of origin of one
group or another. Longhouse communities should be close to the
emergence site of the appropriate sib but there are many cases where
they are not. In these cases, the community members stress the dis¬
tinction between ancestral and present-day territory.
Longhouses are built close to rivers or streams: there is a port on
the river front where canoes are landed and people bathe and fetch
water (fig. 4). A path leads from the river to the longhouse, to the
men’s door, which is supposed to face east, although it does not
always do so in practice. The longhouse is set on a sandy plaza which
is extended like an apron outside the main men’s door and fringed by
a kitchen garden where both magical and edible plants grow. Amongst
these the peach palms (Gulielma gasipaes) stand high above the roof
of the longhouse and mark the site long after the house has gone.
Beyond the plaza is a large area mainly taken up by cultivation sites,
both newly cleared and in different states of regression to forest.
These gardens are scattered according to the suitability of land and

5 I know of only one community, in Cano Tatii, a western affluent of the Pird-parand,
where this situation is not the ideal. Here, two affinal descent groups occupy the same
longhouse. Now, one group is represented by a single adult male, but people say that
traditionally his sib are ‘side-of-the-house exchange partners’ (wi karoka tenyua) and
always reside with their affines, either on the opposite side or at the opposite end of the
house from them.

43
44
©
©
©
Fig. 4 The longhouse setting
The longhouse and its inhabitants

some may even be cleared on the far side of the river, but concep¬
tually, at any rate, they make up a continuous zone which surrounds
the house except where it is cut off by the river front.
There is another path from the opposite, female end of the house
which leads to the gardens, often crossing a small tributary of the
main river which serves as an alternative water source and washing
place used by women for their daily chores. This frees the main port
for male use. Beyond the gardens is the forest (makaroka), familiar at
first and becoming more alien further away from the house. The
house and its gardens make up a differentiated, controlled ‘social’
area which is opposed to the undifferentiated (from this point of
view only) forest. The river which bounds the ‘social’ area on one
side is seen as a spiritual power supply connecting the house to other
communities and to the source of ancestral power in the east.

The longhouse

Although Vaupes Indians practise shifting cultivation of bitter manioc,

it is very difficult to determine the relation between this agricultural
method and settlement patterns over time. I do not possess the his¬
torical or ecological data even to attempt this. However, good agri¬
cultural land is certainly an important consideration in choosing a
house site and exhaustion of land is one of the many reasons given
by Indians for a change in house site. On the other hand, it seems that
some house sites have continuously supported sizeable populations
for decades. Therefore, in some places, there is evidently sufficient
good land for Indians to establish continuous cycles of cultivation
and forest regrowth. Other reasons for changing house site are the
following: to move away after an important community member has
died; to move away after quarrels or hostilities with co-residents or
neighbours; to move nearer to communities with whom recent mar¬
riage alliances have been made; to exploit superior fishing and hunt¬
ing resources; to recolonise ancestral territory; to avoid whites or,
more recently, to move towards them to obtain merchandise and
education.
I estimate that the maximum natural life of a longhouse structure
is about ten years. It is possible to replace the roof in the meantime,
but finally the main posts and beams become unsound. However, a
new house is very often built before the old one has decayed. This
may be because the community wishes to move for any of the reasons
45
Social structure

given above, or because they wish to change to a larger house on the

same site with all the opportunities for increased prestige this brings.
A change of house, particularly if it is also a change of site, accentu¬
ates the personal relations within the old community, because the
members must either co-operate in helping the man who initiates the
move or else split off from the community. The building of a large
longhouse requires a long period of communal labour and, when a
distant new site has been chosen, there is a difficult interim period
while new cultivations are being established. The man who success¬
fully initiates, organises and recruits the labour for such a move
achieves considerable prestige and, usually, the leadership of the new
community. However, since he does a disproportionate amount of
the work himself, he cannot be an old man. If an important member
of the senior generation remains in the community, this man may
retain ritual leadership while the young man, his son or brother’s son,
gradually assumes political and economic responsibility. There is fre¬
quently a period in which the community is ambiguously referred to
as belonging to the old man and being of the young man’s house, for
house-ownership is always ascribed to the builder.
Although leadership is ideally determined by descent and falls to
the senior sibling of the oldest generation, there are many examples
of a younger brother assuming the role of longhouse headman. The
building of a house is the most important step in the process of gain¬
ing power, but an ambitious man also builds up his reputation as a
dancer, chanter or shaman. Ideally, these ritual specialist roles are
separate from leadership (according to the model of five siblings
with interdependent specialist roles) but, in practice, personal
initiative tends to be directed towards more than one specialist role
(see p. 28).

The longhouse interior

I describe the house with reference to fig. 5. All houses conform to

this basic plan: not all have space for an adequate dance path and not
all have a rounded female end, but this does not affect the layout of
the interior.
The longhouse mainly consists of an enormous roof which almost
meets the ground along the side walls. This roof is supported by
massive vertical posts which structure the floor space within. The
roof is oriented on a male-female axis; it is gabled at both ends on a
46
 WOMEN'S DOon.

lOO feet approx:

DOOR

Fig. 5 Ground-plan of longhouse interior Note- household objects not to scale

47
Social structure

square-ended house and only at the men’s end on a round-ended

house. The wall at the male end is covered on the outside by paint¬
ings on bark. Apart from this special painting surface, the roof and
walls are all made of the leaves of various species of palm. The roof¬
ing leaves are woven onto palmwood slats and the remainder of the
timber is hardwood; joints are bound with vine. There is a women’s
door opposite the men’s door and family compartments are strung
along the side walls towards the female end of the house.
Within the longhouse community, individuals are grouped into
nuclear families. Each married man of the local descent group has a
compartment which houses himself, his wife and his children. This
compartment contains a hearth around which the family hammocks
are slung. Family stores of food are preserved in the smoke above it
and the women do the cooking over the fire. All personal possessions,
including many items of household equipment, are kept in this pri¬
vate family area. Single descent-group men do not have compart¬
ments of their own since these are the domain of conjugal life and
child rearing. After initiation, a boy may continue to use his parents’
compartment in the daytime, but he must sleep outside it in the open
part of the house. When he brings a new wife into the community,
she is attached to the household of his mother at first, and may even
sleep in the parental compartment. The new couple gradually estab¬
lish their economic independence and some time before the birth of
their first child they are allotted a compartment of their own.
The stated rule, which is usually but not invariably observed, is for
the headman to occupy the compartment furthest towards the
women’s door on the right-hand side of the house (when looking out
of the men’s door). Apart from this there is no strict pattern other
than a tendency for senior family heads to be nearest to the women’s
door. This follows from the way in which new compartments are
screened off from the adjoining, existing ones. Visiting families
occupy hearth spaces on the periphery nearest to the men’s door but
any initiated males travelling without wives sleep apart from their
families in the middle of the house.
In the open part of the house, communal meals are held; the for¬
mal men’s group meets nightly and coca and manioc are processed.
In general, both sexes use the central part while men monopolise the
space in the centre front and women the space towards the female
door. Both communal activities and private family activities are part
of the life of every individual but the parts are differently balanced
48
The longhouse and its inhabitants

according to sex. For men, life in the longhouse is mainly communal

much productive property and most ritual goods are communally
used, while for women it is relatively private — most productive
property is privately used and women are excluded from the nightly
male gatherings and many aspects of communal ritual.
In everyday activity, the sexes do not keep strictly to their appro¬
priate ends of the house. However, the more formal the occasion, the
more carefully the spatial differentiation is observed. Formality is
appropriate when there are visitors, especially large numbers of
visitors from far off, and it reaches its maximum during communal
ritual gatherings when several complete longhouse communities
gather together. With the presence of visitors, not only does the
male female axis become more binding, it also takes on the added
significance of visitor/resident. On arrival, the visitors remain just
inside the main door: the visiting men remain in the centre front of
the house throughout their stay (apart from eating and dancing in the
middle and sleeping on the periphery), but the women and children
become absorbed into the female activities of the residents after a
while.

Social and economic organisation of the longhouse community

The basic organisation of the longhouse population is thus into con¬

jugal families headed by local descent-group members. The position
of these round the periphery of the house towards the women’s door
contrasts with the sleeping position of initiated, unmarried men in
the middle of the house. From the point of view of the development
of the local descent group, these youths are in an intermediate
position between childhood and fatherhood. In terms of longhouse
space, then, the male life-cycle consists of two halves — a journey
from periphery to centre, followed by a reverse journey back to the
periphery. The female life-cycle is lived out entirely in peripheral
compartments but it, too, is divided into two halves — the first living
with agnates and the second living with affines in a separate com¬
munity.
The role of the conjugal family as a reproductive unit goes hand in
hand with its role as an economic unit. The separate family units are
almost autonomous in food production. Each possesses its own gar¬
dens cultivated by the wife and daughters. These may be felled com¬
munally by the men and then partitioned off, or each husband-and-
49
Social structure

son team may fell for the women of the family. Sometimes an
initiated youth approaching marriageable age sets up a felling-and-
cultivating unit with the unmarried sister next to him in seniority.
The pair add their produce to that of their parents, the sister filling
her mother’s manioc basket and the brother adding his meat and fish
to the family supply. In this way, the brother—sister pair are only
partly differentiated from the rest of the family. The economic unit
they form is intermediate between their role as children, still learning
under the authority of their parents, and the truly responsible and
independent unit formed after marriage.
) Pira-parana Indians observe the rule of sister-exchange, which
means that the marriage of sons is accompanied by the loss of
daughters. Thus, with the marriage of a sibling pair, the family econ¬
omy receives a severe shock. The shock may be gradual if the
daughter-in-law assists her mother-in-law at first and the couple con¬
tinue to contribute to the family production, but, by the time the
first child is born to the new couple, the original family has lost both
a male and female producer. This loss certainly affects the parents of
the original family, but relations between father and son remain
close. Relations between mother and daughter-in-law are more vari¬
able and, directly or indirectly, the co-operation of the mother-in-law
and unmarried sisters-in-law have a great influence on the success of
new marriages. However, any tension that new marriages cause within
the local descent group tends to be between the new husband and his
siblings. The marriage of the oldest brother—sister pair begins a pro¬
cess of gradual separation of the economic interests of male siblings.
As each marries and the number of small children he supports
increases, so his economic effort becomes more oriented towards his
family of procreation. His life-style becomes increasingly different
from that of the older initiated youths who co-operate closely and
are able to spend their spare time and energy in visiting and attending
rituals. In general, these youths are relatively free from economic
stress for they are members of family units with high proportions of
productive members. Their married brothers head family units at the
other end of the scale with a high proportion of unproductive mem¬
bers (small children).
Although marriage is essential for the perpetuation of local descent
groups, the division of economic interests that inevitably follows it
means that it is also a threat to descent-group unity. The same kind
of separation between descent-group members can be seen spatially,
50
The longhouse and its inhabitants
because the unmarried, initiated men, who all sleep in the open centre
of the house, are later housed in separate compartments. While all
kinds of different biological, social and psychological factors are
doubtless involved in the dispersal of sibling groups over time, there
is good reason to describe the process in terms of food production,
because this is such a sensitive matter in the internal politics of long-
house communities. If each productive unit consumed its own produce
there would simply be different levels of consumption at different
stages of the family development cycle. But, instead of this, family
production is ideally followed by general consumption, each family
offering its produce at communal meals in the centre of the house
(see p. 172). In practice, there is a delicate balance between an accept¬
able level of private family consumption and an unacceptable level,
which is interpreted as anti-social withholding of food from the com¬
munity. On the one hand, to the extent that communal consumption
is practised, it does indeed relieve the burden on relatively unpro¬
ductive units. On the other, if people think that these unproductive
units are choosing to eat privately rather than contribute their share
to the community, resentment builds up. In a situation where each
family is aware that every other family is continually exercising choice
over how much food to release, there is ample room for speculation
and ill-feeling. When these feelings become intolerable the community
splits. Of course, there are many other reasons for community splits
and I do not wish to deny their importance. People say that others
are bad-tempered, adulterous, bewitching people, too bossy, too
violent and so on. However, besides being the real basis for many dis¬
putes, food production and distribution is the perfect medium for
expression of bad feelings. These processes play a very special role in
longhouse society: food production is intimately tied to the repro¬
duction of local descent groups and food distribution is a concrete
manifestation of the tension between family and community interests
that arises from the reproductive process itself.
So far, we have seen that the local descent group is founded by a
male sibling group. This is ordered by seniority and, ideally, it is a
replica of the system of five specialist roles. Thus, it should give rise
to an ordered and well-integrated longhouse community - the more
so because the founding siblings are usually the senior living gener¬
ation. However, according to the marriage rules, the group must
exchange sisters for wives of diverse outside origin in order to per¬
petuate itself. Thus, new families are set up: the generations become
51
Social structure

separated and the unity of sibling groups is destroyed. This divisive

process is a natural feature of the reproduction of any group, but it is
particularly potent in a patrilineal community with patrilineal resi¬
dence and virilocal marriage. Besides, in Vaupes society this process
is underlined by the economic system which stresses the simultaneous
unity and separation of the various family units making up a com¬
munity. It is precisely the child-bearing and child-rearing role of wives
from outside that is responsible for the separation of generations and
dissolution of unitary sibling groups; therefore marriage plays the
same role in ongoing society as it does in the overall development of
Indian society. According to Indian ideology, in this grand develop¬
ment, marriage and sexual reproduction bring the original ancestral
‘pre-descent’ era to an end, and initiate a new ‘descent’ era in which
patrilineal groups receive separate identity and become dependent on
women’s reproductive powers (see p. 38). In the ‘descent’ era, which
continues at present, the same process can be seen repeated on a small
scale for each generation; marriage and sexual reproduction bring the
unity of the sibling group to an end and replace it with several family
units in which men depend upon wives instead of sisters.
This process sets up an opposition between two situations which
may be expressed or manifested in various forms. The unified com¬
munity is opposed to the family organisation; men in their capacity
as descent-group members are opposed to men in their capacity as
family members; women as descent-group sisters are opposed to
women as wives in affinal communities; men who provide the struc¬
ture of the local descent group are opposed to women who co-operate
in reproducing affinal groups. Finally, these oppositions are related to
that between the unified, hierarchical internal structure of descent
groups and the external relations of equal reciprocity formed with
affinal groups, which were discussed above. These are not just fanci¬
ful patterns - they are the result of processes which order the repro¬
duction of the longhouse community. In the remainder of this book
I hope to show that they order many other aspects of social and econ¬
omic life.
In summary, we can isolate two aspects of male life and two aspects
of female life. Each sex has a descent-group aspect and a procreative
aspect. Men are brothers and husbands while women are sisters and
wives. In the case of each sex we shall see that the two aspects repre¬
sent opposite phases of a repeated cycle; we already have an example
of this for men, in the way in which they move between separate
52
The longhouse and its inhabitants

family compartments and the communal centre of the house during

their life-cycle.

53
3
The set ofspecialist roles

Erosion of the system

The set of five specialist roles and the practical functioning, or lack
of it, of the system have been briefly described already. This chapter
is about the internal structure of the role-set and its analogy with
other structures or processes.
First of all, the ideal behaviour associated with the roles must be
presented in more detail. The difficulty with this, as suggested before,
is that sib roles barely function at all at a practical level and therefore
I am obliged to present a system, which above all applies to specialist
groups, in terms of individual specialist roles. Of the specialist roles
performed by individuals, there are only three that are well defined
at present. These three are shaman, chanter and dancer, all of which
belong to the metaphysical domain and all of which are recognised in
a title added to the expert’s personal name (thus X-kumu, Y-yoamu
and Z-baya are shaman, chanter and dancer respectively). These three
roles only cover two of the five roles in the complete set, since
dancer and chanter belong to a single category. The others — chief,
warrior and servant — must be described from indirect sources, includ¬
ing statements about the past. The content of the warrior role is the
most problematic, for the ideal behaviour of chiefs and servants can
be seen in attenuated form today as, for example, in the relationship
between an important longhouse leader and a youthful ‘extra resi¬
dent'. The role of servant is also clearly regarded as a less extreme
version of the role of the Maku, who still inhabit some parts of the
Vaupes today.
A further complication lies in the fact that the present-day absence
of three of the five roles has probably led to modification of the
remaining two. The missing roles of chief, warrior and servant indi-
54
Erosion of the system

cate the importance of (a) hierarchy and (b) use of physical force in
social organisation. While both factors remain as ideals, they are
tempered in practice by the opposing ideals of equality (among all
Tukanoans) and peace. Of course, tension between the paired ideals
must have always existed because rigid social hierarchy and indis¬
criminate killing are incompatible with the perpetuation of small-
scale, forest-dwelling societies. However, confrontation with whites
and the consequent acculturation have shifted the equilibrium point
further away from hierarchy and violence and further towards
equality and peace. Even so, people associate both hierarchy and
violence with all the advantages of the past — the larger scale of ritual
life, the independence of Indians from white outsiders and the
physical and cultural strength of past generations. They regret that
no one knows how to give orders or how to take proper revenge for
wrongdoing today, but, even so, those who do so are resented.
Instead of being regarded as ‘chiefly’ or ‘fierce’, they are ‘bossy’ or
‘evil-tempered’. It may well be that it is this ambiguity of public
opinion which influences individuals with leadership ambitions to
become specialists in the metaphysical domain, where they may gain
legitimate respect.
Of the metaphysical experts — dancers, chanters and shamans —
shamans make by far the widest reputations. Although shamans are
respected by those who use their services, people from other com¬
munities often fear and dislike them for their dangerous powers.
Clearly, the shaman, who can kill at a distance, has the ultimate
power when direct killing is prohibited by public opinion. As the
roles of chief, warrior and servant become increasingly irrelevant to
the ongoing social process, the shaman becomes the best candidate
for the position of primus inter pares or community leader. If we can
assume that formerly there actually were specialist warriors, chiefs
and servants, we can guess that the shaman was effectively controlled
by his dependence on others. His metaphysical killing powers were
matched by the concrete powers of the warrior, and people actually
say that dangerous shamans were often killed for abuse of power.
Both warrior and shaman were under the authority of the chief and
economically dependent on the productive system based on chief-
servant relations. This would make the shaman more of an equal to
the dancer/chanter (with whom he co-operated in the metaphysical
care of the community) than he is today, now that his powers have
been let loose.
55
The set of specialist roles

The expansion of the shaman’s role into the politico-economic

domain has made present-day shaman—leaders relinquish certain
aspects of the ideal shaman’s role which are incompatible with leader¬
ship. Shamans should withdraw from the procreative aspect of women
while leaders must be married, preferably polygamously, in order to
maintain their position (see below). There are shamans who are not
leaders: these are sometimes unmarried and often living a relatively
isolated social existence. The shaman leaders, by contrast, are invari¬
ably married. People comment on this situation, saying that leaders
cannot be good shamans. They also recognise inconsistencies in the
seniority position of shaman—leaders within their own sibling groups.
A shaman should be a younger brother and a leader should be a first
born: therefore, a shaman—leader is bound to be wrong on one count
or the other.

The specialist roles

I mentioned that the organisation of the set of specialist roles may be

conceived of in two separate ways - first, as a simple hierarchy
derived from the association of the set of roles with sibling order from
first bom to last born; and second, as a bilaterally symmetrical organ¬
isation based on the interrelations of three domains (p. 20). If we
concentrate on the three domains, these may be arranged concentric¬
ally with the politico-economic domain on the outside, the externally
oriented domain of warriors in the centre and the metaphysical
domain mediating between the two. In this way, a model which

CHIEF

DANCER/CHANTER

WARRIOR

SHAMAN

SERVANT
s EXTERNALLY
oriented
DOMAIN

Fig. 6 Relation between concentric and hierarchical arrangements of specialist

roles
56
The specialist roles

simultaneously represents both hierarchical and concentric organis¬

ation can be constructed.
In the following description, the specialist roles are ordered accord¬
ing to the three domains. At the outset, I should stress once more that
I am discussing the ideal conceptions of these roles rather than the
sociological functions of contemporary institutions. My account of
the content of the shaman and dancer/chanter roles is largely based
on present-day behaviour of individual specialists; there are no true
chiefs or servants, although there are powerful longhouse leaders and
dependent ‘extra residents’: there are no warriors, although there are
individuals who are described as particularly ‘fierce’.

Politico-economic domain: chiefs—servants

Chiefs Servants
uhara (chiefs) hosaa (servants)
rihoana (head-people) gahariana (end-people)
rotira (people who order) muno yori masa (cigar lighters)
umato moari masa (instigators of work) moari masa (workers)
aalso the name for the true Maku.
As ‘first born’, the chief comes first on all occasions where an order
of precedence is observed — greeting, receiving of food, coca etc., sit¬
ting for formal conversation and travelling by foot or canoe; the ser¬
vant as an ‘end-person’ comes either last or not at all. The relationship
of chief and servant is the extreme expression of the principle of hier¬
archy. Both are outside the ongoing social process: the one from
above and the other from below.
The chief represents his group in formal relations with outside
groups. Actual communication with outside groups by means of
shamanism, warfare and ritual gatherings should be ordered and/or
initiated by the chief and then carried through by the appropriate
specialists. However, there is a remaining form of communication
with outside groups which is closely bound up with the others and
which is reflected in the extreme positions of chief and servant in the
hierarchy of specialist roles. This is marriage. Polygamy is the preroga¬
tive of the chief, while the servants are described as ‘marrying each
other like animals’ instead of making exogamous marriages like mem¬
bers of other sibs. Today, there are several cases of longhouse head¬
men with two wives in the Pira-parana, and one has three wives.
Polygamy is directly associated with politico-economic power: it is an
57
The set of specialist roles

expression of superior ability to make affinal relations. On a practical

level, the surplus of manioc products it brings to the leader’s house¬
hold allows him to hold rituals and thus gain prestige outside his
immediate agnatic group. According to informants, both the fre¬
quency of polygamy and the number of wives per leader have
decreased over the last two generations. The endogamy of servants is
important ideologically, since it indicates the relatively sub-human
status of servants and their lack of engagement in external social
relations. However, in practice, endogamous marriages are extremely
rare and are invariably described as wrong and incestuous. In spite of
this, there was a striking example of marriage between close agnatic
kin among the servant sib that corresponded to our host sib (of
warriors). People said that such marriages were commonplace amongst
this sib in the past. This case was one of the few examples of present-
day practice of specialist roles at sib level that was pointed out to us.1
Among the activities ordered by the chief and carried out by ser¬
vants. people mention building houses, felling manioc gardens, culti¬
vating and processing crops, bringing food and materials from the
forest, cleaning the house, lighting cigars, keeping the resin or taper
light burning in the house during the evening and putting away ritual
possessions. The roles of both servant and chief are sometimes seen
as divided by sex, so that the male tasks are performed by male ser¬
vants directly for the chief, while the female tasks are performed by
female servants, immediately under the direction of the chief’s wife,
but ultimately also for the benefit of the chief.
If we concentrate on the male aspect of the servants’ role then this
too appears sexually ambiguous. The male servant may be called on
to fetch water and clean up — tasks which are allocated to women in
the normal way. During ritual occasions, the servants must take
charge of fire by lighting cigars and lighting the house. Domestic fire
is usually controlled by women and kept separate from male ritual
life, and thus the servants’ ritual role is to protect other men by
taking on the ‘anti-ritual’, female element. Their sexual ambiguity is
consistent with their tendency to endogamous marriages.
1 Data provided by Silverwood-Cope (1972) and Reid (personal communication) show that
the Maku conceive of their own society as divided into patrilineal exogamous groups
internally divided into sibs or ‘clans’, which are ordered according to seniority. This ideal
model corresponds closely to the Tukanoan model, but both the above authors found that
in practice the Maku are much less strict about observing exogamy than the Tukanoans.
Maku residential groupings and also the constituent hearth-groupings frequently contain
at finally related males. By marrying each other, members of the Tukanoan servant sibs
are behaving like the true Maku.

58
The specialist roles

Although the servants share the designation of the true Maku as

hosa, they are clearly differentiated from these.2 Their descent status
as members of Tukanoan Exogamous Groups gives them the right to
live and work amongst their ‘elder brothers’, while the true Maku live
away from the Tukanoan masters and far from main rivers. The
relationship between Tukanoans and Maku, besides being one of
master and servant, is one of exchange between cultivated products
from Tukanoans and forest products and labour from the Maku. The
forest products are curare poison and game, as well as the animal
skins, teeth and bones, and fruits, all of which are used to make ritual
ornaments. Although the Tukanoan servants are regarded as civilised
beings in comparison with Maku, there is a sense in which they share
the Maku’s proximity to the natural order. They are marginal to the
social life of the community and provide a transition between the
natural and social. Their labour converts forest to cultivation site and
raw materials to processed ones: these are the productive processes
that precede communal consumption on ordinary social or ritual
occasions. With respect to the order of events on ritual occasions, the
chief greets the guests, so initiating the ritual sequence, and the ser¬
vants put away the ritual possessions at the end. Besides actively end¬
ing the ritual period, they take the ‘anti-ritual’ fire-lighting role during
it. Finally, the case of ritual sequence may be used to underline the
dual nature of the chief—servant relationship. On the one hand, they
are opposed as superior and inferior, positive and negative extremes
of the social hierarchy, but on the other, they are alike in belonging
to the politico-economic domain. While from the point of view of
ritual sequence the chief comes first and the servant comes last, from
the point of view of the entire sequence including preparation, the
productive unit formed of chief and servant creates the transition
between secular and ritual time by transforming raw materials into
the manioc beer, coca and tobacco required during rituals. Thus, the
politico-economic domain is prior to the metaphysical domain in the
sense that its products are the prerequisites of ritual life. This priority
has a positive aspect manifest in the ordering and initiating role of
chiefs and a negative aspect manifest in the natural and menial role
of servants.

2 Hosa also means ‘difficult’ and therefore it is possible that the name shared by Tukanoan
servant groups and Makii alike refers to their recalcitrance (from the point of view of domi¬
nant groups).

59
The set of specialist roles

Metaphysical domain: dancer/chanters—shamans

Dancer/chanters Shamans

keti masa (possessors of myth) kumua (shamans)

bayaroa (dancers) werea koa baseri masa (shamanisers
of the beeswax gourd)
yoamara (chanters) muno baseri masa (shamanisers of
tobacco)
The dancer/chanter category as a whole covers the performers of
ritual, the guardians of keti. While keti refers to any story about
recent or mythical events, in this context it means stories of ‘old
people’ or ancestors (bukura keti)', a body of oral literature roughly
corresponding to our ‘myth’. The dancer/chanters recreate ancestral
times by alternate dancing and chanting on ritual occasions. The
dancing is led by an expert dancer, or pair of dancers, who stands in
the middle of the dance line, with the other dancer/chanters graded
towards the two ends according to expertise. All are painted and
dressed in the full complement of ritual ornaments. In the standard
form of dance the line moves round the dance path in alternate anti¬
clockwise and clockwise directions, singing and often using maracas
or other instruments. Women join in at a given point after the begin¬
ning of the dance and leave before the end; they often dance with
babies on their hips.
In between dance sessions, the community of male dancer/chanters
sit on long benches, the guests opposite to their hosts, just inside the
men’s door. An expert chanter, sitting in the middle of one of the
benches, leads the chant and the others repeat his phrases in unison.
My understanding of these chants is scant, since their linguistic form
is very different from ordinary speech and many substitutes based on
metaphor, metonymy and mythical allusion are used instead of every¬
day vocabulary. They deal with mythical events that are arranged
within the broad framework of an ancestral anaconda journey upriver
from the east, and particularly with the original receipt of the plants,
ritual materials and elements of behaviour used in the ritual perform¬
ance as a whole. Thus, they are closely related to narrative myth, but
are especially concerned with the link between the present and ances¬
tral past. The stages of anaconda journeys, for instance, are virtually
untellable in narrative form - if asked about them, informants invari¬
ably lapse into chant. The term for chanter, yoamu, literally means
‘one who travels far’ and the expertise of the chanter is judged by the
60
The specialist roles

detail with which he follows the ancestral journey: the best chanters
go up and down all the tiny sidestreams incorporating the lesser-
known mythical sites into their chant. The appropriate chant sessions
for any given ritual are performed in a set order and synchronised
with the events to which they relate.
If we isolate the dancing and chanting elements of ritual, these
two activities are analogous to the two opposed phases in the ana¬
conda journey. Travelling upstream in anaconda form is analogous to
chanting and stopping on land to dance is analogous to dancing:
chanting represents ongoing creative activity and dancing represents
the results of creation (see p. 35). Since the final emergence onto land
coincides with the transition from the ‘pre-descent’ era to the ‘descent’
era, it is appropriate that women and babies are incorporated into the
dance sessions but are precluded from the chant. The specialisation
into dancers and chanters within the comprehensive category of keti
masa thus corresponds to a basic opposition between the two phases
of creation. As a unitary category, the keti masa are like the ancestors
when they were in the process of becoming like present-day people.
Today, only the officiating shaman remains apart from the dancing
and chanting and does not wear the feathers and ornaments of the
dancer/chanters. Whatever the situation in the past, the rest of the
initiated population all participate, and only the leaders of each
activity need a specialist skill.
If the dancer/chanters re-enact ancestral activity as a group, it is i
the shaman as an individual, or sometimes two paired shamans, who
makes this possible. He treats the beer, drugs, paint, ornaments and
other ritual substances which change the bodily state of the dancer/
chanters from secular to ritual, and from mortal to ancestral. The
shamanic activity both protects against the dangers of ancestral con¬
tact and promotes the beneficial effects. The shaman’s transform¬
ational power is received from the ancestors whom he contacts by
travel to the sky.
The shaman’s role is not performed entirely during ritual, for he
treats categories of food for individuals undergoing life changes (p.
122), and cures illness as the need arises. In the past, shamans were
also responsible for releasing game animals from their mystical houses
in the forest. The houses appear to ordinary people as outcrops of
rock, each one associated with a particular species. The shaman travels
in spirit to these houses and opens the door, releasing a controlled
number of animals (with a jaguar to prey on them accompanying
61
The set of specialist roles

each batch) for which he must pay with children’s souls (p. 200).
Shamanism is also intimately associated with the weather, particu¬
larly with thunder, as one would expect from the vertical shamanic
journeys into the sky.
In conversation, a distinction is made between shamans who only
‘see’ the ancestors and those who really travel to the sky; some say
that only the great shamans of the past could travel. There are also
grades of shamanic activity, the least demanding being shamanism of
foods after minor life changes, and the most demanding being sham¬
anism of the sacred beeswax and tobacco gourds during initiation (see
above for the expressions denoting ‘shamans). The act of shamanising,
base-, is mythically associated with the adventures of Manioc-stick
Anaconda (pp. 88, 261) in which it is stressed that shamanic powers
derive from the Sun’s tobacco snuff and involve crossing the vertical
layers of the Universe. Birth shamanism is acquired by Manioc-stick
Anaconda in the form of a tick, also base, sucking his host’s blood.
Ideally, shamans should remain apart from the procreative aspect of
women, for ‘women and children are like illness (nyase) to them’; they
should not marry, have sexual intercourse or eat hot foods (which are
associated with female sexuality), although they may have women
working for them. Shamanism is acquired by a protracted learning
period involving a special initiation rite in which the pupil is secluded
and receives drugs. The pupil eventually replaces (wasoa-) his master,
so that we may conceive of shamanism as a perpetual link with the
ancestral state which is maintained by a succession of mortals.
The positive, life-giving and protective powers of shamans are
accompanied by destructive powers. Ideally, the former are used on
behalf of agnates while the latter are directed towards members of
outside groups.
If we compare shamans to dancer/chanters, we see that shamans
are of this world and yet able to mediate with the other, ancestral
world, while dancer/chanters are actually part of the ancestral world
when performing their role. Both are mediators with the ancestral
world, but the shaman’s transforming power is more concerned with
the ever-present bearing of the ancestral world on the natural or
physiological processes of this world, while the dancer/chanters are
concerned with the developmental creation of society and cultural
elements. Thus the shaman deals with food, drugs, illness, growth,
sexuality , supply of game and so on, while the dancer/chanters re¬
enact the development of Tukanoan culture using the elaborated
62
The specialist roles

plant products, paints, ornaments and instruments which are its

expression. The complementary opposition of the two roles is also
expressed in their different spatial emphases, for the shaman operates
in vertical space, crossing cosmological layers, and the dancer/chanters
in horizontal space, travelling upstream from the east.

Domain of competitive intergroup relations: warriors

Warriors
guamara (fierce ones)
guariyaia (fierce predators — literally ‘jaguars’)
masa siari masa (people-killing people)
As far as can be ascertained, the causes of raiding and killing before
pacification were revenge for evil shamanism, revenge for direct kill¬
ing, disputes over women and desire for ritual goods and, possibly,
for land. It is impossible to know whether people actually decided to
kill for ritual goods and land or whether these were simply redistri¬
buted as a result of hostilities begun for other reasons. Indians deny
that they killed strangers simply to get wives. The warrior intending
to kill covered himself with red paint. It seems that there was special
shamanism associated with killing and that the killer observed strin¬
gent prohibitions afterwards. Various elements of male ritual, particu¬
larly the ‘imitating spearing’ during fruit rites and male initiation (p.
143) are designed to make men into fierce warriors who ‘see their
enemies like game animals’. Bathing in the river before dawn and the
general avoidance of laziness and sleep are also conducive to the male
energy manifest in fierceness.
It is clear that, in the past, warfare, communal rituals, shamanism
and marriage were interrelated. These were the principal modes of
intergroup communication and one mode would easily give way to
another. People say that both the ritual giving of food appropriate
between affinal groups and ritual greeting in general are ‘like fighting’.
There is certainly a strong element of aggressive competition in ritual
gatherings as both hosts and guests try to outdo each other in their
ability to ‘take’ their yage and to drink enormous quantities of beer.
Today, the joking which fills pauses in the chanting and dancing
routine readily becomes insulting and stories are told of dances at
which treacherous killing or evil shamanism were performed. Such
treachery is directly linked to ritual food-giving in a myth where the
Wood Ibises (Mycteria americana) bring a ritual gift of ants to their
63
The set of specialist roles
mother-in-law (Romi Kumu) and are attacked and killed by Pouncing
Jaguar (Taho yai) as they enter her house. It seems that hitting and
clubbing duels were also held among young men. Killing must there¬
fore be regarded as an extreme act belonging to a set of types of com¬
bat ranging from friendly, rule-bound competition to be unrestrained
use of lethal weapons. This past situation, with graded aggression,
treacherous feasts and shifting alliances between groups, is remi¬
niscent of that described for the Y^nomano (Chagnon 1968).
A further example of graded hostilities occurs in the range of wife¬
getting procedures. Marriages which are part of a pre-arranged exchange
take place peaceably, while the removal of the potential wife becomes
more and more violent as social distance between groups of the poten¬
tial spouses increases. Although potential wives are often taken by
raiding, there is a distinct difference between raiding to kill and raid¬
ing for a wife, as the Tukano text on p. 99 shows. Of course, this
does not preclude the truly warlike raid from resulting in the abduc¬
tion of women, nor the wife-getting raid from ending up in killing; it
merely means that wife-raiding is classified as a less hostile act than
killing. Put in another way, destruction of another group’s patrilineal
procreative power (killing a man) is a more extreme form of violence
than augmenting the procreative power of one’s own descent group at
another’s expense (by stealing a women and thus avoiding recipro¬
cation of a sister).
All these examples of graded hostilities suggest that the ideal war¬
rior role which is specifically related to killing (‘people-killing people’)
exists as an extreme negative form related to other types of concrete
interaction between individuals (graded types of physical compe¬
tition) and between groups (graded marriage procedures, ritual gather¬
ings etc.). I take up this point below (pp. 69ff) and then again in the
discussion of marriage practice (pp. 93ff).

Analysis

The above description of the five specialist roles should leave no doubt
as to their interdependence, for each one is necessary to the mainten¬
ance of the life and wellbeing of any corporate group within a tra¬
ditional setting. The fact that the Exogamous Group is not, and may
never have been, an effective corporate group does not prevent this
model from providing a cogent expression of its unity. The analysis
that follows treats the set of roles as an ideological system and
64
Analysis

explores the relations between the five with the help of the data
already provided.

Analogy with life stages

We call the structure hierarchical because the set of specialist roles

are associated with the ‘hierarchical’ birth order of the occupant
‘siblings' (groups or individuals). The birth order of these siblings
may be understood as a political order, with the older sibling always
having the superior power but, when we look at the specialist roles in
isolation from sibling relations, it seems that this political order is
only reflected in the outer roles of chief and servant. The position of
these roles gives the entire set the appearance of a hierarchical order
but, in fact, there is nothing obvious in the intrinsic nature of the
middle three roles (dancer/chanter, warrior and shaman) to suggest
why they should occur in this particular order. Quite the contrary
for. in terms of political power, there are reasons for considering
shamans ‘superior’ to dancer/chanters, but this ‘superiority’ is contra¬
dicted in the role order (pp. 55f). Since a hierarchy must have a single
organising principle, we must look for alternative explanations which
account for the qualitative differences between the roles. Further
reflection on the composition of the sibling group suggests an open¬
ing, for, at any one time, the birth order is manifest in the different
ages of the individual siblings - that is, in their attainment of differ¬
ent stages in the life-cycle. The ordering of the roles by analogy with
the life-cycle does provide an adequate explanation of the upwards
sequence of shaman, warrior, dancer/chanter. Let me begin by pre¬
senting the evidence for this, starting at the bottom with servants.
First of all, servants are outside or beyond the mainstream social
process, separating their superiors from the elementary productive
and menial tasks that tie society to its natural environment. In the
same way, childhood comes between the dead, unborn state and adult
social competence. Servants are also sexually ambiguous: there are
both sexes of servant, but even the males belong to the female domain
in relation to the rest of male society. The position of servants is like
that of children who may be of either sex but are not properly sexually
differentiated until the males reach initiation and leave the female
domain. Like children, servants are under the authority of all other
sections of society. Just as children are pre-social in the sense that
they will be integrated into social life at initiation or menarche, ser-
65
The set of specialist roles

vants are pre-social in the sense that the products of their labour are
later consumed or used in the social life of their superiors. Servants
are denied communication with outside Exogamous Groups because
they are excluded from active participation in ritual. They are further
isolated because they marry each other. In the same way, children are
kept secluded from visitors and do not greet them; they are sexually
inactive and therefore detached from the general preoccupation with
marriage exchanges.
The shaman’s role contrasts markedly with that of the servant. In¬
stead of being an undifferentiated member of the female domain, the
shaman regards women and children as threatening. Instead of marry¬
ing his sister he marries no one. In this, he is like a boy initiate who
is abruptly severed from the domain of women and protected from
their procreative aspect (ch. 5). His role as supreme mediator, between
present-day and ancestral times and between secular and ritual time
within the contemporary cycle, is parallel to the position of the
initiate, who is midway between childhood and the society of un¬
married men who represent descent-group unity (p. 52). We have
seen that the opposition between family units and descent-group
unity is analogous to that between the present-day and the ancestral
beginnings: it is this same analogy that applies to the already initiated
youth who has been united with other unmarried descent-group males
through contact with ancestors. It is precisely the shaman who achieves
the transformation of children into unmarried youths by releasing his
‘returned ones’ into heterosexual society after initiation rites (p. 145).
From the point of view of life-cycle development, the initiated
youths have reached the stage when they will obtain wives prior to
setting up family compartments and rearing children. The direct con¬
tact which warriors make with outside Exogamous Groups is there¬
fore analogous to the direct contact made by youths in procuring
wives. Just as the warrior role is the one directed outwards in the
specialist-role set, so the marrying stage is the one directed outwards
in the life-cycle process. It is followed by the creation of the family
unit and the production of children, who are members of the descent
group and are thus ‘insiders’.
It is important to digress here in order to underline the fact that
this analogy between marriage and the warrior role only applies in the
context of the wider analogy between the life-cycle process and the
specialist-role system. While the warrior role is the only member of
the set to be exclusively outwardly directed and not complemented
66
Analysis

by a paired 'internal’ role, warfare is but one of a number of modes of

interaction with outside groups. Shamanism and ritual gatherings are
other modes which also depend upon activation of specialist roles.
Besides this, if warfare and marriage are considered as alternative
modes of interaction they are clearly differentiated as more hostile
and less hostile respectively. These facts have already been mentioned
above (pp. 63f), and while they do not undermine the argument here
they do indicate the need for further analysis of the significance of
the set of roles for external relations of the Exogamous Group. These
are dealt with below (pp. 69ff) and again in relation to marriage rules
and practices (pp. 93ff).
Dancer/chanters are parallel to married men in the phase during
which these build up a family of procreation. In their dancing and
chanting, the specialists reproduce the creation of hierarchically
ordered descent groups, and in their family roles married men create
ordered sibling groups of children. The two phases of ritual, chanting
(upriver) and dancing (round on land), can be seen as analogous to
the relationship between penis and womb — the opposed creative
elements in the process of sexual reproduction - which actually
results in sibling groups of children. This completes a series of
analogies, some of which have already been established (pp. 35, 61):
land water
results creation
dancing (with women) chanting (without women)
descent era pre-descent era
family units descent-group unity
womb penis
The particular analogy between the phases of ritual and elements
of sexual reproduction is supported by the exclusion of women and
children from chant sessions and their incorporation into dance
sessions. In fact, there is a special, intermediary female role of
‘answering’ the dance, (basa kudi-). The woman who performs it
stands in the centre of the house surrounded by dancers. She holds a
small child on her hip and sings on a high-pitched, continuous note
which contrasts with the deep, rhythmical sounds of the dancing. It
is tempting to regard this woman as representing the product of the
opposed sexual elements - as the foetus itself. I suspect that this
woman-and-child unit stands for the pregnant Meneriyo in the house
of the dancing Jaguars, although I have no direct evidence to this
effect. Warimi, Meneriyo's child, suffered a violent and premature
67
The set of specialist roles
birth when his mother was killed by the dancing Jaguars, and he was
known for his high, unintelligible speech and crying (S. Hugh-Jones
1979 : M.4.D).
The position of chief is parallel to that of the married man whose
children are growing. Like the chief who has complete authority over
the servants, the father has complete authority over his children until
they are initiated and come under partial control of the shaman and
other ritual kin (p. 145).
An analysis of the relationship between the specialist-role system,
the categories of participants in initiation rituals and the different
types of flutes and trumpets used during these rituals is contained in
Stephen Hugh-Jones’s analysis of initiation rites (1979). His analysis
produces very much the same conclusion about the homology be¬
tween life-cycle development and the set of specialist roles as my
own. However, by independent analysis of a more comprehensive set
of data mainly drawn from outside the context of He wi rituals, I
have been able to present this analogy in more detail. In general, the
data on initiation, particularly those concerning the classification of
flutes and trumpets according to specialist roles, provide strong sup¬
port for the analogies I have described.
The five-stage process described in relation to the five specialist
roles clearly does not cover a complete life span from birth to death,
since it begins and ends with a parent—child relationship. It is a cycle
of social reproduction which spans a single generation and contains
the conversion of a male descent-group child into a father.
In the basic analogy drawn above between the set of specialist roles
and the five stages of reproduction of a descent-group generation,
there is an obvious correspondence with the organisation of longhouse
space. In the discussion of development in the longhouse group, we
saw that childhood is spent in the family domain represented spatially
by the peripheral family compartments. Later, initiation transfers
growing boys into a unified society of descent-group youths who
sleep in the centre of the house. Sometime after these youths have
married, they start families of procreation, which moves them back
into peripheral compartments in the status of fathers. This process is
one of cyclical creation and dispersal of single unified generations of
local descent-group males, the creative movement operates from
periphery to centre and the dispersing movement from centre to
periphery. In the parallel specialist-role system, the intermediate trans¬
formative stages of initiation and sexual reproduction are represented
68
Analysis

by shamans and dancer/chanters respectively. Appropriately, both of

these operate in the metaphysical domain concerned with mediation
between the ancestral past and the present. We have already seen that
the unified group of youths contrasts with the parent-and-children
units within the family compartments in the same way that the ‘pre¬
descent’ era of the mythical beginnings contrasts with the contem¬
porary ‘descent’ era, in which reproduction depends upon women.
Thus the shamans and dancer/chanters occupy positions which are
metaphorically in-between the past and the present in accordance
with their specialist abilities. In support of this, we may note the
position of the dance-path, which is between the central space
bounded by the four main house posts and the peripheral compart¬
ments, and the position of the chanting group between the main door
and the centre of the house (see fig. 5). The analysis so far is sum¬
marised in fig. 7.

Analogy with external relations

I have emphasised the aspect of progression through the five life

stages which is internal to the descent group, but the reproduction
of the descent group is dependent on the external relations with
those groups which provide the focal community with wives. The
separate substance of opposed Exogamous Groups, manifest in their
marriageable daughters, must be brought under control through mar¬
riage and transformed into descent-group children by sexual repro¬
duction. The passage from childhood to parenthood is marked by a
change from the absence of affinal relations to the formation and
utilisation of these relations in the post-initiation phase of life. If we
turn back to the set of specialist roles, the extreme positions of chief
and servant are appropriately marked by exaggerated exogamy
(polygamy) and endogamy respectively. This is enough to suggest
that the series may be read as a progression from negative relations
with outside groups towards positive relations with outside groups.
The steps of the progression are not directly apparent in the charac¬
terisation of the middle three roles, for although shamans should
remain unmarried (therefore they are neither endogamous nor
exogamous), there is no mention of the correct marriage practice for
warriors or for dancer/chanters. As with the political hierarchy, the
chief—servant relationship sets the extreme positions and the inner
three roles mark the transformation between the two in a less direct
69
The set of specialist roles

manner. Following the earlier observation that each of these three

roles is relevant in external affairs, it is now possible to show that
they may be graded from negative to positive according to the charac¬
ter of the external relations they create.
Servants, at the bottom of the hierarchy, have no external contact.
Shamans communicate with destructive metaphysical powers, ‘seeing’
or ‘travelling to’ the enemy, but remaining at home in physical form.
The warrior actually sets out to the enemy longhouse using the same
physical energy to travel and to fight: the combat is concrete and face
to face. Dancer/chanters perform opposite the guest dancer/chanters

PARENTHOOD-CHIEF

PROCREATION!-DANICER/CHANTER

YOUTH-WARRIOR

INITIATION-SHAMAN

CHILDHOOD-SERVANT

Fig. 7 Concentric organisation of specialist roles and longhouse structure

70
Analysis

in a situation of semi-friendly contact: their interaction with outsiders

is at the same time co-operative and competitive. Chiefs, at the top of
the hierarchy, organise and initiate all these different modes of contact.
Leaving aside the extreme roles of chief and servant, the outwardly
directed aspects of the three middle roles may be arranged thus:
shamans warriors dancer/chanters

metaphysical aggression direct physical direct physical

aggression co-operation mingled
with controlled aggression

Using the evidence contained in the description of the specialist

roles, it seems that each of the five roles is basically dual, having an
internal and an external aspect. The servants support the material
existence of the descent group and have no contact with outside
groups; the shamans promote life and growth within and use the same
powers to promote illness and death of outsiders; the warriors defend
and protect the descent group and attack and kill outsiders; the
dancer/chanters provide a link with descent-group origins within and
perform in the context of communal ritual gatherings to which out¬
side groups are invited; the chiefs order internal affairs and represent
the entire descent group in conducting external relations.
Set out in this way, the internal functioning of the differentiated
descent group appears to be intimately related to its external func¬
tioning. The series can be read from the bottom upwards as a trans¬
formation of self-sufficiency, which implies negative relations with
outside groups, into positive interdependence between groups. The
extreme of endogamy is connected by increasingly secure and con¬
trolled external relations to the opposite extreme of polygamous
exogamy. Warfare, for instance, although it is a risky form of negative
communication, does actually require physical contact and there is
always the possibility that the grievance will be resolved by formal
discussion instead of escalating violence. Warfare is therefore more
controlled and potentially constructive than aggressive shamanism,
which can only result in metaphysical or warlike reprisals. Similarly,
exchange of ritual requiring the activities of dancer/chanters repre¬
sents more friendly relations than does warfare. However, in the
event of the ritual gathering, the result of interaction between hosts
and guests may be either consolidation or deterioration of the friend¬
ship (p. 63). Metaphysical aggression, warfare and exchange of ritual
invitations are therefore alternative modes of communication between
71
The set of specialist roles
groups, and one may give way to another. They are associated with
the hierarchically organised roles of shaman, warrior and dancer/
chanter in such a way that the set of roles represents the process of
befriending outside groups when read upwards, and of estrangement
from outside groups when read downwards. If this interpretation is
accepted, then it would seem that exogainous marriage, which is
emphasised in the polygamy of chiefs, represents the extreme form
of ‘friendship’ or interdependence between groups. While this is true
of certain marriage links, it is not true of others, for the degree of
friendliness and mutual trust between groups linked by marriage is
highly variable. For the moment, we may anticipate the discussion of
marriage rules and practices in order to state that the closest, most
friendly and mutually beneficial relations between groups who are
not agnates are between groups related by ties of perpetual marriage
alliance. In chapter 4, I shall present evidence to show that relations
of perpetual alliance between groups are regarded as more secure than
relations involving exchange of ritual invitations.
Provisionally, I assume that the position of chief in the specialist-
role system is analogous to that of perpetual alliance in the hierarchi¬
cal order of modes of communication between Exogamous Groups.
The results of the analysis so far are set out in fig. 8.
The above interpretation of the specialist-role hierarchy portrays
it as a progression from isolation and self-sufficiency towards mutual
social interdependence between groups achieved through the exchange
of women. This is entirely consistent with the previous finding that
the hierarchy is analogous to the passage of growth from childhood
to fatherhood. The uninitiated child has no significant interaction
with outsiders; initiation and future development represent the begin¬
ning of such interaction and its consolidation in marriage and pro¬
creation.
It also follows from my interpretation that the stages either
modes of communication with outside groups or specialist roles —
also represent relations with outsiders across decreasing social distance
reading from bottom (too far for any contact) to top (close affinal
neighbours). The sequence may either be read as a temporal progres¬
sion in befriending a single previously unknown group or as a syn¬
chronic structure in which all outside groups may be graded accord¬
ing to social distance from the group of reference. In as much as social
and geographical distance correspond to one another, we would
expect accusations of shamanic killing to be levelled at the most dis-
72
Analysis

tant known groups, war waged against less distant groups, ritual
invitations exchanged with moderately close groups and perpetual
marriage alliance relations to be established with the closest groups.
It is difficult to establish the existence of such a pattern in the
absence of warfare, but if warfare is merged with aggressive shaman¬
ism the resulting model of intergroup communication does fit the
present-day situation moderately well (fig. 8).
There are two points to make about the application of this model
to the present-day situation. The first and more specific one concerns
the exchange of invitations to ritual. This is common between neigh¬
bouring communities linked by repeated marriages as well as between
slightly more distant groups. However, ritual gatherings vary consider¬
ably in type: the opposition between hosts and guests is most empha¬
sised, and latent hostility is most apparent, during food-exchange
rituals. Ritual food exchange is usually organised between moder¬
ately distant communities, and during the ritual itself it is common
to see the principal donors or recipients incorporate their closest
affines into their party. The ideal relationship between partners in
ritual food exchange is discussed later (p. 90) and the variety of
ritual gatherings is mentioned during the analysis of male initiation
rites (pp. 142ff). The second point is that the local descent group,
rather than the Exogamous Group as a whole, is the meaningful unit
in most types of interaction between communities. I have implied so
far that ‘outsiders’ are all potential affines but, from the point of view
of any given longhouse group, this is not true, because many of the
surrounding communities will belong to the same Exogamous Group.
Indians say that aggressive shamanism, warfare and ritual food
exchange are improper modes of communication between agnatically
related communities, but accusations of shamanism, stories of past
battles and actual patterns of food exchange do not always bear this
out. However, the Exogamous Groups always retain their function of
exogamy so that, in spite of indulging in certain ‘improper’ exchanges,
agnatically related communities do not intermarry.
To sum up so far: the five specialist roles are arranged in hierarchi¬
cal order, according to the birth order of the founders of the sibs
which possess these roles. They may also be arranged in a concentric
order according to the three domains among which they are distri¬
buted. While the opposition between the extreme roles of chief and
servant is self-evident from the nature of the roles, the ordering of
the intermediate roles — shaman, warrior and dancer/chanter —
73
 1

Z
FUNCTIONING OF F.XOGAMOUS GROUP

2
-
SPECIALIST MODE OF COMMUNICATION WITH
OUTSIDE EXOOAMOUS GROUPS

74
u *
t- 0
ill 3

<§
INTERNAL ASPECT ROLES EXTERNAL ASPECT

<
© 1 5j O'1-
2 SF Sz
^w
CONTROL OF CHIEFS EXCHANGE OF WOMEN
INTERNAL FUNCTIONING

dancer/
RITUAL CONTACT TENUOUS CO-OPERATION
WITH ANCESTRAL WORLD CHANTERS

PHYSICAL PROTECTION PHYSICAL DESTRUCTION

WARRIORS
FROM OUTSIDERS
increasing contact
decreasing contact

1 now
• suppressed

METAPHYSICAL SHAMANS METAPHYSICAL DESTRUCTION

CARE
-^

PRODUCTIVE LABOUR SERVANTS NO CONTACT

O
*
2
Z*
3

215
CL
V>

Fig. 8 Functioning of internal and external aspects of specialist roles

Analysis

requires explanation. Two related hypotheses have been presented to

account for the ordering of the five roles. The first treats the set of
roles as analogous to five stages in the passage of an individual male
through a single descent-group generation, and the second treats the
set of roles as a model for relating the internal functioning of
Exogamous Groups to the range of modes of communication with
outside groups. We have seen that each role has an ‘internal’ and an
‘external’ aspect, and that the external aspects represent increasing
closeness and security in relations with outside groups as we move
from servants to chiefs. While this argument appears rather speculat¬
ive as it stands, it is reinforced by the analysis of O-generation kin
categories and marriage which follows. On the one hand, since
marriage rules and preferences are phrased in terms of kin categories
which require considerable explanation, it would not have been prac¬
ticable to incorporate the discussion of marriage into the present
chapter. On the other, postponing it has had certain disadvantages
because, as I have frequently indicated, marriage is intimately related
to other types of intergroup communication. For this reason, I reserve
my comments upon the general value of this second hypothesis until
the end of the following chapter.

75
4
Kinship and marriage

Introduction

The Barasana kinship terminology is a variation on the basic Dravid-

ian type (Dumont 1953).1 In this basic type, members of ego’s gener¬
ation are either ‘classificatory siblings’ or ‘classificatory cross-cousins’.
Classificatory siblings of the opposite sex to ego are prohibited in
marriage, and classificatory cross-cousins of the opposite sex to ego
are potentially marriageable. In the Barasana terminology, there are
further distinctions within these O-generation categories. Although
the fundamental opposition between marriageable and unmarriageable
members of the opposite sex exists, there are degrees of marriage¬
ability expressed in terms of the sub-categories. It would not be rel¬
evant to embark on a detailed discussion of either the entire termino¬
logical system or even the O-generation categories here. Instead, a
brief review of O-generation classification, the application of the O-
generation terms and the marriage rules and preferences expressed in
terms of these will be enough. A great deal of data on Vaupes mar¬
riage practice and on Bara O-generation kinship terminology (col¬
lected in Cano Inambu) has been analysed by J. Jackson in a number
of works to which the reader should refer for additional information
and alternative analytical perspectives (1972, 1973a, 1976, 1977).
The terminological system and set of marriage rules and preferences
described by Jackson is very similar to the material presented here.
However, the terms for undifferentiated bilateral cross-cousins

1 I also collected terminologies in Bard, Tatuyo and Makuna, together with data on the
application of terms by speakers of these languages. The terminologies are so close to one
another that terms may be directly translated from one language to another without any
confusion. There are just a tew exceptions of a minor order; for instance, one language
may contain a separate address form of a certain term while another does not.

76
Introduction

(tenyua pi., tenyu m., tenyo f. in both Barasana and Bara) which are
of great importance both to the Barasana and to their immediate
Bara neighbours in Cano Colorado, are apparently not used among
the Bara of Inambii.
The emphasis will be on O-generation categories, because marriage
rules and preferences are phrased in terms of these. These categories
may be arranged in a series according to the marriageability of women
in each, and there is evidence to suggest an analogy between this series
and the specialist-role hierarchy as discussed in the previous chapter.
Demonstration of this point is followed by a discussion of marriage
practice, which shows that wife-getting procedures may be related
both to the series of O-generation categories and to the series of
modes of communication between groups which was derived from
the specialist-role hierarchy in the previous chapter.

The O-generation categories

The O-generation terms specially referred to in this section are classi-

ficatory ones: they are presented in fig. 9A, with the English glosses
which I shall use as substitutes. Hereafter, when the glosses appear in
the text in inverted commas it is to indicate that the terms to which
they refer cover both primary and classificatory kin.
A simplified model of the terms used by a male ego is set out in
fig. 10. This does not include all the terms listed in fig. 9A, nor the
individualising terms. It may be compared with the comprehensive
list of terms used by males and females in appendix 2. Presented in
this way, the terminological system is consistent with a ‘dual organis¬
ation’ marriage system in which sisters are exchanged between two
opposed groups. However, in practice there is an open-ended number
of Exogamous Groups and members from any one may take marriage
partners from among a variety of other Exogamous Groups. The sub¬
categories of ‘agnatic siblings’ and ‘uterine siblings’ on the one hand
and ‘patrilineal cross-cousins’ and ‘matrilineal cross-cousins’ on the
other can only be understood in the context of this situation.
In ego’s generation, agnatic siblings, members of ego’s Exogamous
Group, are distinguished from those who are uterine, that is, those
having the same mother as ego or a mother from the same Exogamous
Group as ego’s mother. If a ‘uterine sibling’ is also an ‘agnatic sibling’,
then the agnatic ties take precedence. Henceforth, I shall adopt the
Barasana patrilineal bias and refer to agnatic siblings as ‘siblings’ and
77
Kinship and marriage

A O-oENERATION TERMS & ENGLISH GLOSSES

ngana older siblings bedera younger siblings

gaget older brother bedi younger brother

gago older sister bedeo younger sister

hako ria mother's children tenyua bilateral cross-cousins

hako maku mother’s son tenyu bilateral male cross-cousin

hako mako mother's daughter benyo bilateral female cross-cousin

mekaho ria fathers sisters children

mekaho maku father's sisters son

mekaho rnako father's sister's daughter

hakoarttmu ria mother's brother's children

hakoartrniu maktt mother's brother's son

hakoarwwt rnako mother's brother’s daughte r

B DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN OLDER’ 6-YOUNGER’ SIBLINGS

t i-

older siblings younger siblings

Note • numbers indicate birth order within sibling groups

Key n male or female

Fig. 9 O-generation kinship terms

78
The O-generation categories

A6MATES AFFINES

Cf
ff/mf niktt
+2
FM/MM nlko
9

cf FB btram-tr mb hakoarvmtr
+1
fz mekaho mz bttamo
9

cf Be gagtt
By bedi mbs/fzs tenytr
0 ze gago
mbd/fzd benyo
9 zy bedeo

cf s maker zs haroagtt
-1
9 D zd haroago

cf 55/zss hanawi

--2
sd/zsd hanenyo
9

Note the Individualising terms for F, M, WF, wm, w are not included,
nor is the full range of O-generation terms: see appendix 2 for other terms

Fig. 10 Simplified kinship terminology for male ego (in ‘Dravidian Box’ form)

79
Kinship and marriage

uterine siblings as ‘mother’s children’ — a direct translation of the

Barasana term, hako ria.
While a sibling relationship is covered by the expression singu ria
or singu hanera batia, ‘one man’s children’ or ‘one man’s scattered
descendants’, there is no ego-oriented term embracing all siblings .
Every sibling is either ‘older’ or ‘younger’ than ego. Actual age is only
relevant in a true agnatic sibling group; the relative seniority of classi-
ficatory siblings depends upon the birth order within sibling groups
belonging to past generations. It is the birth order of the father’s sib¬
ling group that determines the relative seniority of true patrilateral
parallel cousins and so on. People do not need to memorise these
genealogical facts because, as mentioned earlier, the seniority system
gives rise to a consistent internal ordering of descent groups in which
each individual has a unique position. The position of ego’s sibling
group is determined by the position of the father vis-a-vis other mem¬
bers of his generation, and ego’s position within his own sibling group
is determined by birth order (fig. 9B). The fact that true relative age
is ignored outside the sibling group produces a situation in which
‘older siblings’, ‘father’s siblings’ and even ‘grandfather’s siblings’ can
be younger than ego in terms of real age.
There is no older/younger distinction among ‘mother’s children’:
the terms are used reciprocally by ego and alter (with the appropriate
male or female ending). Other uses of the terms, apart from those in
which the common group identity of ego’s and alter’s mother are
recognised, are between co-wives and wives of ‘siblings’, between co¬
husbands (who to my knowledge only exist in myth) and husbands
of ‘siblings’ and between those who are ‘affines of affines’ to each
other, for example, between the spouse of a ‘cross-cousin’ and ‘cross¬
cousin’ of a spouse. It is impossible to appreciate how this last usage
operates without an understanding of the way in which sub-categories
of ‘cross-cousins’ are differentiated, for only some of ego’s tenyua
become ‘mother’s children’ if they marry others of ego’s tenyua; this
depends on the relative strength of the cross-cousin ties which will be
discussed below. In general, all the uses of the ‘mother’s children’ terms
fit the general description ‘affines of affines’, for in each case three Ex-
ogamous Groups are involved: ego’s, a second from which ego’s mother
or spouse comes and a third which also receives women from the sec¬
ond (see p. 93 for further discussion of this point). The relationship
mother’s son’/‘mother’s son’ is thus one of competition between mem¬
bers of separate Exogamous Groups for women of a third such group.
80
The O-generation categories

The category of ‘cross-cousins’ embraces all members of ego’s gen¬

eration who are neither siblings nor mother’s children. According to
the logic of the terminological system set out in fig. 10, classificatory
‘cross-cousins’ are children of both mekaho, ‘father’s sister’ (= MBW)
and hakoarumu, ‘mother’s brother’ (= FZH). While the Barasana cer¬
tainly volunteer this as a general proposition, in some contexts they
choose to differentiate between ‘patrilateral cross-cousins’, mekaho
ria, and ‘matrilateral cross-cousins’, hakoarumu ria. In this case,
‘patrilateral cross-cousins’ are children of women who are of the
same Exogamous Group as ego and of ego’s father’s generation, and
‘matrilateral cross-cousins’ are children of men who are of the same
Exogamous Group and generation as ego’s mother. It is thus possible
to distinguish between cross-cousins according to the precise
Exogamous Group membership of alter’s parents in relation to ego’s
parents. The unilateral cross-cousin categories complete a set based
on the common Exogamous Group membership of ego’s and alter’s
parents. If alter’s mother is ego’s father’s Exogamous Group ‘sister’,
but alter’s father is also ego’s mother’s Exogamous Group ‘brother’,
then in choosing a unilateral term, the patrilateral link takes pre¬
cedence just as it does in the case of bilateral parallel cousins (fig. 11).
These sub-categories leave a residual category of cross-cousins
among tenyua, whose parents do not have Exogamous Group mem¬
bership in common with either of ego’s parents, but who nevertheless
belong to outside Exogamous Groups. They are people reckoned to
be members of ego’s generation who neither merit ‘sibling’ terms nor
‘mother’s children’ terms. From remarks Indians make about their
choice of terms, it is clear that these ‘unrelated cross-cousins’, as I
shall call them, barely merit the ‘cross-cousin’ terms. These terms are
used for want of any others when it is necessary to address unrelated
O-generation members; however, a female ego will usually avoid using
any term when greeting these people. It is these ‘unrelated cross¬
cousins’ who become ‘mother’s children’ once they marry a ‘patri¬
lateral cross-cousin’ or a ‘matrilateral cross-cousin’.
This discussion has been somewhat simplified in order to provide a
clear background for the discussion of choice of marriage partners.
Additional O-generation terms for in-laws are described in appendix
2. I should also add that tenyu and tenyo may be glossed as ‘male and
female exchange partners’. This is illustrated in the use of He tenyu,
the non-kinship term for a partner with whom sacred regalia are
ritually exchanged. Once a marriage occurs, whatever the pre-existing
81
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O o
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-o '5? s
<1
classificatory siblings i.e. of the

Fig. 11 O-generation kinship relations (according to relations between parents of ego and alter)
h
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same Exogawious Group
indicates either true or

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82
Marriage rules and preferences

kinship ties, the husband and wife’s brother become tenyua par
excellence, so that if one asks who a man’s tenyu is, the immediate
answer is his wife’s true brother or his true sister’s husband. This man
may be neither a mekaho maku nor a hakoarumu maku. This means
that my discussion above applies to the determination of O-generation
classification by marriages in the ascending (+1) generation. As I
shall show, it is this set of categories that are relevant for ego’s mar¬
riage, but, once he and his siblings begin to marry, the new relation¬
ships are taken into account.
Although the main significance of the unilateral ‘cross-cousin’ sub¬
categories is for marriage, these categories are not merely descriptive
reference terms. They are used in address, but principally between
individuals of opposite sex or between two women. Men tend to use
tenyu in address to their male ‘cross-cousins’ even if the sub-categories
are applicable. Except between two men, the use of tenyu and tenyo
in address is considered technically correct but often too embarrass¬
ing in practice, because it implies potential marriage. The fact that
relations between male ‘cross-cousins’ are not subject to this embar¬
rassment is presumably related to their status as the active participants
in the arrangement of marriage. The unilateral cross-cousin terms also
imply potential marriage, but instead of emphasising the freedom of
the present generation to choose marriage partners they emphasise
the dependence of the present generation’s marriage patterns on the
marriages of the past generation. In other words, the general terms
tenyu and tenyo imply ‘we could make a relationship through mar¬
riage’, whereas the unilateral terms imply ‘we are related through a
past marriage — which might constrain us to become related through
a present one’.

Marriage rules and preferences

Having established that the Exogamous Group membership of the

four parents of ego and alter is critical in the distribution of Co¬
generation terms, we may turn to the marriage rules and preferences
which are expressed in terms of these categories.

Negative rules

First of all, there is no specific Barasana word for incest. Marrying

into a forbidden category is covered by the verb yoke-, which is also
83
Kinship and marriage

applied to the actions of insane people, the appearance of evil omens

and manifestations of evil spirits. People who make prohibited mar¬
riages are likened to forest animals, particularly jaguars (who are seen
as the closest forest counterparts of man in many other ways, too).
Such people are also said to have ‘lost their way’ or ‘muddled their
path’ (ma wisi-). in principle, the only permitted marriage is with a
tenyo for a man and a tenyu for a woman. It is forbidden to marry
either a ‘sibling’ or a ‘mother’s child’, but a ‘sibling’ marriage is con¬
sidered worse than a ‘mother’s child’ marriage. In practice, the for¬
mer are very rare and very conspicuous because of the common
Exogamous Group membership of the partners: the latter are more
frequent and less conspicuous because of the separate group mem¬
bership of the partners. In both cases, a closer genealogical link
(between the ‘siblings’ or, in the case of ‘mother’s children’, between
their mothers) is considered a greater bar to marriage than a more
distant one.
Marriage across generations is also forbidden, although it is reason¬
ably frequent. Often, the generational status of alter is ambiguous
depending on which way the relationship is traced, but if there is a
close genealogical link between ego and alter, such intergenerational
marriages lead to conspicuous inconsistencies in the use of kinship
terms. People criticise the partners to cross-generational marriages
and joke a great deal about how to address them, but nevertheless a
marriage into the wrong generation of an outside Exogamous Group
is usually considered only mildly wrong. With regard to all marriages
outside the prescribed category of tenyo, and yet between partners
from separate Exogamous Groups, it is significant that the original
wife-receivers in a single marriage tend to lay stress on the correct¬
ness of the marriage and thus on the legitimacy of their claims. How¬
ever, the wife-givers, when they demand reciprocation, are more con¬
cerned that the exchange should be completed than they are with the
precise relationship between the potential spouses.2

Positive rules

It is always stated that a man must marry his tenyo and that the cor-

2 1 know of cases of marriage with the true sister’s daughter and also with the sister’s hus¬
band’s daughter by a previous marriage. These are justified by the need to complete an
exchange when age and sibling-group structure prevent a sister-exchange. Although they
are considered a good solution trom the point of view of fair exchange, people do not

84
Marriage rules and preferences

rect form of marriage is sister-exchange.3 The ideal marriage occurs

when two men exchange true sisters within a single generation.
According to the ideal family structure, boys and girls are born
alternately, so that there are sibling pairs formed of an older brother
and a next-bom sister bound together in an exchange unit. However,
reciprocal exchange is still recognised when the sibling links are
classificatory but within the same local descent group, or when the
reciprocal marriage occurs in the following generation (FZD mar¬
riage). Sister-exchange is consistent with the recognition of a unitary
category of bilateral cross-cousins, so thus far the operation of the
marriage rule presents no problems. However, among the women
classified as tenyo, the ideal partners are the true or close father’s
sister’s daughters classified in the sub-category of mekaho mako.
Debate among Indians about marriage claims invariably centres on
the rights of a man to his mekaho mako. Failing a close mekaho
mako, it is preferable to marry a true or close hakoarumu mako and,
failing either of these, a rather distant mekaho mako or hakoarumu
mako or an ‘unrelated cross-cousin’ is chosen. The least appropriate
choice is an ‘unrelated cross-cousin’ — a woman who has neither a
mother from ego’s father’s widest Exogamous Group nor a father
from ego’s mother’s widest Exogamous Group. Although I write as
if there were a fairly straightforward hierarchy of choices, in practice
many different factors influence the choice of which family or com¬
munity should be approached for a wife: some of these are discussed
below (p. 95). For the present discussion, the marriage preferences
may be summed up as follows: the ideal partner is a genealogically
close ‘patrilateral cross-cousin’ (FZD), the next best is a genealogically
close ‘matrilateral cross-cousin’ (MBD) and both these genealogically
close types are preferred to the other classificatory cross-cousins. Of
course, genealogical distance is a matter of both degree and context;
however, having noted the general priority of closer sibling links
between alter’s and ego’s parents over more distant ones, I shall
simplify the discussion by presenting the preferences as a simple
series: mekaho mako; hakoarumu mako; ‘unrelated’ tenyo.
The Barasana themselves will often describe other individuals as
being ‘true tenyua’ (tenyua goro), ‘very much tenyua’ or ‘a little bit
overlook the muddle caused by marrying a haroago - this may be compared with the Trio
case where such oblique marriages are ‘primary and fundamental’ (Riviere 1969 : 273).
3 There is some evidence that it is thought desirable to marry a woman from an outside sib
of equivalent ranking to one’s own: for example, ‘chiefs’ should only marry daughters of
‘chiefs’. However, this ideal is not reflected in existing marriage patterns.

85
Kinship and marriage
tenyua'. Their own estimation of the strength of cross-cousin ties
tallies with the marriage preferences and demonstrates the priority of
the patrilateral link over the matrilateral, the priority of either type
over no link and the general priority of closer genealogical links over
more distant ones. Here we may note again that the ‘unrelated cross-
cousins’ are the weakest form of cross-cousin: this is consistent with
the fact that they are readily converted into ‘mother’s children’.
Obviously, to the extent that sister-exchange is practised, the pref¬
erence for marrying a mekaho mako cannot result in a statistical pre¬
ponderance of marriages with classificatory patrilateral cross-cousins
over those with classificatory matrilateral cross-cousins. As we have
seen, the term mekaho mako is used in cases of a bilateral link as well
as in cases of a patrilateral link alone, and therefore it is possible for
two male exchange partners related as ‘bilateral cross-cousins’ to both
receive a preferred mekaho mako (fig. 11). But, where the exchange
partners are ‘unilateral cross-cousins’, if one marries his mekaho mako
the other will receive a hakoarumu mako in return, so that the prefer¬
ence of one partner only is realised. We must therefore look beyond
the existing marriage patterns for an understanding of this preference.4
First, it is significant that marriage with the mekaho mako consti¬
tutes an exchange between two groups that is completed over two
consecutive generations, while marriage with the hakoarumu mako
constitutes a replication of the marriage of ego’s mother in the pre¬
vious generation. Thus, the two forms may be contrasted as delayed
exchange and one-way flow of women. Secondly, the mekaho mako
is not merely the ideal partner, she is also the rightful partner — the
woman over whom ego has the strongest claim. Ego shares his closest
mekaho mako with his true siblings, while he shares his closest
hakoarumu mako with his closest ‘mother’s children’ who also regard
her as their own hakoarumu mako. While relations between siblings
are hierarchically ordered so that competition is minimised, the senior
unmarried siblings having the prior rights, relations between mother’s
children are equal rather than structurally ordered. Besides, the male
‘mother’s children' rarely interact, since they are members of separate

4 If an analysis of existing marriage patterns in such a small population were to show to

what extent the preferences are translated into action, there would have to be data accu¬
rate enough to assess each male individual’s field of choice of a wife. Since the relevant
genealogical data would concern people neither I nor my informants had ever seen, and
since each person changes residence so frequently, it is impossible to know whether age,
place of residence, marital status etc. had rendered any given woman a weak, strong or
impossible candidate for wife at any given time.

86
Marriage rules and preferences

and often spatially distant Exogamous Groups. Therefore, we can

compare the prior claim to a woman (and her sisters), which is allo¬
cated to the brothers of a single local descent group who all regard
her as mekaho mako, with the secondary claims to such a woman,
which are distributed among members of a number of local descent
groups. These regard each other as ‘mother’s children’ and the
woman in question as hakoarumu mako. Mekaho mako marriage
thus represents exchange over the generations and a neat, unambigu¬
ous allocation of rights, while hakoarumu mako marriage represents
a one-way flow of women and competition. The mekaho mako is a
relatively secure choice which implies continuing exchange of women
between the two groups concerned, while the hakoarumu mako is a
risky choice which increases the imbalance between the groups. Both
may be set against the third possibility of attempting to marry an
‘unrelated cross-cousin’, who is not specifically forbidden in marriage
but over whom ego has not the slightest claim.

Analysis of marriage rules and preferences in relation to specialist

roles

We can now set out the marriage rules as a series of categories of

women, which ranges from the absolutely forbidden to the ideal part¬
ners, as follows:
‘younger’ or ‘mother’s ‘unrelated ‘mother’s ‘father’s
‘older sister’ : daughter’ : cross-cousin’ brother’s : sister’s
daughter’ daughter’
bedeo/gago hako mako tenyo hakoarumu mekaho
mako mako
strongly prohibited not pro- approved strongly
prohibited hibited but approved
not approved

In the previous chapter, it was suggested that the outwardly directed

aspects of the specialist roles could be read as a series representing
increasingly positive, secure and controlled relationships with outside
groups, and here I suggest that the series of O-generation categories
has the same overall character. If the female categories above are re¬
placed by those embracing both sexes, we have ‘siblings’ at one
extreme representing the internal structure of patrilineal groups
(corresponding with negative external relations), and ‘patrilateral
cross-cousins’ at the other extreme representing enduring marriage
87
Kinship and marriage
exchange with an outside descent group (positive external relations).
In the middle are people who are not genealogically related by an
affinal link in the parental generation at all. In fact, I have already
mentioned that these ‘cross-cousins’ are really so called because there
is no other way to address them - in reference they are frequently
described as ‘other people’ to whom kinship terminology does not
really apply. The intermediary positions are filled with ‘mother’s
children’, distant competitors whose females are unmarrigeable, and
‘mother’s brother’s children’, whose females are marriageable. The
series as a whole represents the transformation of sibling ties into
ties of perpetual alliance between opposed descent groups.
I have claimed that the series of O-generation terms as they are
applied to individuals bears some resemblance to the series formed of
the external relations implicit in the specialist roles. It also bears a
resemblance to the specialist roles seen, by analogy, as life stages,
because one is born a sibling and one gains an established affinal link
with the consolidation of marriage on the birth of children. Both the
external relations series and the life-stages series are derived from the
specialist-role series itself and, in myth, a direct reference is made to
the congruence of the O-generation terms with this basic series of
specialist roles. The myth of Manioc-stick Anaconda is explicitly
followed by the events concerning the first exogamous marriage be¬
tween Manioc-stick Anaconda’s son, Yeba, and Fish Anaconda’s
daughter, Yawira. Other parts of this extended myth appear in this
book, but the reader is referred to Stephen Hugh-Jones (1979 : M6
and M7) for more complete versions. The version here is much
reduced.

Manioc-stick Anaconda and the origin of exogamous marriage

Manioc-stick Anaconda created a younger brother. Macaw, and a wife
all by himself. He had children by the wife and then Macaw stole her,
initiating a set of aggressive acts in which each brother tried to get
rid of the other. Macaw who, being the younger, had the shamanic
knowledge, tricked Manioc-stick Anaconda into dropping into the
Underworld where he met the Sun. Sun is clearly a transformation of
Macaw (S. Hugh-Jones 1979 : 232). Manioc-stick Anaconda claimed
Sun as his mother’s son but Sun put this claim to the test. He did this
by blowing fire - his shamanic tobacco snuff — at Manioc-stick
Anaconda, saying, ‘If you are not my mother’s son I will bum you
up: if you are my mother’s son you will not disappear’. Manioc-stick
88
Marriage rales and preferences

Anaconda not only managed to resist the heat, but also to steal some
shamanic snuff and bum the Sun himself. When the Sun’s macaw-
feather crown, the repository of his heat (and one of the factors that
relates him to Macaw), caught fire, he acknowledged that Manioc-
stick Anaconda was indeed his mother’s son and was in possession
of shamanic power. Eventually, Manioc-stick Anaconda returned to
this earth in the state of an initiate to find that, while he had been
underground, Macaw had initiated his children. After more aggressive
trickery. Manioc-stick Anaconda succeeded in burning up Macaw,
the stolen wife and his initiated children with the Sun’s snuff. Macaw
and the wife became Yurupary instruments; the children became birds.
Manioc-stick Anaconda was all alone and mourned. He went off to
marry a Jaguar Woman who bore him a half-jaguar son, Yeba. Yeba
made a one-sided marriage with Fish Anaconda’s daughter, Yawira,
which is acknowledged as the origin of alliance between Exogamous
Groups. Yawira discovered biti fruits (Hevea sp.) which dehisced into
her lap, and she took some to her father’s underwater land; she
returned with cultivated food plants. Fish Anaconda threatened to
eat Yeba, but the marriage was consolidated by Yeba's ritual gift of
biti to Fish Anaconda. Yeba leamt to dance and take yage at the
ritual held in Fish Anaconda’s house for the presentation of biti: this
occasion is the charter for all dance rituals, and for food-giving rituals
in particular. The small fish, Wania (Cichlidae sp.), Yawira's ‘cross¬
cousins’ (tenyua), wanted to kill Yeba during the dance.
Later, Yeba's gift was reciprocated when he held a dance at which
Fish Anaconda presented him with umari fruit (wamu: Poraqueiba
sericea); the umari fruit were women.
The important feature of the mythical cycle in this context is that
it shows a clear correspondence between (a) the mother’s child
relationship and shamanism and (b) unilateral marriage and ritual
dance gatherings, particularly those held for ritual exchange of food.
These correspondences strengthen the analogy between the set of
O-generation categories arranged according to marriageability of
women and the specialist-role hierarchy, (a) Manioc-stick Anaconda’s
wife is taken over by his younger brother so the two become co¬
husbands: their affinal ties with a common third party (wife) already
make them less like siblings, whose behaviour should be constrained
by birth order, and more like ‘mother’s children’. ‘Mother’s son’ is the
appropriate address term between co-husbands who are not classifi-
catory siblings (p. 80). It is fitting that the end result of Macaw ignor-
89
Kinship and marriage

ing his birth position and taking his elder brother’s wife is the can¬
cellation of the sibling tie by means of Macaw’s transformation into
‘dead’ Yurupary instruments. This leaves Manioc-stick Anaconda ‘all
alone’. In the Underworld the direct connection between the
mother’s child relationship and shamanism is made, for it is shamanic
equality that proves the mother’s son tie between Manioc-stick Ana¬
conda (MSA) and Sun, thus:
(MSA older brother non-shamanJ. f MSA mother’s son shaman )
\ Macaw younger brother shaman / \ Sun mother’s son shaman /
inequality-equality

(b) Yeba's marriage is the original alliance between groups and

therefore we may assume that the Jaguar Woman represents, not an
Exogamous Group, but the natural animal world. Yeba\ marriage is
unilateral: although the subsequent exchange of fruits with his
father-in-law might seem like a metaphorical exchange of women,
closer analysis shows that in fact the exchange re-enforces the one¬
way character of the transaction. First, biti and umari are related as
male and female. Biti appears as a sexually active male in another
myth, and in the present myth Yawira eats biti fruits that have
dehisced into her lap. Comparison with another female fruit-eating
episode suggests that this represents insemination (S. Hugh-Jones
1979 : M2A). The umari, on the other hand, are directly referred to
as women. Yeba receives a wife and umari-women while Fish Ana¬
conda receives a gift of ‘male sexuality’ which, so far as the communi¬
cation of sexual elements is concerned, constitutes a duplication of
his own gifts.5 This exchange can be identified with the repeated one¬
way movement of women, and thus with mother’s brother’s daughter
marriage.
Appropriately enough, the gift from son-in-law to father-in-law is
described as the origin of dance rituals, and of ritual food exchange in
particular. Therefore, dancing originates with the gain of an affinal

5 Yeba also gives meat to Fish Anaconda (S. Hugh-Jones 1979 : M.7.H). The meat is the
flesh of his own people, the birds and animals, whom Yeba has killed with his blowpipe:
other animals and birds accompany Yeba as co-guests. In view of the analysis of meat
production (pp. 192-200), it might be argued that this gift of meat is a gift of female
substance, which thus contradicts my theory that female gifts flow in one direction only.
There are various reasons for rejecting this argument. Most important is that meat is a
particularly male substance in other contexts (see analysis of meat meal, p. 223, and
reference to the ritual gift of meat entering the house as a penis enters the womb, p. 208).
It is not surprising that meat is sexually ambiguous since it is both opposed to the men
who hunt it and identified with them as their catch. Because of these ambiguities I have
only included the fruits, whose sexuality is not ambiguous.

90
Marriage rules and preferences

woman and is opposed to shamanism, which originates with the loss

of an incestuous wife. Furthermore, the nature of biti as a male,
inseminating fruit gives the ‘origin of dancing’, caused by the
entrance of biti into Yawira's natal home, the additional character of
metaphorical insemination. This accords with my earlier interpretation
of dancing (p. 67). Overall, there is a correspondence between the
specialist-role series and the O-generation classificatory series, which
may be set out as follows:
siblings ‘mother’s ‘unrelated ‘mother’s ‘father’s
children’ cross-cousins’ brother’s sister’s
children’ children’
MSA/Macaw MSA/Sun MSA/Jaguar Yeba/ (present-day
Yawira ideal
marriage)
(servants) origin of (warriors) origin of (chiefs)
shamanism dancing
It is significant that there is no mention of exchange of women in
marriage in this or any other myth, in spite of the practical preoccu¬
pation with sister-exchange in the real world. Thus, the mythical pro¬
gression ends with the unilateral exchange of women, which is
expressed in present-day terms as ‘mother’s brother’s daughter’ mar¬
riage. This suggests that the series of mythical events may also be
seen as a development of the present-day ideal of sister-exchange
between Exogamous Groups from the original pre-descent beginnings.
To return to the terminological categories: it does not make sense
to ask whether the series of categories regarded as categories of indi¬
viduals corresponds to any ongoing process in the real world. For
instance, although a sister may be exchanged for a father’s sister’s
daughter in marriage, she herself remains a sister and cannot be trans¬
formed into a member of any other category from ego’s point of view.
Flowever, if we consider the terms as they are applied to whole groups
by members of other groups, then it is undoubtedly true that over
time the term applicable to a descent line or a single named group
may change. We have seen that other sibs or Exogamous Groups may
be classified as ‘brothers’ (elder or younger) or ‘mother’s children’ (ch.
2). They may also be classified as ‘cross-cousins’ (tenyua) — either
strong ones whom ‘we’ marry a lot or weak ones whom ‘we’ marry a
little — or ngahera, ‘other people’, whom ‘we’ do not marry. Of
course, it is a matter of descent dogma whether or not a group are
‘siblings’ or ‘people waking up mother’s children’ (pp. 2If), while it is
91
Kinship and marriage

an estimation of practical existing marriage patterns that leads to

their classification as ‘de facto mother’s children’, ‘cross-cousins’ or
‘other people’. Nevertheless, descent dogma can ultimately adjust to
shed distant members and to incorporate foreigners, so that the
relationship between any two descent groups is open to change over
time. If we set out the series of intergroup relationships which cor¬
responds to (and virtually duplicates) the kinship categories applied
to individuals, it is clear that, reading upwards, it represents the dis¬
solution of descent ties and the subsequent creation of strong mar¬
riage ties.
GROUPS ‘brothers’ ‘mother’s ‘other ‘people ‘people we
children’ people’ we marry marry a
a bit’ lot’
dissolution of descent ties creation of affinal ties ^
creation of descent ties iissolution of affinal ties
?
This model process could actually occur. We may imagine sibling
descent lines becoming geographically separated by their mutual
affines to the point where interaction between them becomes infre¬
quent and they redefine their relationship in terms of their shared
link with the affines — they become each other’s mother’s children.
If one group stops creating marriage links with the affines then the
one-time siblings become ‘other people’ to each other. In the future,
marriage ties between the unrelated groups may be initiated and built
up to the point where they regard each other as very close cross¬
cousins. Similarly, we may imagine the reverse transition from affines
to siblings. In fact, there is contemporary evidence that shifts between
the adjacent stages of this process (in either direction) do actually
occur, for small descent lines are reclassified by others as a result of
migrations and changes in marriage patterns. More abrupt changes
also occur: for instance, a case of marriage between very distant sib¬
ling groups belonging to the separate Simple Exogamous Groups of a
single Compound Exogamous Group was described to me. The
informant said that, in time, the immediate descent groups of the
marriage partners would repeat the marriage and the two groups
would become established cross-cousins to one another. However, the
model represents the shift from sibling to affinal relations as a more
gradual process, incorporating all the alternative relations between
groups into a single system.
The five-part series presented here may now be compared to the
92
Marriage practice

models implied by certain features of Pira-parana social classification,

notably the existence of the ‘mother’s children’ terms as distinct
from ‘sibling’ terms (p. 77) and the evidence for a pan-Vaupes, tri¬
partite classification of Exogamous Group ancestors (pp. 36ff). These
tripartite models are closely related to J. Jackson's tripartite model
of O-generation terms based on the distinctions between the ‘sibling’,
‘mother’s children’ and ‘father’s sister's children’ terms in Bara
(1977 : 93). Fundamental to her model is the proposition that
‘everyone who is not a Makii or white is a kinsman' (1977 : 87): this
proposition is clearly related to the notion that there is a pan-Vaupes
structure in which everyone is classified into one of three categories,
according to the habitat of the anaconda ancestor (p. 36). These are
models of systems in which everyone has a place and no one or no
group is unrelated or unknown. My five-part model, on the other
hand, applies to an ‘open-ended’ system in which there are unknown
and unrelated people and groups — the ‘unrelated cross-cousins’ and
‘other people’, as well as the yet-more-distant people discussed below
(p. 101). Normally, friendly or semi-friendly interaction is inappro¬
priate between these people, but if people ‘beyond kinship’ do arrive
during travel or to attend a ritual they are given kinship terms to draw
them into a closer relationship. The point about these kinship terms
is that they are not derived from acknowledged connections through
descent or marriage, but are invented for the purposes of amicable
interaction. There is actually an expression, vara kuti- (meaning
literally, taking possession of kinsmen) for this inventing behaviour.
It is my belief that a comprehensive ‘closed’ model and an ‘open-
ended’ model of Vaupes social structure can, and do, co-exist in
Indian ideology.

Marriage practice

Obtaining wives

Amongst Vaupes Indians, marriage determines the legitimacy of

potential children, gives the husband exclusive rights in the wife’s
sexuality and sets up an economic partnership between husband and
wife in which each has extensive rights and obligations with respect to
the other. There is no word in Barasana for ‘marriage’: ‘getting
married’ is simply ‘taking a wife/husband' (manaho/manahu kuti);
after the birth of children the spouses refer to each other as ‘the
93
Kinship and marriage
mother/father of my children’. In Vaupes marriage practice the food
restrictions, seclusion, shamanic rites and communal ritual, some or
all of which accompany birth, death, menstruation and initiation
(Yurupary ceremonies), are conspicuous by their absence. The process
of acquiring a wife is essentially a secular one, involving the physical
transference of the woman to her husband’s group. If the marriage is
to persist, she must be successfully retained so that she forms a sexual
and economic partnership with a particular man and, eventually, bears
children who inherit his status as local descent-group members. There
is no precise point at which the marriage is established, but the like¬
lihood of it lasting depends upon two main factors: the acceptance of
the situation by the girl’s local descent group, and the birth of chil¬
dren. Of course, if the husband’s community finds the girl to be an
unsatisfactory wife, she is likely to be sent home, but if she herself is
unhappy, her fate depends largely on the attitude of her own local
descent group. If the marriage is in their interests, and particularly if
it is part of an otherwise successful exchange marriage, they may not
welcome her back.
Usually, if a woman is living away from her agnates amongst a local
descent group of another Exogamous Group, where she is known to
have formed a sexual and economic partnership with a man, the two
are generally acknowledged to be husband and wife. However, hus¬
band/wife relations are also recognised where the union is incestuous,
provided that the couple openly co-operate in production and child
rearing (when there are children), and thus the status of ‘husband’
and ‘wife’ is dependent on a pattern of interaction between the two,
rather than on any formal alliance between opposed groups. In most
cases, it is perfectly clear whether or not two individuals count as
‘husband and wife’, but there are certain cases in which women may
live among potential affines without their wifely status being certain.
Newly acquired potential wives may not have settled down with a
particular partner, or widows may stay on with their husband’s local
descent group without fully establishing a marital role with the dead
husband’s younger brother (the expected behaviour for widows). In
these cases, it is the details of domestic interaction between the two
that people count as evidence of their marital status — whether the
man fells a cultivation site for the woman, whether she cooks his
game and prepares manioc products for him, whether they travel
together and so on. It is these domestic arrangements that separate a
love-affair or casual sexual relationship from marriage. In nearly all
94
Marriage practice

cases, a child bom outside such a stable domestic arrangement is

killed at birth, and therefore the question of legitimacy of the chil¬
dren of unmarried women rarely arises.
Although the recognition of the status of husband and wife does
not depend upon there being a correct kinship link between the two,
the kin relations between them are of the utmost importance in the
formation and breaking up of the partnership. The rare incestuous
unions that exist would not have been tolerated if either party was a
member of a well-established local descent group. We have seen that
the ideal partner is a true, close mekaho mako, and this is the category
of women which is considered first. Structurally speaking, a marriage
with a mekaho mako constitutes an exchange for the girl’s mother
but, although this makes the marriage an exchange in itself, the prac¬
tical claims and debts may not be perceived in this way by the two
parties. For instance, the girl's mother herself may have been owed in
exchange for the potential husband's father’s brother’s wife: there
are many ways in which the failure to exchange, or the exchange of
classificatory rather than true sisters, distorts the patterns of debt
implicit in the ideal models. There is a number of factors that deter¬
mines the willingness of the girl’s parents and close agnates to let her
go, and of utmost importance amongst these is their need to find
wives for their sons. The existing set of debts and claims arising from
previous marriages and the age- and sex-structure of the girl’s sibling
group are considered. The possible advantages of using the girl to
make a new alliance with another group must be weighed against the
disadvantages of offending the rightful claimants, who may be close
neighbours. The general character of the relations between the two
groups, as well as the character of the potential husband, are also
taken into account.
I never saw a girl removed by her potential husband or in-laws, but
there is every indication that when the marriage has been arranged
and agreed in advance, she simply accompanies the claimants back to
their longhouse. In such cases her parents should advise her to go
peacefully and her mother should present her with a few necessary
female possessions.6 The Pira-parana Indians themselves contrast this

6 Other sources mention the institution of ‘mock-capture’ of wives in the Vaupds (Briizzi
1962 : 414, Goldman 1963 : 142). in which the girl’s folk feign various degrees of aggres¬
sion. I found no evidence for this among Pird-paran^ Indians, for capture and the associ¬
ated use of force was ‘real’ but nevertheless controlled. While the term ‘mock-capture’
suggests a ritualised and obligatory play-act, my argument will be that the degree of force
is purposely chosen and is effective in bringing about a certain change in relations. It is

95
Kinship and marriage
peaceful manner of obtaining women, which they say is appropriate
for marriage with a mekaho rnako or for any pre-arranged exchange
marriage between friendly affinal communities, with seizing women.
It is appropriate to seize a woman if a rightful claim has been turned
down by the girl’s agnates, and also if there is no prior claim to the
girl either as mekaho mako or as the promised exchange for a sister
already given. It is also appropriate to seize women from moderately
distant or very distant communities, but use of force is incompatible
with close neighbourliness.
A party is made up of the father and other close agnates of the
prospective husband;it usually includes the prospective husband him¬
self and sometimes close affines of the local descent group concerned.
These men set out for the longhouse of the woman they have chosen.
They may intend merely to make a formal request for a woman, in
which case they must decide upon a concrete offer of a sister in
exchange. Otherwise, they may intend to seize the woman at night or
when she is working alone in the manioc garden or fetching water.
There are intermediate tactics, such as seizing the woman under cir¬
cumstances in which they are not very likely to get away undetected;
but, in any case, however determined the intention, the appearance
of a potentially aggressive, united, all-male wife-getting party separates
the occasion from the less formal and more interpersonal negotiations
among close affines. When the raiding party come to put their plan
into action the subsequent events are influenced by the reaction of
the girl’s community. The raiders may get clean away with their
woman either before or after some fighting, and in this case the girl’s
community may decide to pursue them immediately or to make a
counter-raid at a later date. If their verbal demands are turned down,
or if they are caught in the act of seizing the girl, there is a range of
possible responses from verbal negotiation, either polite or aggressive,
to physical violence. The violence may range from mild tussling to
the use of weapons. There are threats of killing even today, although
it is impossible to say how frequently killing actually occurred on
wife-getting raids in the past. It is my guess that the extreme cases of
pertinent, however, that Goldman contrasts friendly inter-Cubeo marriages with more
‘hostile’ marriages between Cubeo and outside groups and the ‘mock-capture’ appears to
be associated with the former. He describes an external marriage in which a Tatuyo man,
part of an all-male wife-getting party, carries off a Cubeo girl (not the girl intended for
him) by surprise and without any ‘mock-capture’ episode. The marriage repeats a marriage
of the previous generation, in which a Cubeo woman was also given to that particular
Tatuyo group, and thus the forceful style of the Tatuyo elopement fits my analysis below
perfectly.

96
Marriage practice

outright denial of a rightful woman (a mekaho mako or exchange for

a sister already given), or of a determined raid on a distant and pre¬
viously unknown group, could have escalated to killing. As mentioned
before, although warfare and raiding for wives are different in that
war raids are far more aggressive acts, it may well have been possible
for either one to result in the other.

Wife-getting methods as a function of social distance

At the same time as they are partially controlled by the existing

relations between the two groups concerned, the wife-getting events
set the scene for future interaction between groups. Ultimately, there
are three possible outcomes: the completion of an exchange through
a sequence of encounters, which may be more or less violent, the
establishment of a one-sided marriage or no marriage at all. Each of
these results may be accompanied by a certain amount of bad feeling
between the groups, and geographical distance is bound to influence
the likelihood of reconciliation between them. Nevertheless, in general
the three results can be arranged in an already familiar series. Exchange
is an amicable solution of mutual advantage; a one-sided marriage
gives rise to an uneasy but positive relationship between the groups;
and no marriage at all results in no future interaction. Now, although
the wife-getting raid may result in exchange through a counter-raid,
the immediate aim of a wife-getting raid is to achieve a unilateral
marriage. Besides this, raiding is incompatible with the friendly
relations between close, affmally related groups which should be per¬
petuated by the amicable exchange of women. Raiding is compatible
with interaction between semi-distant communities. Non-aggressive,
informal ways of obtaining wives may be identified with the exchange
of women and interaction between neighbouring communities. Fur¬
ther support for these identifications is presented below; for the
moment the series may be set out thus:

no positive friendly/hostile friendly

interaction interaction interaction
distant semi-distant close neighbouring
group group group

no marriage one-way marriage exchange marriage

wife-raiding amicable
wife-getting

97
Kinship and marriage
To this may be added part of the analogous series of O-generation
categories for individuals, and that for groups:
INDIVIDUALS ‘unrelated ‘mother’s ‘father’s
cross- brother’s sister’s
cousins’ children’ children’
GROUPS ‘other ‘people we marry ‘people we marry
people’ a bit’ a lot’

We may now return to the analysis of the ritual food exchange

following Yeba's marriage. In addition to the connections already
noted between unilateral marriage, ritual gift-giving of food and the
origin of ritual dance, there was stress on the aggressive behaviour of
the hosts towards Yeba. One myth-teller explained that Fish Ana¬
conda was so aggressive because he had no woman in return. First,
his father-in-law wanted to kill him and then the small fish, Wania -
the cross-cousins of Yawira — wanted to kill him. Similar aggression
occurs in the only other mythical mention of a ritual gift of food, the
Wood Ibises’ gift of ants to their mother-in-law Romi Kumu (pp. 63f).
This is also a gift from wife-receivers to wife-giver {Romi Kumu pro¬
creates by virgin birth and is thus a wife-giver), and the givers are
also attacked in the host’s house (by Pouncing Jaguar). Therefore,
myth also emphasises the danger of interacting with unilateral wife-
givers — a danger that echoes the practice of the wife-getting raid.
I am not claiming that marriage with a ‘mother’s brother’s daughter’
is always achieved through a raid, while marriage with a ‘father’s
sister's daughter’ is always achieved peaceably. Nor am I claiming that
ritual food exchange is always between partners to a unilateral mar¬
riage, or that unilateral marriages always occur between semi-distant
groups. In short, I am not claiming that there is any necessary prac¬
tical connection between the analogous terms of the separate series in
any given situation. Instead, each series deals with a separate variable
in the make-up of the ‘total’ social relationship between two groups,
and the analogous terms in their separate series fit together in an ideal
sense. Thus, on the one hand, it is in myth and in statements about
ideal behaviour that the connections between terms are made in a
clear-cut way. On the other hand, in practice, the relationships be¬
tween individuals or between communities are complex and open to
many different modes of change. They may also be perceived in dif¬
ferent ways by either party. Besides, the entire range of traditional
intercommunity relations has become modified by the pacification
of Vaupes Indians. Very violent interaction is now virtually non-
98
Marriage practice

existent, and consequently interaction between distant communities

is much less dangerous than it used to be. Although I could give a
string of marriage case-histories, both peaceable and semi-violent, to
support the particular argument in this section about the relations
between O-generation kin categories and wife-getting practices, these
would be subject to the qualifications just mentioned. Since I am
basically concerned with ideal models, it is more appropriate to draw
on a remarkably clear model of marriage relations between Exogamous
Groups contained in a mythical text from the Tukano Exogamous
Group (Fulop 1954 : 132). Of course, a similar model relating to the
Pira-parana area would have been preferable, but I was never given
one. It is possible that the fragmentation of groups and numerous
migrations in the recent history of this marginal area has made it
more difficult for Pira-parana people to envisage whole Exogamous
Groups as standing in a relatively fixed pattern of marriage relations.
According to the text, a mythical law-giving hero instructs an
ancestor of the Tukano on the correct way of obtaining wives. First
of all, Tukano must marry outside their own group. The hero names
three other Exogamous Groups from which they may obtain wives,
saying that Tukano must not fight for these women, instead a brother
and sister of one group must make an exchange with a brother and
sister from another. He goes on to name three more Exogamous
Groups, saying that if the Tukano want women from these they must
fight for them, but the fighting is only permitted to extract the
women — they must not kill. He adds that these six groups will be
‘like brothers’ to the Tukano. A footnote is added to the text glossing
como hermanos (like brothers) as amigos intimos (intimate friends),
which suggests that the ethnographer is puzzled by his Spanish-speaking
informant’s use of ‘brother’ in the context of affinal relations.
The text clearly distinguishes three modes of behaviour: peaceful
exchange of women, raiding of women and total absence of marriage
- the first two of these are appropriate for specific sets of outside
groups and the third for all others. It is implied that there is no
exchange between groups who raid women and that killing is only
appropriate between groups who do not intermarry. The three modes
are precisely those mentioned in my analysis and, moreover, the con¬
nection between absence of marriage and killing supports the analogy
between the specialist-roles series and marriage patterns between
groups, for warriors occupy the middle specialist role, just as the
absence of marriage links occupies the middle position in the marriage-
99
Kinship and marriage
pattern series (p. 101). The association of the series with more general
modes of interaction is underlined by the statement that the six
marriageable groups will be ‘like brothers’.

General considerations

Continuous and symmetrical organisation of the models

Before leaving the question of marriage I must comment on the

equation of affines with ‘brothers’. In the field I was puzzled and dis¬
appointed to find that when I asked Indians how people in affinal
kinship categories should behave, I was told ‘like younger brothers’
or ‘like older brothers’ in the case of cross-cousins, and ‘like father’s
brothers’ in the case of mother’s brothers. I had assumed there was a
fundamental conceptual divide between ‘us’ and ‘them’ — ‘agnates’
and ‘affines’ - which would be reflected in statements of ideal
behaviour. Frankly, I thought these replies were senseless. However,
it now seems to me that the element of security and interdependence
in relations with outside groups is of enormous importance and that
there is indeed a sense in which brothers are like close sister¬
exchanging affines. While brothers co-operate in the organisation of
descent-group affairs and the life of the community, close affines
co-operate in the provision of wives for each other. In practice, local
descent groups are on far more intimate terms with close neighbours
linked to them in perpetual alliance than they are with more distant
‘brothers’. So close is the relationship between neighbouring affines
that an individual may even participate in a raid on another segment
of his own wider group in order to provide a wife for one of his
affines. Thus, with the focus on the opposition between the hier¬
archy within descent groups and the reciprocal exchange between
affines, relations between brothers seem diametrically opposed to
relations between partners to sister-exchange. But, with the focus on
the general qualities of security and interdependence, the two types
of relationship are alike and together they may be opposed to the
relationship with ‘other people’ who cannot be trusted at all. In this
way, the series of kinship categories (whether applied to individuals
or groups) has an element of symmetry about the central position
which parallels the organisation of specialist roles into three domains.
In the previous chapter, I suggested that the specialist-role series
from servants up to chiefs could be read as a series of increasingly
100
General considerations
positive and secure relations with outside groups. The servants have
no relations with outside Exogamous Groups, and this is reflected in
the statement that they are endogamous. The chiefs control external
relations and this is reflected in their polygamy. However, it was
claimed above that relations between siblings and relations between
sister-exchanging affines are alike in being characterised by inter¬
dependence and security. These contrast with the middle position of
'unrelated cross-cousins’/'other people’, with whom relations are least
secure and interaction is minimal, whereas, in the series formed of
the external aspects of the specialist roles, the contrast is between the
two ends of the series. Since it was claimed that there is homology
between the specialist-role series and the system of O-generation
categories, this apparent inconsistency requires comment. On one
hand, the outward-directed functions of the specialist roles make a
series which, read from left to right, represents a build up of affinal
relations:
A affinal affinal
-> +
relations relations

On the other hand, the series of O-generation categories may be read

from left to right as the breakdown of descent relations, followed by
the building up of affinal relations. If the arrows are made to indicate
positive, building-up processes, we arrive at the following:
B ‘siblings’ ‘other people’ ‘people we
+ descent no descent or marry a lot’
<r ->
relations affinal + affinal
relations relations
Thus, there is correspondence between the right-hand parts of the two
series (A) and (B), but not between the left. However, the left-hand
part of the O-generation category series may be rewritten, extra¬
polating from the central position of ‘other people’ towards the extreme
left, so that the series as a whole represents the building up of affinal
relations with groups originally even more distant than the ‘other
people’. This rewritten series (C), corresponds to (A) above:
C groups beyond ‘other people’ ‘people we marry
‘other people’ a lot’_

In practice, there are no kinship categories applicable to these groups

‘beyond other people’ because the very distant groups are beyond
interaction — they are simply very distant ‘other people’.
101
Kinship and marriage
If the rewritten series, (C), is compared to the original series, (B),
and the two are set under the specialist role series, the role of shaman
appears to be ambiguously associated with a stage in the breakdown
of descent relations and a preliminary stage in the construction of
affinal relations, as follows:
servant shaman warrior dancer/chanter chief
B ‘siblings’ <_ ‘other people’--> ‘people we
marry a lot’
C most distant -> ‘other people’_> ‘people we
‘other people’ marry a lot’

We already know that aggressive shamanism and warfare are held to

be inappropriate between classificatory siblings but that nevertheless
they do (or did) occur (p. 73). As we saw, the myth of the Manioc-
stick Anaconda also stresses the role of shamanism in the breakdown
of sibling relations. However, in practice, shamanic killing is also
frequently blamed on renowned individuals from distant groups with
whom there is no interaction. Therefore it seems that the attribution
of aggressive shamanism to different social categories fits with the
ambiguous nature of the next-to-bottom position in the five-stage
structural processes just described.
In essence, this discussion brings me back to the point made about
the alternative types of organisation of the specialist roles, for the
rewritten model of O-generation relationships that I have just pre¬
sented corresponds to the hierarchical organisation of roles, and the
original model (with sibling and sister-exchange relations as extremes)
corresponds to the symmetrical organisation into three domains (fig.
12). The rewritten and original models are really just different ways
of looking at the same structure, for sibling relationships are the
antithesis of sister-exchanging relationships and thus it is consistent
that they should co-exist, at one extreme of the series, with total
absence of relations with outsiders.

General value of the models

In summary of this and the previous chapter on specialist roles, I

suggest that the value of the models I have set out is, first, that they
accommodate change and, secondly, that they contain simultaneous
expression of different types of relationship in the manner just
described. The emphasis on change means that interaction between
102
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a w> OUlj X
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Fig. 12 Symmetrical and continuous organisation of specialist roles and O-generation kinship categories
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0-GENERATION KINSHIP TERMS

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103
Kinship and marriage

individuals and groups need not appear as a mere ‘expression’ or

‘reflection’ of some ideal relationship between the parties. Instead, it
appears as the result of courses of action chosen from a set of alterna¬
tives by each of the parties. People may decide to maintain the status
quo or to change it in favour of closer or more distant relations. They
may do this by raiding wives, exchanging sisters, waging war, inviting
people to rituals, adopting particular kinship terms and so on. They
pick an appropriate strategy, but then their interaction with others
during the attempt to put the plan into action may result in unfore¬
seen change. For instance, an attempt to achieve a unilateral marriage
through wife-raiding may result in a counter-raid; then the consequent
sister-exchange may lead to close relations between the parties, and
eventually to a change in residence to bring them geographically
nearer to one another. The models are arranged so that the differences
in kind may be understood as differences in quantity along the
natural scales of distance and time (age). Although the models are
constructed so that minimal changes will be between adjacent stages,
in practice, of course, there may be greater changes leaving out
intermediary stages. The dynamic aspect of these models and their
property of expressing different types of relationship between the
elements or stages will be discussed again in the chapter on classifi¬
cation of space and time (ch. 7).
Finally, I should make it clear that I consider that these models are
recognised by Indians, either consciously or at a deeper level, both
in mythology and in statements about ideal behaviour and the nature
of their social system. In present-day circumstances, it is inevitable
that parts of this analysis concerning traditional life are tentative.
However, I think that there is enough evidence to suggest that it is,
at least, along the right lines. When I speak of the value of these
models, I mean primarily their value to Indian groups who subscribe
to them. They are well suited to an open-ended society (p. 12) com¬
posed of small, isolated groups bound together in a constantly shift¬
ing pattern of relations. However, I think they are also valuable to
anthropologists, for they are models describing how processes of
growth and change can occur while wider institutions and ideological
structures remain the same.
With the help of these models, it is possible to shed light upon a
problem that has intrigued and puzzled those familiar with Vaupes
ethnography. This is the co-existence of the opposed ideals of hier¬
archy and equality in a single social system. On one hand, we have
104
General considerations

seen that the hierarchical internal organisation of descent groups is

recognised in the use of kinship terms, and that the ordering of sibs
and their sub-units is clearly a subject people care about. Differences
of opinion over positions in the hierarchy give rise to strong emotions
and are frequently discussed. On the other hand, this pervasive hier¬
archical system seems to conflict with the egalitarian life-style of
Vaupes Indians and, indeed, the hierarchy has little practical content.
The sib-roles are barely performed at all by their owners; individual
specialist roles are achieved rather than ascribed according to birth
order; and individuals who are formally differentiated by seniority
meet on more or less equal terms. Traditionally, it seems that the on¬
going social process bore a close resemblance to that in many societies
from the New Guinea highlands, with their regulation by means of
warfare, exchange and ‘big man’ leadership.
Of course, one way of describing the contrast between hierarchy
and equality is as a disparity between an ‘ideal indigenous model’ and
‘the facts on the ground’. However, this type of description is not very
useful because it leaves the relationship between the two to be
explained. Besides, such a description does not do justice to the situ¬
ation, because the ‘ideal’ and ‘actual’ cannot be so readily separated
out. The combination of hierarchical and egalitarian principles clearly
constitutes a problem for Goldman, who describes the Cubeo as having
‘the skeleton of an aristocratic system that is fleshed out with an
egalitarian ethos’ (1963 : 92). The apparent inconsistency between
these two aspects of Cubeo culture leads him to play down the hier¬
archical features in his general observations and to imply that they
must be remnants of a higher culture. In spite of this, it is a measure
of his remarkable ethnographic record that the Cubeo concern with
descent seniority is well represented in the text. We are left with the
impression that the hierarchical order is important for its own sake,
and certainly relevant during ritual, but that it has little to do with
secular life. Bidou takes the problem further, for he does succeed in
relating the principles of hierarchy and equality; he claims that con¬
trol and neutralisation of power is a function of the hierarchical sys¬
tem of specialised roles. However, Indians themselves like to stress the
differential access to power, the right of older brothers to order their
younger brothers around and the obligation of the latter to obey.
The alternative interpretation given here is that the model of
specialist roles actually serves as an indigenous explanation of the
relationship between fixed hierarchy and the ever-changing patterns
105
Kinship and marriage

of interaction based on the principle of equality. These two phenom¬

ena are treated as complementary aspects of the same structure — the
set of five specialist roles — and thus they appear as transformations
of one another. The internal differentiation can thus be turned out¬
wards and deployed in the field of external relations to differentiate
a field of ‘equal’ outside groups from a given point of reference. How¬
ever, the specialist role system is an ‘ideal’ system in another sense.
The complementary aspects are specifically divided between internal
and external relations in such a way that the hierarchical order ought
to be maintained within and yet change ought to occur without. This
has to be so, to enable each Exogamous Group to maximise its
position with regard to outsiders, in order to ensure its supply of
women and its military and economic survival in a shifting social
environment. The ideal is of a unit whose capacity for survival in a
competitive world is a reflection of the suppression of competition
within.

106
5
The life-cycle

Introduction

Basically, the events and ideology associated with life-cycle change

among Pira-parana Indians show a double theme which I suppose to
be universal. They are concerned with (a) the difference between life
and death and (b) the difference between the sexes. In this chapter, I
regard the life-cycle as a dual process concerned, on the one hand,
with the physiological and spiritual reproduction of the individual
and, on the other, with the reproduction of the social structure. Of
course, the two processes are related by metonymy, since the social
structure is built up by the biological reproduction of individuals. I
have already discussed many aspects of the reproduction of the social
structure by means of exogamous marriage; here I turn to the ideology
and ritual which accompany those changes that are concerned with
the creation and development of the body and soul of the individual.
In this chapter, the principal changes in this individual life-cycle pro¬
cess are related to the social structure, showing that ideology and
ritual bring the biological facts of life, such as birth, growth, men¬
struation, sexual reproduction and death, into line with the existence
of localised exogamous patrilineal descent groups.1

The end of life

Life and death

Life and death are alternate phases of a grand cycle. The dead are

1 We never witnessed the practices surrounding birth, death or first menstruation and,
although a He wi, a male Yurupary ceremony (He House: see S. Hugh-Jones 1979), was
held during our fieldwork this did not involve true initiation. These gaps in our joint

107
The life-cycle
always calling to the living to join them and the living are always call¬
ing on the dead to succour them on ritual occasions. The living also
install the souls of the dead in new-born children. In spatial terms,
this alternation of life and death is represented by a vast circular
river flowing over and under the earth. The upper half flows from
west to east across the earth’s surface; its lower reaches are called
Ohekoa Riaga, Milk River. The lower half is the Bohori Riaga (boho-;
to be lower), the Underworld River, where the dead go.
The dead phase of the life-cycle is basically unknown and unknow¬
able. On a practical level, Indians concentrate their efforts on shutting
it out altogether. The body is buried below the earth’s surface where
the living never venture and various ritual acts ‘cut off death’ (bohori
ta-) from the living. Those aspects of death concerned with the grave,
the decay of the body and the disappearance of a once-known indi¬
vidual must not be allowed to overlap into the world of the living.
One cannot mention the recently dead without adding ‘the one who
finished being’ to the name. Signs of death, such as a gourd on
someone’s face or white worm-like creatures that live underground
(see below) are treated with fear and disgust. A similar fear accounts
for the live burials of very old or very ill people which have been fre¬
quently reported from the Vaupes area and definitely occur from
time to time on the Pira-parana. This emphasis on the separation be¬
tween life and death has two results. On the one hand, the dead phase
of the life-cycle is the antithesis of life — a blank; a state of non¬
existence. One Indian expressed this in response to questions about
an afterlife when he said, ‘I haven’t died yet; have you? How should
I know what happens?’ On the other hand, it is necessary for the
opposition between life and death to have some positive content.
This is so both ideologically and practically, for, after all, people must
do something with their dead, and they must be cutting off and avoid¬
ing something. Therefore, death is also conceived of as a reflection of
life in which all elements and processes of life are reversed in a sinis¬
ter way. The simplest demonstration of this is the reversal of river
flow in the Underworld. There are several accounts of what happens
after death, and these cannot be combined into a single, consistent
theory, for they deal with different aspects of death rather than con¬
secutive events. Yet all of these have a common antithetical relation-

experience are simply due to chance and they illustrate the problems of working in
extremely small and isolated communities. The accounts I give of life-cycle rituals which
neither I nor my husband saw are drawn from informants’ descriptions.

108
The end of life

ship to life. They also leave vast areas of nothingness, for they are
mainly known through the limited information provided by the few
mythical episodes which refer to them.
Here, I shall be concentrating on the separation of elements of the
self at death but, before I begin, I must draw a distinction between
the aspect I have been describing, which is bad, fearful and represents
dissolution and decay, and the other aspect of death, connected with
the ‘dead’ ancestors, which represents the origins of life. Contact
with the ancestors, which takes place either through shamanism or
directly at male ritual gatherings, is supremely dangerous but also an
essential condition of continued life.
To live’ and "to recover from illness’ are covered by one root, kati-.
Similarly, ‘to die’ and ‘to get ill’ are covered by a single root, riha-.
The meaning of these words reflects the Indian notion of life and
death, because health and illness are inverse states of which life and
death (distinguished by addition of a suffix denoting finished action)
are extreme forms.

Events after death

The practice. Death provokes angry speeches from men who enlarge
upon the cause of death, promising revenge if it was caused by
human agents, and who remember the deeds of the deceased and
lament the continual reduction of their descent groups. Women
make sobbing speeches in the same vein but without the element of
revenge.
The body is put in a foetal position with a gourd over the face; it
is bound with hammock rope and wrapped in the hammock of the
deceased. Then it is placed with burial goods in a coffin made from a
canoe cut in half and doubled over. Men perform the burial while
women weep. A man is buried with ritual dance ornaments — feather
head-dresses, monkey-fur tassels and so on — which are also referred
to in other contexts as Bohori gaheuni, Underworld goods. A woman
is buried with her little basket containing paint, a mirror and other
personal things. Possessions not buried with the corpse should be
destroyed and, if the person was important, the house should be
abandoned. The grave is made in the centre of the house for a man
and by the entrance to the family compartment for a woman; it is a
deep hole with a side tunnel for the coffin. Once the grave is filled
the shaman cuts off death (bohori ta-), cleansing the house with
109
The life-cycle
tobacco smoke, burning beeswax and giving the occupants shamanised
snuff. Then normal life resumes.
There is sometimes a divination process in which cassava is left
over from the grave while the occupants of the house retire. The
marks in the loose earth indicate the sorcerer’s identity, and the
direction from which he came. One means of revenge upon a human
sorcerer is to boil up a mixture of bodily substances removed from
the corpse (hair, nail-clippings, a tooth) with chilli peppers. The sor¬
cerer’s spirit comes in the form of a bumble-bee and drops in the pot;
at this point the sorcerer dies.
People are terrified of the spirit, wdti, of the dead person until the
shamanism is over. The shaman drives the wdti off to the forest.
According to one informant, it is chased by a swarm of bees, werea,
released by the burning of the beeswax. Until about twenty years ago
a funeral dance with masked charades, many of them similar to those
described for the Cubeo (Goldman 1963 : 2190, used to be held at
an interval after the death of an important man.

The body in the grave. The corpse remains in the grave where the
rotten soft tissues of the body drain through a hole specially drilled
in the canoe coffin. The entire mass of flesh, blood, fat and skin is
called body liquid, ruhuoko, and thus is differentiated from hard
bones and teeth. It is important that the earth should not touch the
body until it has completely rotted - first flesh and then bones. This
is the point at which the canoe itself begins to rot and the soul, usu,
escapes, coming up to this earth. The soul takes the form of a bumble¬
bee whose buzzing says, ‘It is bad, you are living and I am disappear¬
ing’. When the living give the name of the dead person to a baby, the
deceased is no longer angry, but happy because he or she lives again.

The body in the Underworld. The Underworld is known through the

myth of Live Woman’s visit there. Since this myth is also important
in my later analysis of concepts of space and time, I present it in
more detail than many of the others.

Live Woman in the Underworld

As he was dying, a man told his wife to wait for him on the manioc-
garden path two days after his burial. She took her small son and met
her husband's spirit, which she did not recognise as such, in the way
planned. He told her to cover her eyes to avoid fire ants and, so doing,
110
The end of life

she arrived in the Underworld at the House of the Dead. Here she had
several sinister adventures involving her aggressive spirit mother-in-law
who loathed her for being ‘alive’. This Spirit Woman sent her to fetch
water in a pot which, from Live Woman’s point of view, was an open-
weave basket. Later, in order to make a fire, she tried to catch a light
from Spirit Woman’s anus which glowed because of the fire in her
body. When Live Woman’s son was hungry, Spirit Woman offered
him sweet potatoes which she roasted under her armpits and behind
her knees, but from Live Woman’s point of view these potatoes were
white worms. At dusk the spirit husband called her onto the plaza to
search for lice in his hair — a common conjugal act. She found his
hair full of grave-earth and saw his eyes were fixed. She realised he
was dead and wept. A tear fell on his knee making him furious.
Although she protested that she was just sweating, he hid away in the
manioc-fibre store, deserting her for good.
Then she went down to the port on the Underworld River and,
although Spirit Woman had expressly forbidden her to do this, she
looked downstream. She saw that the river was choked with dance
ornaments, the burial goods of the dead. Beyond was the port of
Underworld Agouti house. She swam among the burial goods, arriv¬
ing at the house a season later, to find Agouti Woman grating manioc.
Again, Live Woman did not perceive things in the same way as her
hosts: their pepper pot was shrimps and their discarded palm-fruit
stones were edible palm-beetle larvae. Agouti Woman intended to pre¬
sent Live Woman’s mother with a leaf-packet of fish and so agreed to
take Live Woman back home. The ‘packet of fish’ was really chewed
manioc root ‘wrapped’ in agouti faeces — the tell-tale sign of agoutis’
manioc-raiding. Agouti Woman led the way, running, along a forest
path only fit for animals, through hollow logs and prickly under¬
growth, until finally they arrived at the manioc garden where the
agoutis habitually stole manioc. There, Live Woman’s mother was
mourning her. Live Woman and her son were dead like spirits, but
Live Woman was successfully shamanised back to life whereas her
son died. This myth shows why women recover from severe illness
while men die, and also why women outlive men.

The oppositions between Live Woman’s point of view and that of the
Spirit Woman demonstrate that the Underworld is a reversal of life on
earth: a continuous surface is full of holes (the spirit’s pot), food for
living people is worms that consume dead bodies (the spirit’s sweet
111
The life-cycle

potatoes) and this food is roasted in a manner associated with the

burrowing of worms into parts of the body which are ‘semi-orifices’
(the spirit’s armpits etc.). The opposition between the points of view
of Live Woman and Agouti Woman is both weaker and more favour¬
able to Live Woman, and this is consistent with the position of the
Agouti house, midway between the world of the dead and the living.
Indians say that the water of the Underworld River is composed of
rotten corpses. The ritual goods are tied onto a stick when they are
buried with a corpse and they are said to be the soul, usu, which
helps the body to float in the river. This indicates a separation be¬
tween the body, which is destined to rot and become one with the
river, and the soul, which resists this destiny.

The soul in the ancestral house. People also say that the soul goes to
the ancestral house of the deceased’s particular sib. They sometimes
say the married woman’s soul accompanies her husband’s and some¬
times that it returns to her own ancestral origins. Such houses, called
people waking-up houses (masa yuhiri wi sing.), are geographical sites
on the journeys of the ancestral anacondas and are located in moun¬
tains, rock formations and rapids (p. 33). They are beautifully painted
longhouses in which the ancestors perpetually dance in fine feathers,
drink beer and take coca. Shamans can travel in thought and see these
places, but ordinary people can see them only on the point of death,
when their souls have deserted their bodies. One woman told me that,
when delirious from a snakebite, she stood on the plaza of such a
house while her father and other dead kinsmen invited her in and the
women begged her to help them make beer. If she had gone in, she
would have died and joined her ancestral community.

The elements of the individual separated at death

First of all, it is important to clarify the concepts of usu and wdti

which I have glossed as ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’. Anatomically, the usu is
located in the heart and the lungs. It is also breath (usu koa-, ‘soul-
take’, to breathe) and is connected with the animation of the body
(usu hea-, ‘soul-cross-over’, to rest). A shaman’s soul can travel away
from his body at any time and experience the supernatural world.
Beliefs about the nature of dreams and hallucinations are varied and
often vague, but there is a general consensus that they do not depend
upon the soul leaving the body; for the ordinary person this separation
112
The end of life

happens only at death. The soul is thus portrayed as both concrete

and substanceless, visible to anyone as heart and lungs, and yet also
only visible to the shaman. It is not surprising that breath, which
passes between the interior of the body and the external world, and
is so clearly essential to life, is the medium of shamanism. Shamans
blow spells, suck out foreign bodies and make extensive use of
tobacco and snuff and cigars which are both inhaled and blown out.
While each individual has a supernatural aspect manifest in the soul,
from the point of view of the shaman, the aspects of the individual -
body and soul are also aspects of the entire world. It is through his
ability to separate the aspects of his own person that he can release his
soul and travel between the two worlds.
A wati is a representative of the other, supernatural world which
appears directly to the living. In order to appear to ordinary people it
must have a concrete form or manifestation, but this is always the
reverse of proper human appearance or behaviour. Most watia are
terrifying forest beings, entirely evil, but there are also He watia,
ancestral spirits, who appear to the living during male Yurupary rites
(see p. 143), and the watia of the dead. The ‘other world’ is not a
unitary concept in Indian thought: it embraces the distant natural
world of the remote forest, the ancestral world and the sinister world
of the recently dead.2
To return to the world of the dead, the different accounts yield a
variety of conclusions. First, the two aspects of the individual are
clear. In every account the body has one fate and the soul, or spiritual
aspect, another. The body ends by rotting away: it becomes Under¬
world River water, or, in the grave, it liquefies and unites with the
earth. In each case it goes down, down into the grave, downstream in
the Underworld River and down into the earth. The soul resists end¬
ing, or disappearing (yayi-), as Indians put it. It is manifest in the
feathers that float instead of being submerged, in the spirits of the
Underworld house who remain while the bodies go downstream, in
the bumble-bee who does not want to disappear, in the soul installed
in a new child and in the perpetual ritual activity of the ancestral
house. Compared with the bodily aspect it is always in a higher

2 There is a third category, wuho, semantically closely related to, and partly overlapping
with usu and wati. Wuho means ‘imprint’ or ‘residue’ - something made by the original
being or object, but which is not actually that being or object itself. If a mythical charac¬
ter transformed himself into a bird, examples of that species of bird which exist today are
his wuho. Wuho is evidently closely related to wuha, sleep, and is the word most com¬
monly used for ‘shadow’, although wati can be used as well.

113
The life-cycle

position. The separation of body and soul is nevertheless incomplete;

it is relative and contextual because the one cannot do entirely with¬
out the other. Thus, the rotting body has its soul ornaments and the
beings in both the Underworld and the ancestral houses have bodies,
although they represent souls. Besides this two-fold aspect reflecting
the interdependence of body and soul, overall there is a two-fold fate
of the soul itself, along the same lines. On the one hand, there is the
fearful Underworld house, a reversal of ordinary life connected with
the fate of the body in the grave and, on the other, there are the
beautiful ancestral houses which are connected with the fate of the
soul when it leaves the body before burial. To press the point home,
we might note the diet of these different soul-beings. The Underworld
spirits eat worms, which are way beyond the category of ‘food’ and
are utterly disgusting, while the ancestors eat ritual substances, which
are removed from ordinary food in the opposite direction as they are
so pure.
The separation of elements of the body initiated at death is sum¬
marised in the columns below. The analysis above has clarified why
items can appear in both columns but, in spite of this, the overall
contrast is one of ‘bad disappearance’ and ‘good endurance’.
Aspect of
Individual Body Soul

death body buried with goods soul escapes to

ancestral house
burial body rots away in earth soul inhabits new body
Underworld body rots in river spirits remain in
house
body in river body becomes water ornaments float
soul-beings spirits in Underworld ancestors in
origin house
process evaluated bad disappearance good endurance

The beginning of life

Instead of being an unpredictable and sudden occurrence, like death,

the creation of life is gradual and more amenable to social control.
For instance, the circumstances of conception (such as kin relations
between the parents and the time and the place appropriate for sexual
encounters), the integration of the newly bom into the community
114
The beginning of life

and the subsequent social development of the child are processes

which can, to some extent, be socially moulded to bear out a particu¬
lar ideological system. Besides, although the natural or physiological
aspects of conception, foetal growth and the baby’s postnatal devel¬
opment happen anyway, they are still open to various interpretations
and different forms of purposeful guidance. The way in which a
society promotes the growth process must surely reflect a correspond¬
ing theory of growth. Let us start with the theories of sexual creativity
and the theory and practice of growth in the foetus and child. The
events of birth and subsequent naming are best left until afterwards.
Just as we found there were different accounts of the unknow¬
able events after death there are different accounts of the unknow¬
able manner of creation of the foetus but, in this case, too, there are
consistent patterns. However, the general nature of growth processes
is rather different from that of the death process, because the com¬
bination of sexual elements is so obviously crucial. Analysis of the
beginning of life gives a sexual dimension to the body/soul dichotomy.
Besides being set in motion by a combination of male and female
reproductive elements, early growth has as its goal the repetition of
the same reproductive process and this requires sexual differentiation
of mature males and females. When we consider menstrual and
initiation rites, it will become apparent that the dichotomy between
the sexes replicates the dichotomy within each individual (of either
sex) which is established in the early phases.

Ante-natal development

The ideal places for sexual intercourse are the port and the manioc
garden, although hammocks in the longhouse are an alternative.
The pregnant woman and the expectant father are called guda hako
and guda haku, ‘mother and father of the (belly) filling’, names
which already emphasise their joint responsibility for the foetus and
correspond to the later teknonymy whereby each parent refers to the
other as ‘father/mother of my daughter/son’. The mother is not con¬
sidered pregnant until she is Tilled up’ by repeated intercourse. This
is the point at which the soul-stuff derived from the father’s semen
has accumulated sufficiently to form a ‘living’ foetus which begins to
grow.
People say that female children are made of their mother’s blood
and male children of their father’s semen, and that girls resemble their
115
The life-cycle

mothers and boys their fathers. They also say that bones come from
the father’s semen and that the bone cavities are filled with semen
itself (ahea badi). Alternatively, people say that the father makes
everything — bones, skin, flesh etc. — with his semen. Again, people
often say they do not know, because one cannot see it happening.
No one actually said that the mother’s blood creates the flesh of the
child, although according to the logic of the system set up by the
other statements this would appear to make sense. We may sum up
the theories as follows:
1 father’s semen : mother’s blood :: body : girl
2 father’s semen : mother’s blood :: bones : ?
3 father’s semen : mother’s womb :: child : receptacle
Here, I shall concentrate on theories 2 and 3, first showing why
mother’s blood should be considered responsible for the body liquid
of the foetus. It is reasonable to assume that the relevant division is
between bone and body liquid because this is regarded as the basic
division of body substances in many different contexts.
Menstrual blood is called women’s body liquid, ruhuoko: the use
of the general term ‘body liquid’ unites it with other soft tissues and
liquid components of the body. Having children is thought to deprive
the mother of life-force (katise) and fat, leaving her thin and dry¬
skinned. Since it is also said that the life-force of women is repeatedly
renewed by growth of menstrual blood, the loss of life-force after
childbirth implies the loss of menstrual blood. There is also the
physical existence of the umbilical cord and placenta. The cord is
ritually linked with the river system of the earth and with the stems
of cultivated plants: there is no doubt from the contexts of the link
that it is regarded as a source of nourishment from mother’s body to
foetus. Again, contact with the red pigment used by men during He
wi rituals would make women bleed excessively from the womb,
because it ‘is’ menstrual blood. Men apply the paint particularly to
their navels, the very point at which the maternal link was originally
severed, in order to replace their body liquid (p. 150).
If all these factors support the association between female blood
and the body liquid of the child, then why should no one have men¬
tioned it directly? It does not really matter whether we consider the
female blood a ‘contribution’ (theory 2) or a vehicle of nourishment
of a foetus which is actually made of semen (theory 3), for the fact
remains that the creative role of blood was only made explicit in the
case of girl-babies (theory 1). It may have been chance that I never
116
The beginning of life

heard this, but the omission does fit with other elements of Pira-
parana belief. First, there is a tendency to avoid distinguishing be¬
tween flesh and bone in the context of death — we may note here
that Pira-parana Indians do not (and say they never did) disinter their
dead for the purpose of endocannibalism of burnt bones, as did cer¬
tain other Vaupes groups (see, for instance, Goldman 1963 : 249-50).
At death, the strong opposition between enduring soul and mortal
body seems to eclipse the weaker division of the body into slightly
more-enduring bone and less-enduring body liquid. This has the effect
of emphasising the integrity of the living body and supporting the
third theory of conception. Secondly, we shall see many instances of
the lack of stress on the creative powers of ordinary mortal women
which, I shall argue, follows from the patrilineal structure of descent
groups.
We saw that bone and body liquid alike decay in the grave but that
bones, being harder, decay last. Not surprisingly, physical hardness
and endurance are related together and opposed to physical softness
(liquidity) and lack of endurance. Therefore, physical endurance of
body substance is male like bone, and physical decay of body sub¬
stances is female like blood or body liquid. Pira-parana Indians, in
common with many other Amazonian groups, do actually regard men
as ‘hard' and women as ‘soft’. They believe that men possess superior
physical strength, are better able to keep ritual restrictions, resist
sleep, go without food and so on. The sexual associations of endur¬
ance and decay immediately suggest a sexual dimension to the other
items summarised under the body—soul dichotomy on p. 114. In
particular, they suggest that the body is ‘female’ and that the soul is
‘male’. This sexual dichotomy of the aspects of the individual is borne
out at many other points in this book.

Post-natal development

If we look at the path of growth, it consists of foetal growth initiated

by ‘filling up’ with semen and then this is followed by growth of the
new-born child: these two processes are separated by the birth itself,
to which we will return later.
Whichever theory of conception is held, there is no doubt that both
mother and father are essential. However, the soul of the foetus, cre¬
ated by the father’s repeated insemination, is no discrete entity: we
shall see that there are other contributions of soul as well. In fact, in
117
The life-cycle

the context of life, soul (usu) sometimes has a very general meaning,
more or less co-terminous with life itself. Anything necessary to life
can be said to add soul, but there is also a particular occasion, naming,
when a discrete soul is transferred to the child: I return to naming
later. During the gradual growth of the new-born child, body and soul
are drawn together. On the one hand, it is food that both adds soul
and makes the body grow, thus milk, crops etc. are all said to give
soul to the child. On the other, people say that it is shamanism that
gives food these powers, and that without it all food would be lethal.
Therefore, in the relationship between shamanism and food, there is
a replication of the relationship between semen and mother’s blood.
In both cases, there is an initial life-giving element followed by a
nourishing or transporting one. The first is male, since shamans are
males, and the second is female, since women are responsible both for
milk and then for the preparation of solid foods. Together, these
elements give life and soul but, considered separately, they are related
as soul (male) and nourishment (female). Like the act of insemination,
which is subject to conscious control in a way that the female role in
growing the foetus is not, shamanism represents the exercise of male
control over female food-producing powers.
Everything the child eats or otherwise uses for the first time should
be shamanised. Some shamanism is designed to bring about specific
changes in the individual and this is usually performed during a special
ritual period, and other shamanism is designed to make things that
the individual will often be doing safe and beneficial. Thus, kana
fruits (Sabicea amazonensis) and mother’s milk are the first things to
be shamanised for a baby. The kana shamanism is a particular life-
giving act (see pp. 122, 125f), but the milk shamanism makes the suck¬
ing of milk safe thereafter. Neutralising danger and activating the
beneficial effects of substances are often combined in single shamanic
treatments. Before I describe the growth process, I should explain a
little more about food shamanism. My information on this is far from
complete and, in any case, I can only give a very general outline here.
A great deal more information on food restrictions and the associated
ideology is contained in Langdon (1975). I discuss the series of foods
in more detail in chapter 6.
Most of the potential dangers from foods derive ultimately from
the mythical events in which various animals, plants and items of pro¬
ductive equipment figure. The danger comes not only from the nature
of the raw materials but also from the productive processes of catch-
118
The beginning of life

ing, killing, cutting, tying, burning, cooking, sieving etc. It may also
come from the sex and the life-cycle state of the producers, and like¬
wise the danger may apply differentially according to the sex and life-
cycle state of the consumer. When an individual eats something or
uses an object, he or she is not simply consuming the finished article,
but is also absorbing powers associated with an entire process and all
the social and physical relations involved in it. This view leads to a
series of analogies between processes of production, patterns of con¬
sumption and processes of digestion, some of which will be set out in
later chapters; it is also associated, not surprisingly, with a theory of
the body which places extreme value on the regulation of exits and
entrances. All I am able to do here is to summarise this view of the
body and give a few illustrative examples.
Dangers to the body are best explained by imagining the body as a
vessel with special orifices through which foods, excreta, smells,
sounds, breath and visual images should all go in or out in a regular
and controlled manner. The outer covering of this vessel has differen¬
tial permeability depending on context, so that some creatures and
shamans can see through to the soul, and sometimes the covering
opens up in sores and so on. Permeability of the skin and opening of
the orifices is good in as much as good things go in and bad things go
out, but it is bad in as much as bad things go in and good things are
lost. Of course, the chances are that whether the orifices are open or
closed the bad effect will come along with the good; this is prevented
(a) by the regular alternation of opening and closing, a kind of
dynamic moderation, and (b), by shamanism. I do not intend to pre¬
sent the evidence in support of this theory of the body here because
it would mean duplication of much material that is presented else¬
where in this book.
Illness gets into the body from the opening of the skin and orifices,
and, correspondingly, it tends to show itself in malfunctioning of the
skin and orifices. Stephen Hugh-Jones has shown, for instance, that
when initiates are ritually opened up they are prone to a type of ill¬
ness in which the body literally drains away through the excessively
open anus (1979 : 198ff). There are other ways in which illness is a
repetition of events which precede it: some foods can introduce items
of material equipment used in their production into the body and
these implements attack the internal organs. Thus, if boiled manioc-
starch drink is drunk on the wrong occasion (when the individual is
‘too open’), the stick that was used to stir it will stir up the usu of the
119
The life-cycle
drinker. Again, there is a significant category of foods described as
‘grease-filling’. These are fatty foods, but more important seems to
be the fact that they exude grease while cooking. When the individual
eats these foods he or she is ‘filled with grease’ and then jaguars and
snakes magically see the grease and perceive the eater as ‘edible game’.
Thus, the food exudes grease while cooking and then the consumer
exudes grease after eating. These examples illustrate the general prin¬
ciple that relations and processes outside the body can be transferred
to the body itself.
It is just such a transfer that is made through shamanism of food.
The shaman blows spells into a small sample of ready-prepared food
and sends away the illness-causing agents associated with all the foods
in the category his sample represents. Thus, if the category is ‘large
fish’ he has to mention and deal with every sort of large fish. The
client eats the food and is protected, so that he may eat any member
of the category in future (until his ritual state undergoes change). The
illness-causing agents are not sent away altogether; they are just sent
away from those who eat the sample which has been shamanised.
Thus, the effects of the shamanic process are transferred to the
body of the consumer (see fig. 13).
The new-born baby is utterly dependent on its mother for milk
and general care; it has orifices which are small, undeveloped and un¬
controlled. It sucks, sleeps, cries, defecates and urinates at irregular
and short intervals. As it grows, it learns to control its orifices: crying
gives way to speech — but here another form of control must be
shown for the child must speak its father’s language and not its
mother’s — frequent sucking gives way to more regular patterns of
eating and fasting and, at the same time, more ‘advanced’ things are
eaten; frequent excretion gives way to control of bowel and bladder
and at the same time the child must go outside to excrete; sleeping is
gradually regulated until it is co-ordinated with the day-and-night
rhythm of longhouse life. In these ways, the child is gaining self-
control and independence from the mother. As a result of these
changes, it is able to form social relations with other members of the
community. It does this through the simultaneous regulation and en¬
larging of its orifices. In a sense, the two processes are naturally bound
together, for larger orifices can let more in and out at once and thus
can be shut for longer. Although the developing child comes to abide
by the periodicity of longhouse life, as long as it is only a consumer,
filling its waking intervals with play instead of productive activity,
120
The beginning of life

a ACT OF SHAMANISM

<0
oc
0.
o

b RESULTS
OF SHAMANISM

VA
6.
o>
©

Fig. 13 Transference of shamanic activity to body of client

121
The life-cycle

the integration is only partial. As in most societies, girls change faster

and earlier than boys in this respect. The latter go through an abrupt
change at initiation.
These bodily changes are ones of natural ability, but the new
powers are socially guided so that the right language is spoken, and
the right times and places are learnt for each activity. But they are
socially guided in another way by shamanism. The new-born child is
taken through a cumulative series of foods of increasing danger until
it reaches a mixed and adult diet. This is the series that is repeated in
the same or more condensed form after each ritual rebirth but, in the
case of the new-born baby, the time-span between members of the
series is longer than on any subsequent occasion. A condensed form
consists of fewer categories, because one particularly important cat¬
egory may be taken to represent a number of consecutive ones. The
nature of the myths, the productive processes, variety of raw materials
and types of natural growth which are relevant to the construction of
this series lead to a vastly complicated and cross-cutting system, but
nevertheless there is a gross pattern to the system which contains the
following relations:
less dangerous.more dangerous
small vegetable particles. large animals
below ground . . . . above ground water. land
roots.fruits, stems, leaves small fish .. large mammals
These relations have also been pointed out by Stephen Hugh-Jones
(1979 : 93) and will be the subject of more detailed analysis in chap¬
ter 6.
At the very beginning of the child’s life, milk and kana are shaman-
ised. The function of milk shamanism needs little explanation. Kana
fruits, which are like small, soft, sweet-tasting pink gooseberries, are
extremely important ritually and are certainly polysemic as life-giving
symbols. Here, I would stress first, their ritual name as ‘Sun’s eyes’
and secondly, the fact that they are supposed to cause white-eyed
babies if eaten in pregnancy. The Sun is the source of both light and
life and we may guess that much-desired white eyes are related to the
‘Sun’s eyes' and thus to lightness or clarity of vision. Since sucking
and seeing are among the most positive abilities of the new-born baby,
it is reasonable to suppose that shamanised kana opens up visual
experience in the same way that shamanised milk opens up alimen¬
tary experience. In support of this, I might add that the next time
young boys take shamanised kana is when they see Yurupary instru-
122
The beginning of life

ments for the first time at initiation. When the weaning process
begins, the child is opened up ritually by the progression from small-
particles vegetable foods to the meat of large animals, whilst simul¬
taneously going through a two-phase growth process. In the first
phase, from underground roots to above-ground plant parts, which
starts and ends with products of manioc plants (p. 216), the child
completes a process of upward growth analogous to that of a manioc
plant; in the second phase, from small fish to large animals, it com¬
pletes a process of emergence from water to land. Land animals
(mammals and game birds) are called ‘old or mature fish’, wai bukura,
which confirms that the water—land change is indeed conceived of as
a development. We might also have deduced this fact from the pro¬
gression of the ancestral anacondas from Water Door to house sites.
According to the sexual division of labour, we may describe the first
phase as female and the second as male although, added together, the
two represent a gradual weakening dependence on females alone and
concurrent strengthening of dependence on a heterosexual productive
system. Therefore, at the same time as achieving an alimentary open¬
ing up of the child, the shamanism of the food series achieves a gradual
integration of the child, as consumer, into the socio-economic life of
the community. We shall see that the structured growth process
revealed by this very limited analysis of the food series is also con¬
tained in the sequence of events at birth.
It is clear that the positive benefit of the shamanism, as opposed to
the dispersal of danger, lies not so much in the individual acts, as in
the relations between the items in the whole series of acts which pro¬
mote a growth process. I believe that this is why people tend to
emphasise the dangers avoided rather than the positive benefits
bestowed when they mention isolated acts of food shamanism.
The development of the child is represented in fig. 14. Let us now
return to the events at birth which divide foetal development from
that of the living child.

Birth

Birth should take place in the manioc garden, the mother being
accompanied by an experienced woman but no men. After the birth,
the cord is cut and the placenta buried. The mother and child return
to the house, entering through a side door. Prior to their entry, bees¬
wax is burned and all household goods - ritual items, pots, coca equip-
123
 FOOD SHAMANISM

124
Fig. 14 Aspects of child development
The beginning of life

inent and so on - are moved onto the plaza to prevent contact with
the blood of birth which would injure those who use them later.
Mother, father and child are secluded in the compartment for several
days and both parents are restricted to a diet of ants and termites (of
specific varieties which live underground), cassava (manioc bread),
starch and water. At the end of seclusion, red paint is smeared on
wife, child and husband and, after the river has been made safe by
water shamanism, the three bathe at the port. The goods are removed
again while the family re-enter the house, which has been cleansed
with beeswax smoke. After their return, mother and father eat a meal
of small fish boiled with pepper. The seclusion foods and those eaten
afterwards must all be shamanised.
The parents should not have sexual intercourse until the child is
weaned, and the spacing of children suggests that the rule is generally
kept. Close spacing is regarded as ‘bad’ as well as extremely imprac¬
tical. Three years or more is the approved interval.3
Returning to the beginning, the baby is born in a female domain,
the manioc garden. The birthplace and the path leading from it to the
house are rihi rukuro and rihi ma (tukuro, land; mu, path): rihi- means
to whimper for maternal affection (ri, blood or flesh; hi-, to call) and
is related to the words for children, ria (blood- or flesh-ones) and river,
riaga (-ga: suffix for certain containing objects). One alternative name
for the birth path is ‘manioc-stick path’, a reference to the close
association between women’s procreative and manioc-cultivating
powers. Yet another is water-kana path, kana being the fruit already
mentioned in the context of birth shamanism. The significance of
kana is complex: besides being connected with sight, the little pink
fruits of kana are described as usua, souls or hearts, and kana evi¬
dently has a more general meaning in which birth is conceived of as a
river-crossing. Birth shamanism was first gained through a river¬
crossing, for it was originally obtained by Manioc-stick Anaconda
when, transformed into a tick, he clung on to Tapir shaman as he
crossed the river on the cosmological layer below the earth (see p.
261). The term ‘to cross a river’, kana-mo, perhaps relates this act to
the plant whose fruit gives life to the new-born baby.4

3 Breaking this rule brings harm to the existing child rather than to the parents. The harm is
in the form of mystical illness, and also in the direct damage caused by deprivation of the
mother’s milk and attention.
4 It is pertinent here that the kana plant itself has a stem that branches almost at right
angles thus: 'f' . Small portions of the stem are tied together to make three-pronged
painting sticks with which black paint is applied to the skin in basketry-like patterns (i.e.

125
The life-cycle
The womb is referred to as masa yuhiri wi and the exit as masa
yuhiri sohe, and these names of ‘peoples waking-up house’ and ‘door’
relate the female physiological birth process to the origins of social
groups from the east. The analogy between the journey from the
womb and the anaconda journey from the east is repeated in the
description of both the umbilical cord and the river system of the
earth as kana ma, life-giving paths. The river system of the earth is
actually described as a branching umbilical cord connecting Indian
longhouses, which are souls/hearts and also the fruits of the kana
plant, to the ancestral place of origin in the east.
Using these metaphorical links, we can now set out four analogous
processes as numbered in fig. 15. (1) The birth of the child from the
womb to the outside world, (2) the passage of the child from the
manioc garden to the social world within the longhouse, (3) the cre¬
ation of human descent groups by means of the ancestral anaconda
journeys from the east and (4) the growth of the kana plant from
underground roots to above-ground fruits. Each process has a starting
point and an end point connected by a path, and at either end of the
path is some mark of discontinuity such as a boundary or door.
However, so far we have not considered the physical tie between
mother and child - the umbilical cord - which as the source of foetal
nourishment and a kana ma is obviously of prime importance. If we
compare the physical entity composed of placenta, cord and foetus/
child with the processes already set out, we see from fig. 15 that the
placenta is clearly the starting point, since it begins by being attached
inside the womb and is the source of nourishment. In fact, the name
of the placenta ri saniro, ‘round enclosure of blood’ — likens its
shape to the round womb and the round manioc garden. The cord is
the ‘path’ and the foetus/child is the end point (5). However, immedi¬
ately after birth, the cord is severed and the placenta buried (6). The
continuous transformation represented by the path of nourishment is
abruptly severed by human intervention and, at the same time, the
position of the placenta with respect to the child is reversed for,
instead of being above, it is below. Now, in general, human growth is
upwards and thus the burial of the placenta artificially fills in the
ante-natal stage of human life, making foetal growth and childhood
development seem joined in a continuous process of upward growth
away from the earth and away from maternal origins. We shall see
weaving patterns). This suggests once more that kana is associated with right-angle cross¬
ings, which are the essence of weaving.

126
127
Fig. 15 Metaphors of birth
The life-cycle
that this conception of human life as a growth away from maternal
origins occurs in other forms also. At the same time, the burial of the
placenta serves to contrast the sudden and completed creative event
of birth, a downward movement, with the gradual, unfinished up¬
wards growth of new life. Seen in this way, childbirth occupies a
position of ‘sudden change’ between foetal and childhood growth
just as the severance of the cord does. In support of the metonymical
relationship between cord cutting and the entire childbirth process,
we may recall that the cord is a metaphorical nourishing river which
is cut across the flow, while birth shamanism has its mythical origins
in a river-crossing, too. Childhood growth which follows the severance
of the cord takes place in the family compartment and is shamanically
initiated by the administering of kana fruit, so that all the end terms
of the processes shown in fig. 15 are brought together in practice.
There is another property of kana which is highly significant here
and suggests a further theme of analysis. This is the cyclical nature of
plant growth, for while kana fruit is the end of one growth process,
the detached fruit is the beginning of another. In this way, the kana
fruit is analogous to both the sexual reproductive elements of semen
and female blood, which are at the same time products of one human
growth process and initiators of another. We have already seen that
the placenta is ‘planted’ in the ground and there is a sense in which
semen is also ‘planted’ in women, since there is evidently a meta¬
phorical link between the womb as the source of human life and the
earth as the source of plant life.
The nature of childbirth and the total exclusion of men, even in
the essentially ritual act of burying the placenta, together with the
location of the event in the manioc garden — a female domain — make
this a female occasion par excellence. This ‘natural’, female birth of
the child contrasts with the later seclusion and bathing which, I shall
argue, refer to the child’s family status.
A child that is unwelcome or still-born is buried immediately with¬
out making the journey to the house. Infanticide occurs in cases of
illegitimate children, when a child follows a run of children of the
same sex (especially if they are girls) or when relations between the
mother and father are strained. I believe such children are usually
buried alive, although it is possible that they are sometimes killed
first. In any case, the fate of the placenta is already reminiscent of
the fate of the dead, and the burial of unwanted babies in the manioc
garden merely brings home the parallel. At death, the body turns into
128
The beginning of life

rotten liquid and amalgamates with the earth; at birth, the placenta is
buried as it is about to rot so that the child is made to grow meta¬
phorically from rotten body liquid in the earth — the state to which
it will return at death.
If we are to include insemination in this upwards and downwards
cycle, then it is clearly a downwards movement which transfers semen
into the womb/earth from whence the foetus grows upwards, emerg¬
ing from the womb/earth at birth. In this respect, insemination is like
death — a fact recorded in the myth about the origin of cultivation of
coca, when the hero dies on the point of ejaculation and then grows
upwards as coca plants (p. 212). Besides, we shall see that, in as
much as insemination renews the body of the father in the child, it is
a kind of death of the father because it marks the end of a generation-
span (p. 164).
The burials in the manioc garden by women, and in the house by
men, correspond to the natural quality of the new-born baby and the
social quality of the person who dies later in life. Nevertheless, analysis
of part of the Live Woman myth (p. Ill, analysed on p. 187) will
show that, after a death, it is actually the weeping of women that
makes the body rot. This means that, in one sense, we may say that
women control the natural growth and decay of the body — a con¬
clusion which fits the male—female association of the soul—body
dichotomy. However, although the entire life-cycle has a female
aspect associated with the physical body and a male aspect associated
with the soul, from another perspective it is the underground phase,
during which there are natural decay and natural origins of life, which
is female, and the socially controlled above-ground phase which is
male. The growth from a female, underground domain to a male,
above-ground one is confirmed by the shared root in umua-, to be tall
or on high (e.g. Umuari Masa, Sky People) and umu, man. The same
low/female : high/male opposition which provides the poles of indi¬
vidual growth also differentiates between grown members of the
opposite sexes, for women sleep below men, sit closer to the ground,
exploit low natural resources and so on. The life-cycle of the body
with its male—female polarity is represented in fig. 16.
' While it is typical of Indian thought that there is a male—female
polarisation within the life-cycle of the individual of either sex, this
notion does present a problem. After the discussion of initiation, it
will become obvious that boys do grow away from their mothers into
a male adult world, but that girls remain in the female domain of
129
The life-cycle

ABOVE GROUND cT
etc.
birth

birth

UNDERGROUND
9

Fig. 16 Life-cycle of the body

130
The beginning of life

another longhouse on marriage. Girls move away from their mothers

by developing female reproductive and productive powers equivalent
to those oftheir mothers. However, the change from female child to
female adult does bring with it the ability to make direct sexual and
economic partnerships with men, and thus the girls’ growth towards
a ‘male’ maturity may be understood as a growth towards a comple¬
mentary relationship with adult men. This complementarity is per¬
fectly well represented by the gradual introduction of male-produced
foods into the diet.
At childbirth, it is notable that mother, father and child are
secluded together and bathe together afterwards. Back in the house,
the mother and father share a meal of shamanised pepper and fish,
but the baby remains on its milk diet. Although the mother has been
released from the seclusion restrictions, she still retains a dietetic link
with the baby, for she moves through the series of dangerous foods
that must be shamanised much slower than the father, for fear of
passing these foods to the child in her milk. The same pattern occurs
with physical contact for, after the joint seclusion in the family com¬
partment, the father resumes normal male social life which takes place
in the centre front of the house, while the baby accompanies the
mother in her female existence towards the periphery of the house.
These are strong indications that the seclusion is concerned with
physical identification of the three and is contrasted with the later
physiological tie between mother and child which excludes the father.
If the father breaks the restrictions of the seclusion period, he is much
more likely to harm the child than himself, although some particular
dangers apply to him too. The fact that the harm to the child stems
directly from his actions and does not require intention on his part is
further evidence of the physical identification of the two.s This direct
suffering of mystical consequences because of a breach of restrictions
(a manifestation of lack of self-control) normally reflects on the per¬
son who commits the ritual offence, and therefore it implies a uni¬
fied self interacting with an external world. If father and child are
considered to be linked in a manner analogous to the linkage between

5 This may be compared with evidence from the Ge tribes of Central Brazil, which shows
that members of nuclear families are believed to transmit illness to one another automati¬
cally. Both T. Turner for the Kayapd (n.d.) and C. Crocker for the Bororo (1977) consider
that this demonstrates the physiological unity of the family group. Among Pird-parand
peoples, the analogous physiological unity is fleeting because it gives way to relations in
which illness is transferred by non-automatic means such as shamanism, contamination
wifh dangerous foods and so on.

131
The life-cycle
the actions and their consequences of a single being, we may take this
as evidence that the father (representing action) is in the act of trans¬
ferring his substance to the child (who represents consequences). The
natural process which actually achieved this transference was the filling
up’ by repeated insemination and so, amongst other things, seclusion
is a reference to the father’s physical contribution to the child. The
unity of father, mother and child represents the physical conjunction
of the three elements — penis, womb and incipient child (semen). I
give further evidence later from an analysis of the seclusion diet, that
seclusion constitutes a kind of reenactment of pregnancy (or, more
generally, the state intermediate between death and birth), in which
particular aspects of female sexuality are eliminated. In this way, the
development of the child before birth is brought under conscious,
shamanic control and removed from the hidden, involuntary control
of women’s natural procreative powers.
However, the replication of the father’s body in the child is not the
only reason for the seclusion. Indians say that the mother should be
secluded anyway on account of the loss of contaminating blood, and
we may guess that the child should be secluded because it has passed
from death to life and from contact with female blood in the womb
to a relative independent existence outside. In fact, the association of
seclusion with the actual birth process is reflected in the threat of
‘Taking-in People’, which affects mother and child more than the
father (p. 267). The seclusion is therefore concerned with a number
of concurrent transformations: I return to that aspect of it which
concerns female renewal and the loss of blood when I discuss
menstruation.
The seclusion after childbirth, like other ritual seclusions, ends
with a ritual bathe followed by a resumption of normal life. The
removal of household goods after the ritual bathe makes it an obvious
repetition of the original journey of mother and child into the house
after the birth. This ‘second birth’ from the river recalls the emerg¬
ence of the ancestral groups from the river at the first house sites. We
have already seen that the identification of the womb (people’s
waking-up house) with group origins implies an analogy between
natural childbirth and the origin of descent groups. The progress from
manioc garden to house and the progress from river to house repre¬
sent the separate terms of this analogy. If we now summarise the
whole process from manioc garden to incorporation into the normal
communal life of the longhouse, we see that a natural mother—child
132
The beginning of life

tie (birth in manioc garden) is followed by the addition of the

paternal tie which decides the child’s social identity (seclusion of
family unit) and then by the rebirth of the child and parents
(entrance after bathe). There are two important features of this over¬
all process to notice: the first is that the child is bom from the ground
and then reborn from the river so that the birth process has exactly
the same structure as the shamanic food series which controls subse¬
quent growth, and the second is that the family relations between
father, mother and child established during seclusion stand midway
between the natural mother—child tie and the future incorporation
of the child into the local descent group through naming.

Naming

So far, I have concentrated on contributions to the living body rather

than the soul, although we have seen that the separation of body and
soul is carried over into the relation between the sexual contributions
to the body: female blood and semen. Naming is the occasion when
the child receives soul in a pure and non-concrete form. All my evi¬
dence suggests that naming is distinct from the seclusion and I do
not believe it ever happens during that period. Nevertheless, Indians
say a baby should be named within a few days of birth, for otherwise
it would not live. The ethnography suggests that the interval between
birth and naming varies considerably over the Vaupes as a whole.6
A baby should be named after a dead patrilineal relative of the sec¬
ond ascending generation and appropriate sex, so that a boy should
be called after his paternal grandfather (or FFB) and a girl after her
father’s father’s sister. This name is a ‘shamanic-name’ (baseri wame)
because it is transferred shamanically, with red paint and milk acting
as the vehicle.7 The naming also ‘changes over the soul’, usu-wasoa-,
of the dead ancestor into the child so that this soul is prevented from

6 Koch-Grunberg on Tuyuka (1909/10 : 313): after bathing rite. McGovern on Taiwano

(1927 : 252): third day after bathing. Bruzzi da Silva on Brazilian Vaupes region (1962 :
429), Reichel-Dolmatoff on Desana (1971 : 140), Stradelli on Vaup6s in general (1928/9 :
537): after three years. Goldman on Cubeo (1963 : 171): after one year. I never wit¬
nessed the whole sequence of events after birth but the isolated events I did see while
travelling suggested that the seclusion is not observed as strictly as it might be, at least
not after the birth of a third or subsequent child.
7 Men usually have a joke-name (ahari wame) as well. Both men and women also have
Spanish names; these are called gawa wame, white-people’s names. Joke-names, and some
of the common Spanish names, are linked to shamanic-names, so that separate individuals
may have all three names in common.

133
The life-cycle
‘disappearing’. The important thing about the soul is that it belonged
to the recently dead — ‘three years’ was the interval after death given
by one informant. It is quite clear that naming anchors the child to
the local descent group by establishing its patrilineal kinship to other
members with reference to a recently dead member. Naming there¬
fore completes the tripartite series of mother child tie, family ties,
local descent-group ties. It is the latter that articulate the community
as a whole.
This is the point at which to summarise the more definite manifes¬
tations of soul. First, there is the division between the body liquid
and the bone. The bone, because it is filled with semen, which is a
manifestation of father’s soul, is linked with soul, but, nevertheless,
it is also firmly attached to the flesh, and the pair are opposed to the
soul in the grave. Next, there are heart and lungs, both ‘soul’ (p. 112),
both part of the fleshy ‘liquid’ body substance and yet differentiated
as receptacles of blood and air respectively. They must both be in
working order at birth, for Indians recognise that a live baby breathes
air and has a beating heart. Together, these are the most female mani¬
festations of soul, but, taken separately, they are opposed as blood to
breath or body to soul. After death they rot with the liquid parts
before the bones.8 The name is substanceless but endures better than
soft organs and even bone, since it comes back to the world of the
living. We also have good evidence to suppose that the ‘liquid’ is
female and associated with the mother’s contribution to the foetus,
while the bone is male and associated with the father’s contribution;
the name is patrilineal and comes from the second ascending gener¬
ation but belongs to a set distinguished by sex. The soul of the indi¬
vidual thus has a one-generational and a two-generational cycle. The
‘one-generation’ soul rots, which does not matter for it has been
passed on to a child during its foetal development, but the ‘two-
generation’ soul is kept for the patrilineal descent line (see fig. 17).

Menstruation

The practice

At the onset of her first menstruation, the girl is secluded in a

8 Although I have no direct evidence that the lungs last longer than the heart, it is tempting to
regard the floating ritual goods, the soul of the rotting corpse in the Underworld river, as the
lungs. Animals are normally gutted into the river and the lungs float downstream attached

134
Menstruation

HEART LUNGS
(blood) (air)
• l
l l
i I
• I
! !
SOFT ORGANS BONE NAME
(SEMEN)

ROTS FIRST ROTS SECOND DOES NOT ROT

(J ELEMENT 0* ELEMENT efeQ ELEMENTS

FROM MOTHER FROM FATHER FROM FF6-FFZ

1ST ASCENDING GENERATION GIFTS 2ND ASCENDING

OF BODY SUBSTANCE GENERATION GIPT OF
SuBSTANCELESS SOUL

Fig. 17 Elements of the soul

screened-off portion of her family compartment designed to protect

her from fire. She observes the starch cassava, ant and termite
diet typical of seclusion periods. If they are available she eats umari
fruits. She keeps many other restrictions, such as avoiding her ham¬
mock, mirrors and other objects besides. Her seclusion ends in a
ritual bathe accompanied by vomiting and, like a woman after child¬
birth, she enters the house by a side door after the household goods
have been removed and beeswax has been burned. Ideally, the period
of seclusion lasts five or more days. During the seclusion, the girl has
her hair cut close to her head by an older woman. Thereafter it is
allowed to grow much longer than before, but only married women
or those well past the menarche have fully grown hair.
Various shamanic acts are performed for the girl: the most import¬
ant are the treatment of seclusion foods and then the series of crops,
fish and meat which is also treated for the new child. Pepper shaman-

to the submerged remainder. Besides, the lungs, in contact with the air, suggest continued
breathing and thus an affinity with life rather than death. The theme of floating lungs as
mediators between water and air and also between death and life also appears in the key
myth of Mythologiques I (Ldvi-Strauss 1964).

135
The life-cycle
ism, which occurs at the end of seclusion, is the most significant point
in the series.9
For subsequent menstrual periods a weaker version of the same
procedure is followed. The girl is secluded in the family compartment
and eats the minimal diet (although ordinary cassava may be substi¬
tuted for starch) for one to three days. She returns to the normal diet
after bathing, vomiting and eating shamanised foods. The series is
reduced to its essential elements - in an extreme case fish cooked
with pepper stands for the entire cumulative series. Menstrual restric¬
tions are less marked as life progresses but, whatever her age, a men¬
struating woman does not cook for others or do any manioc work for
at least a day.

The nature of the menstruating woman

The terms I heard for menstruating women were as follows:

guabeko, (the one who is) not going bathing

bedigo, keeping ritual restrictions
ngamo huyago, sitting as a female who has reached the menarche
kerea soego, singeing sloth
kerea soe-bago, singeing and eating sloth
nyama sesogo, smoking deer
hetaga ma keo-soego, clearing and burning the path to the port
ngunanya roago, boiling up leaves of cariauru (Bignonia chica) for red paint

The references to avoiding bathing, keeping restrictions and sitting

describe her state literally. Bedi- is very probably related to bedi,
bedeo, younger brother, younger sister, who are therefore ‘forbidden
ones’ (see p. 219). Nagmo means specifically ‘one who has reached
the menarche’, but more generally it means ‘free female partner’. A
boy initiate is ngamu, ‘free male partner’, and the root ngam- means
‘to reciprocate’ or ‘to do in both directions’, for instance, ‘to fight
each other’ is ngameri sia. The other references suggest a variety of
associations between menstrual blood and fire and another between
menstrual blood and red paint. The burning of the port path links
the path from river to house with the vagina, a metaphor which is
9 I do not know whether pepper shamanism is as crucial in the childhood series as it is after
menstruation and initiation, when it marks the end of seclusion. Since (a) no special child¬
hood pepper rite was mentioned and (b) the child is not leaving seclusion at the time it first
eats pepper. I assume that pepper is more significant as an agent of transition in later life.

136
Menstruation

consistent with the previous metaphorical link at birth between

womb and vagina and ancestral origins from the river.

Menstruation in myth

Various myths about Romu Kumu, the female creatress, are essential
to an understanding of menstruation. Here I give extremely condensed
excerpts, because the mythology relating to menstruation and male
initiation has been dealt with in detail by Stephen Hugh-Jones (1979).
(1) Romi Kumu lives up in the sky and is the first grandmother of us
all; she is immortal because she has the sacred beeswax (werea) gourd
with her. She grows old during the day, bathes at dawn and becomes
young and white again. She also renews her red face paint, urucu
(musa \Bixa orellana, used exclusively by women), and takes off a
layer of skin with the old paint. This paint is her menstrual blood.
Her name means ‘Woman Shaman’ but she is like a man.
(2) She tried to initiate the ancestral people with shamanised sub¬
stance in a gourd. They refused the substance, saying it was bitter and
stank of her vagina. She hid this powerful gourd behind her in anger,
and snakes, spiders and white people stole it, hence their skin-changing
powers (and the clothes of whites). The ancestral people pursued her
and got a second-best gourd: that is why Indians are mortal.
(3) She was Poison Anaconda’s daughter. She stole the Yurupary
instruments from the port and played them at dawn when her brothers
were too lazy to get up and bathe. While she had them, men were like
women — they menstruated and worked manioc. The men pursued
her, retrieved the Yurupary, and punished her by making her men¬
struate — that is the origin of female menstruation.
(4) She had fire in her vagina. In order to obtain it from her jealous
guard, her grandchildren asked her to singe a game animal for them.
She squatted over urucu sticks to light them and, as they caught fire,
the grandchildren stole them away. That is the origin of domestic
fire.
(5) She was a monstrous, sexually voracious woman with fish-poison
for pubic hair. She raped Warimi, who was in the form of a bumble¬
bee, and took him to her father, Poison Anaconda. Warimi got inside
Poison Anaconda’s body and stole his gall-bladder to make curare.
While he was boiling it up snakes, spiders, etc. stole it: that is the
origin of their poison.

137
The life-cycle
The myths link menstruation to the shedding of outer skin, bathing
and the powers of the beeswax gourd. They also link menstrual blood,
red paint and fire. They give menstrual blood, which comes from
women’s wombs, a male counterpart in the poison which comes from
a man’s liver. They also show that Yurupary and menstruation serve
to differentiate the sexes.
With reference to fig. 18, the progression (2), (3), (5) is particu¬
larly concerned with the loss of shamanic power to men. In (2), Romi
Kumu has shamanism in her body and the ancestral people depend
upon this. The shamanism, in its form outside her body, is the bees¬
wax gourd for which she is successfully pursued by the ancestors. In
(3), the ancestors have become Yurupary instruments (which bear the
names of the ancestors in (2) today). The instruments are now the
object of pursuit and theft, while menstruation — a transformation of
Romi Kumu’s immortality — is a punishment. Romi Kumu is an
underhand thief who steals when no one is looking. She is like the
snakes and spiders in (2). In (5), she is worse still; her shamanism
which became menstruation has now become a dangerous sexual
appetite. It is Warimi who has shamanic power; he is a creature of
‘pure soul’ (hence his transformation into a bumble-bee — see p. 110)
and can enter the bodies of Romi Kumu and Poison Anaconda.10
Thus, in the series, shamanism is removed from women and attached
to Yurupary instruments which are opposed to menstruation. Men¬
struation is like poison. However, the true poisons belong to Poison
Anaconda and Romi Kumu as parts of their bodies: curare, used to
kill game animals, is removed from the body of Poison Anaconda by
a person of pure soul and it therefore attains an independent existence
(like a soul). Fish-poison remains part of Romi Kumu's body. From
these myths we may draw a set of creative relations which are
already familiar: body : soul :: women : men. To these may be added
another pair — fish : game animals — on account of the final owner¬
ship of poisons. The female—male relationship between these two has
already been demonstrated (a) in the relationship of Yawira (fish) to

10 There are many reasons for calling Warimi ‘pure soul’ besides his transformation into a
bumble-bee. One of his names is Ruhtt Mangu, One without Body. He was the product of
incest, and instead of his mother releasing him from her womb, jaguars released him by
eating her up. He had a second gestation in the river and thus the normal opposition be¬
tween male and female elements were not present in either his conception or birth. The
female element was ‘too male’. Besides this, he had no substance or fixed bodily form —
he could escape through the narrowest basket-weave and he could change into all kinds of
creature. For the story of Warimi'% life, see Stephen Hugh-Jones (1979 : M.4.).

138
Menstruation

Yeba (land animal) and (b) in their relative positions in the shamanic-
food series.

Menstruation in the life-cycle

Menstrual blood is retained in the womb as if by a dam and then

MYTHICAL
EPISODE

2 5 KIN "CHANGING snamamism ANCESTORS

LOSS OF CREATIVITY
GOURD
TO MEN

poison
AWACONDA

3 MENSTRUATION —" --VURUPARY

INEFFECTUAL INSTRUMENTS
EXCHANGE OF
MENSTRUATION
6- HE INSTRUMENTS

POISON
ANACONDA'S LIVER (CURARE)

5
WAR! Ml
GETS
POISON

ROM/ KUMU & WAR! Ml ,

PUBIC HAIR (PURE SOUL)
(FISH - POISON)

BODY SOUL
{ROM! KUMU) (male ancestors)

Fig. 18 Loss of Romi Kumu's spiritual power

139
The life-cycle

released. The process of release is described as skin-shedding (and this

exegesis is backed by myth as we saw), and thus loss of old, decaying
skin/blood allows the regrowth of new. It can be appreciated immedi¬
ately that menstrual growth and decay are ambiguously related in the
same way as life and death. While life and growth are positive and
death and decay are negative, it is the completion of the negative
phase that enables the positive phase to follow. The menstrual cycle
is regarded as the source of women’s life-force (katise); it makes
them live longer than men and recover from illness more readily. The
growth of new menstrual blood, the retentive phase of the cycle, is
also associated with the growth of the foetus in the womb, since
Indians recognise that retention of the foetus is marked by absence
of menstrual flow. The removal of household goods (twice at birth
and once at first menstruation) to avoid contamination from female
blood identifies menstrual blood with the blood accompanying birth.
All this means that women’s reproductive powers are governed by
two analogous physiological time-scales. There is a short one con¬
cerned with the menstrual cycle and a long one concerned with preg¬
nancy and birth. While the first is a true repetitive cycle, the second
is only partly so. Pregnancy does not follow birth immediately and
each pregnancy is unique, because it creates a unique individual with
a unique birth position amongst its siblings. However, pregnancy is
separated from previous birth by the prohibition on sexual inter¬
course during the period of breast-feeding, so although pregnancy and
birth do not make a repetitive cycle, pregnancy and birth-plus-
lactation do.11 If all goes well, pregnancy should follow weaning with
minimum interruption of the shorter menstrual cycle. This pattern
accords with the alternation of closed and open (or retention and
loss) which characterises the menstrual cycle, but it is important to
remember that once the child is bom, its mother’s loss of milk is the
child’s gain of growth. While it is in the womb, mother and child
grow at the same time. Thus, the female physiological cycles may be
brought together in one diagram (fig. 19). With the help of this model
we can see why first menstruation should be practically treated in
much the same way as birth and, conversely, why successive births
should be less dangerous than the first one or two. This is explained

11 In a myth about the origin of the Oa Sana (Opossum Tatyuo - a Tatyuo sib, see appendix
1), it is said that the Opossum-child did not suck its mother’s milk and that this was why
the mother bore a whole succession of children with no spacing between births. This state¬
ment implies a recognition of the contraceptive effect of breast-feeding.

140
 KEY TO <3E NE A LOG I CAL RELATIONS O = GENERATION 1

141
2
1-
z

©
CC
UJ
UJ
<
o

Z
of
<
2

©
UJ
1-
O

UJ
<0

2
©
Ui
<
I-
O

ct
2
JJ
w

uj rO
o v\

Fig. 19 Continuity of female generations

The life-cycle

by the safety of regular, established cycles. Where ritual dangers are

particularly linked to childbirth, ‘women who have three live chil¬
dren’ are not expected to be as careful as others.

Male initiation (He wi)

Initiation ceremonies12 should be held in March or April when the

setting of the Pleiades on the western horizon at dusk heralds the
focal point of the annual cycle - the end of the main dry season and
beginning of the main rains. Ceremonies are arranged when a small
group of boys, not necessarily from the same longhouse, are thought
mature enough to endure the ceremony and keep the appropriate
restrictions faithfully. Ceremonies of the same basic form, also called
He wi (He House) may be held without initiates: in this case some of
the ritual elements described below are omitted.

The practice

The rite takes three days, beginning and ending in the evening.
Throughout this time the ritual safety of the entire community is in
the hands of two important shamans, who treat all the sacred sub¬
stances used during the rite and guide the participants back to a nor¬
mal diet afterwards. An expert chanter leads the chanting sessions.
Apart from the shamans and chanters, the male community divides
into initiates, young initiated men and elders — these groups are dif¬
ferentiated spatially, in the instruments they play, in the order they
receive shamanised substances and so on. Women and children
remain separated from the instruments throughout. They are either
shut into the back of the house by a screen or they remain in the
bush outside. Their opposition to the He instruments appears most
clearly and dynamically when the instruments are played alternately
round the outside and inside of the house and the women must
alternately huddle in the back of the house and rush out of the back
door.
The He instruments are brought up from the river, where they are
stored under water, at dusk. The initiates do not enter the ceremonies
until dusk the next day. On the first night, young men remain out¬
side on the plaza with the instruments while the elders chant inside.
12 Here, I draw extensively on Stephen Hugh-Jones’s account (1979), because I was
excluded from the rites along with other women.

142
Male initiation (He wi)

The instruments are brought in at dawn and during the day the par¬
ticipants receive red paint (ngunganya) and snuff (see p. 150); they
take a ritual bathe with the instruments and begin to drink the beer.
At dusk, the initiates, who have had their hair cut and their bodies
painted black all over by women, are carried in the house from the
plaza on the shoulders of elders. Once inside, they are given kana
berries to eat, sat in a foetal position and administered their first
ritual coca, puff on the ceremonial cigar and sip of yage. After that
they watch the instruments being paraded round. At midnight they
play the smallest flutes, walking slowly and crouching down so that
the ends almost touch the ground. Meanwhile, the elder in charge of
the initiates (their mason, see p. 145) burns beeswax from the ritual
gourd. This is the climax of the rite and the women should be hidden
in the forest for fear of smelling the aromatic smoke. Immediately
afterwards, two ancestral spirits. He watia, appear, represented by
elders playing a particular pair of flutes (Old Macaw) and dressed in
the fullest possible array of sacred regalia. Then the participants eat
coca from the gourd containing sacred beeswax (werea koa) and wipe
snuff behind their knees from another gourd (muno koa).
Next, the shaman whips all the participants in turn. As they
assemble for whipping, the participants make a mock battle-charge
brandishing staves (which represent poisoned spears). The whipping
promotes growth, strength and fierceness, and the imitation spearing
is a demonstration of the efficacy of the various elements of the rite
that are designed to make the participants aggressive. The imitation
spearing also occurs earlier together with the first serving of yage. In
addition, the He watia are teaching aggression and fearlessness to the
initiates.
Later, the initiates and young men paint each other with black
paint and following this, in the past, the initiates would have had the
He instruments played over their naked penises and then, in the nude,
they would play their short flutes.
Chanting and playing of He continue through the next day. That
night the participants are allowed to sleep for the first time since the
beginning of the rite. They lie on mats which are placed at the female
end of the house and which are covered in ta boti, the whitish grass
that carpets the sky where Romi Kuril lives. The male end must be
avoided because it is occupied by the visiting ancestors.
The next morning there is a ritual bathing, during which the
instruments are also immersed. The participants vomit to rid them-
143
The life-cycle

selves of He rima, ancestral poison, and before they enter the house
the women remove the food and goods onto the plaza. Ants, termites
and starch cassava are shamanically treated and thereafter these can
be eaten; however, the meals must be out on the plaza and the
initiates eat their cassava impaled on a twig of a ritual whip to avoid
heating it in their hands. After the shamanism, the instruments are
returned to the river and the initiates installed in a woven palm-leaf
enclosure constructed near the men’s door. This is only for night¬
time use, because the initiates should not enter the house in the day
while cooking-fires are alight. The screen shutting off the women is
now removed.
In the marginal period which follows, the initiates observe many
restrictions - they are bedira. They should bathe ancTvomit’early
every morning and avoid fast movement, greedy eating and high
positions (on hammocks or stools for instance). They keep to the
restricted diet with the serial addition of a few vegetable products,
including umari fruits. The cassava is made by an experienced woman
who should also keep restrictions for fear of contaminating the
initiates. They must avoid fire scrupulously because Female Fire-
Spears CHea Besuwu Romiri) might enter their penises and cause them
to have only female children in later life. Above all, they should avoid
women because the He in their bodies would make women die. Touch¬
ing women would transfer the He-filled body liquid to the woman, and
talking would transfer He in the form of an anaconda. It is specifically
said that this is like the danger of menstrual blood to a man. Of all
the forbidden foods, pepper presents the worst threat.
The marginal period has positive aspects, particularly learning
myths and learning skills in making baskets and ritual ornaments. In
the past the initiates were taught to use war weapons as well. Other
participants keep a milder form of the same restrictions — the degree
depends on the extent of their previous experience of He wi. The
shamanism of pepper, which ends the marginal period, is performed
after one month for the older participants but not for two months
for the initiates. For many purposes, those seeing He for the second
time are classed with initiates.
At the elders’ pepper-shamanism rite a He rika soria wi (Fruit
House: see S. Hugh-Jones, 1979) is held. The initiates bring unripe
assai-palm fruit (mihi, Euterpe oleracea) together with starch cassava
into the house. They throw pieces of starch cassava tied on bark-
cloth strings up into the roof where it hangs until the house is ‘white
144
Male initiation (He wi)

all over" and then they leave. They blow He instruments on the plaza,
while pepper is shamanised for the elders, and a dance including
women is held inside. Periodically, the elders come out and dance in
front of the initiates and then return to dance inside with the women.
At their own pepper-shamanism rite, held at a later date, the
initiates receive shamanised pepper mixed with coca and hot nyuka,
a manioc-juice drink. The next day the initiates are taken to gather
small fish from the traps they made__(and_set on a previous occasion).
Meanwhile, the enclosure is demolished and the initiates’ hammocks
put up in the central area of the house where they will now sleep
until they have married and set up their own family compartments.
On their return they take shamanised pepper (without the coca ad¬
mixture) and more hot nyuka and then the shamanised fish mixed
with manioc leaves. They bathe and vomit, then, painted in the black
basketry pattern used for ordinary dances and wearing feather crowns,
they enter the house with the other participants in He wi. The henyeri
kuti-, taking ceremonial partners, follows. The shamans call gahe masa
romiri and buhibana romiri, brothers’ daughters and brothers’ wives
and wives’ sisters (see appendix 2) to come and make the ‘shamanised-
ones’ beautiful because their ‘dirt’ — the black paint from He wi
has washed away. Women paint the participants from head to foot
with red paint (ngunanya) and present them with packets of the
paint. The men and boys reciprocate with the baskets they have
made, each addressing his partner as henyerio, female ceremonial
partner. After this there is a dance at which vast quantities of thick
starch cassava are distributed to all the men, women and children.
Again, the house is described as ‘all white’.
Although pepper shamanism is the turning point in the return to
normal diet, the remainder of the process is drawn out over many
months. The shaman refers to the initiate he has guided through He
wi and the subsequent rites as his biaga, pepper-one or renewed one
(bia, pepper; bia-, to return, repeat or renew). The relationship be¬
tween shaman and initiate is just one of a set of ritual relationships
created during He wi but, unfortunately, there is not the space to
analyse them here.

The He wi cycle

He wi is one of a number of types of communal ritual, all of which

involve chanting, dancing, drinking yage and drinking copious quan-
145
The life-cycle
tities of beer. Stephen Hugh-Jones (1979 : 33ff, lOOff) has described the
different categories of communal ritual, and, in particular, the relation
of He wi to He rika soria wi, tree-fruit taking-in house {He rika, tree-
fruit, may be literally translated as ancestor appendage). From an
analysis of the basic ritual sequences, he shows that the fruit ritual
(which he calls Fruit House) is a weaker form of He wi, a conclusion
which supports the Indian view of their relationship. At He rika soria
wi, large quantities of seasonal tree fruits are brought into the house
by initiated men playing He. The fruit is tipped out by the screen
which shuts the women and children out at the back. The day is
spent chanting, drinking and playing the He up and down, and
especially over the fruits. When the screen is removed, the men sit on
the plaza for a few moments while the women enter, and then the
night is spent dancing. The men are in ritual ornaments and the
women join in. The occasion encourages trees to fruit and is per¬
formed for a number of different fruits each year. Some elements of
He wi, such as whipping and imitating spearing, also appear in fruit
rituals. However, the ritual objects and plants used are less powerful
than those at He wi and the He themselves are described as bahi
kesoase, imitation — made by ordinary people at a later date instead
of being ancestral objects.
The other types of communal ritual are ceremonial food exchanges,
which usually take place between affinal groups, rituals to celebrate
the exchange of ritual goods, rituals to celebrate a newly felled cul¬
tivation or a newly built house and rituals simply held for their own
sake. All these are dances which do not have either playing of He or
exclusion of women, factors which set He wi and He rika soria wi
apart. These are also set apart because they are regulated by the
annual cycle of the natural world. He wi should be preceded by a
fruit ritual some months before and at least one other fruit ritual
immediately before. Then, after the first half of the initiates’ seclusion,
unripe fruit is brought in by the initiates as part of the extended He
wi rite (p. 144). He wi is timed according to the Pleiades and the
ripening of certain fruits and so, although it is not held every year,
we can regard it as the climax of an annual ritual cycle regulated by
stars and fruits. The relationships between rituals involving no He,
fruit rituals and He wi proper can be seen in fig. 20.
Without doubt. He wi is the most important ritual in Pira-parana
culture: it is also so long and complex that it is impossible to do jus¬
tice to it here. It is inevitable that my very condensed analysis makes
146
Male initiation (He wi)

use of many elements of Stephen Hugh-Jones’s interpretation, but

the focus here is different. By concentrating upon the life-cycle as a
whole rather than the rite itself, new aspects of He wi can be explored.

Changes that take place during He wi

(1) The initiates are removed from their childhood with their mothers
into a society of adult males of which they form the bottom layer.
They move from their family compartments to sleep in the centre of
the house. They form a cohesive group with other unmarried men
until they marry and set up new family units.
(2) Initiated men become more ritually experienced with each He
wi. They gradually move up: this movement is expressed in terms of
three age-based groups at He wi: initiates, young men and elders, and
in other ways by differences in ornament, in quantity of drug taken
and order of receiving shamanised things, etc. As well as partaking
more, experienced men fear the consequences less and keep the
restrictions less carefully. He wi is thus a cumulative experience.
(3) The initiates, and others, are made fierce and strong in warfare
by whipping, shamanised red paint, imitating spearing, the sight of
the He watia and so on. The young men who are not yet married are
most enthusiastic about imitating spearing. The initiates are also
made to grow by the whipping.
(4) The initiates’ potential role in sexual reproduction is stressed,
but the low position and small size of their flutes emphasises the new¬
ness and immaturity of their adult physiology. The flutes have a
phallic aspect (shown both in myth and in the rite itself where they
are blown over the boys’ naked penises) and by using them the boys
are opening their own penises. They are also making themselves
harder like the bones of the ancestors (He).
(5) The initiates are taught their role in the division of labour: they
provide their own fish, they contribute ritual goods to the communal
supply and they give basketry to women. The integration of initiates
into the male economiccommunity and the interdependence of this
with the female community are both stressed.
(6) The initiates are taught self-control, particularly control over j
their orifices. While they are being opened to the He world, they musf
be closed in various other respects - by keeping still and silent and
fasting. Other participants are even more open in keeping with their
greater ritual experience.
147
The life-cycle

(7) The initiates and others have their souls changed, usuwasoa-,
by the ritual. This counteracts the dwindling of energy during nor¬
mal life. The whole earth suffers from a running down of energy, and
holding He wi renews this too, and thus male energy and the energy
manifest in the natural environment are connected. The men are
sometimes said to ‘change liver’ (nyemeriti wasoa) as well as soul. The
red paint received before the initiates are brought in is put on their
belly-buttons to change their body liquid, too. Therefore, the exclu¬
sively male renewal extends to relatively liquid ‘female’ parts of the
body. In spite of the exclusion of women and children, these do
receive some of the shamanised samples, and in this way the life-
giving benefits of He wi extend beyond the participant men to the
remainder of society.

Metaphors of change: contact with the ancestral world

Indians say that when they participate in He wi they become people

of another layer (gahe tutiana) and underneath people (enyarokana),
and that this is like being dead. All the sacred objects used at He wi
are either manifestations of ancestors or else the very substances,
plants and so on that appear in myths about ancestral doings. The He
instruments themselves are individual ancestors who come alive when
they are taken from the river and brought to the house. Like the
participants they are made to take snuff, vomit water etc. At the same
time they are ancestral bones — part of a set of ancestral body parts
which are united at He wi to form the living ancestral being, Manioc-
stick Anaconda. When the ancestral world becomes alive, the living
world of the male community becomes dead. There is a thin line
separating metaphor and reality, for if the shamanism is inadequate
or if the restrictions are not kept properly, the living will really die.
The music of the He instruments is the ancestors calling the living to
die; the ancestors also send gifts of ‘Underworld fish’ from the east,
and those who dream they eat them, die.
Contact with the bone-ancestors is a more extreme form of the
contributions to the soul we have already set out. The father gives
the living bone, the dead grandfather gives the name and the ances¬
tors a soul-change (p. 134) which is repeated at intervals throughout
the adult life. Thus, as the individual gets older, the influence on his
soul comes from further back in the past. Since the smallest flutes
and trumpets used at He wi are not individually named ancestors, it
148
Male initiation ( He wi )

is not until a man becomes an elder that his contact with the very
first named ancestors is achieved.

Metaphors of change: rebirth

We have seen that when the ancestral world comes alive, the partici¬
pants become dead. For those who are already initiated, this is done
by applying black paint and then fetching He, playing them and
going through the ritual sequence. But initiates who have not known
the ancestral world before are ‘bom’ into it. They are taken from
their mothers, carried into the house (like the new-born baby — but
through the men’s door), put in a foetal position, given shamanised
kana before they see the He and then they see and blow the He.
Indians say that the instruments are like a female breast which adopts
the participants like new-born babies: they smell of milk; and yage,
which originated from inside the instruments, is ancestral milk, He
ohekoa. The adoptees of He are soft like babies and if they move
wrongly their bodies get deformed. People emphasise that the same
instruments adopted all their forefathers and therefore the ‘birth’
into a male society is actually a ‘birth’ into the greater society formed
by the continuity of living and dead generations stretching back to
the ancestors. This continuity is also extended to the unborn by
ensuring that the initiates themselves will be able to father children.
While the initiates are ‘bom’ before being adopted by the ances¬
tors, the older participants are adopted straight away and so we can
assume that once the community of men is joined, a regular period¬
icity between ancestral and normal life is established. In this way,
initiation is like first menstruation, which is also a first event fol¬
lowed by regular periodicity.

Metaphors of change: change through paint

Black paint is the colour of rottenness and death, and makes the
wearer dead. At the beginning of He wi the elders are painted solid
black up to their thighs and the young men to their waists. This
painting is done by men. The initiates are painted to their chins by
their mothers. We have seen that the disappearance of black paint
marks the initiates’ readiness for reintegration into heterosexual
society at the pepper-shamanism and henyerio rite. Indians say that
the wearing away of black paint or ‘dirt’ is a visible manifestation of
149
The life-cycle
the disappearance of He rinia, He poison. When this is complete, the
initiates are ready for red paint to be applied all over by women. How¬
ever, the initiate is also painted black a second time during He wi just
after the climax of the rite when he can be considered newly experi¬
enced. This fact is obviously important because it gives rise to a
permanent ritual relationship. The analysis of paint is far trom simple,
there being variables of occasion, part of the body, pattern, sex of
painter and painted; however, some relationships can be clarified in a
short space. Black painting on male bodies is indicative of the sacred¬
ness of the ritual occasion; red patterns on male faces are inversely
related to black paint, since they are most elaborate for the sociable
food-giving dances and absent at He wi (see tig. 20). At the food-
exchange dances there is more emphasis on the social contact between
affinal groups and between the sexes and less on ancestral power.
Thus, from the point of view of the living, black paint implies
separation and red paint social and sexual conjunction. If we consider
the painter, we see that mothers lose their sons, by painting them
black for initiation and, later on in the rite, the male community
asserts its communal contact with the ancestors (separation from the
living) when the boys and men paint each other black. When the
ancestral world has fully retreated, a woman — usually much closer in
age to the initiate than his mother - brings him back to a new, adult
heterosexual life. But there is another important event concerned
with paint at He wi; the putting of ancestral body liquid, in the form
of red paint, into the bodies of already initiated men — this happens
before the initiates arrive. We can contrast the initiate, who comes
straight from the female secular world and is born into the ancestral
world on his way to the adult male secular world, with the already
initiated who comes from the adult male secular world back to the
ancestral world. It is fitting that the latter should have their bodies
renewed instead of ‘bom’ for the first time. The manner of renewal
— the insertion of ancestral body liquid — is a male equivalent of the
female contribution of body liquid at birth. Indians say it is men¬
strual blood, but it is menstrual blood owned by men for refilling
men. It is opposed to the menstrual blood of women because women
are unable to retain it contact with it makes them menstruate and
so bleed to death. It is also opposed to female blood because it makes
people fierce and warlike - and so it is not merely blood of life, it is
blood of life for us and death for others’ (see pp. 266f). The structure
of He wi as it is shown by paint can now be summarised in diagram-
150
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151
 I

FEMALE ANCESTRAL MALE

SECULAR WORLD OF HE W SECULAR
WORLD WORLD

MALE CHILD ADULT MAN ADULT MAN

DEPENDS ON DEPENDS ON EXCHANGES £
MOTHER ANCESTORS COMMUNICATES
WITH ADULT
A WOMEN

BIRTH
o$i

BIRTH

MOTHER?''
PAINT
BLACK

— progression of single individual

-■>■— progression of other participants
# application of black, paint {we)

© explication of red paint {ngvnganya) ETC'

Fig. 21 Body paint in He wi cycle

152
Male initiation (He wi)
matic form. First, He wi is shown as an extreme form of ritual in fig.
20 (a point which has been made in a different way on p. 146) and
then He wi is shown in its relation to the male and female secular
worlds in fig. 21. Fig. 21 shows that all the significant categories of
people in his life experience paint the individual at He wi: the mother
he leaves, the "dead’ men he joins in the ancestral world, the ‘live’
women he joins in the adult secular world, then the repetitive cycles
set in and he is painted by the live men in the secular world, then
internally repainted by the dead ancestors in the ancestral world.
Finally, it should not escape us that the overall change from solid
black from the mother to solid red from the henyerio is an effective
skin-change since the red is applied when the black has worn off. The
black (we, Rubiaceae sp.) is a dye rather than a pigment and so, by the
time it has gone, a layer of skin has been lost.13 The skin-change
makes He wi a metaphorical menstruation (see p. 140) for which
women are responsible. Besides this, the identification of black paint
with ‘dirt’ makes bathing and black—red painting sequences analogous
forms of skin-changing. In fact, this could have been guessed before
from the daily renewal of Romi Kumu in the river. I do not intend to
go deeper into the role of bathing in the He wi ritual except to point
out that it serves the double function of changing the bather and
giving him contact with the ancestral origins (see discussion of birth).

The sacred instruments and female rites

The account of He wi allows us to develop the relationship already
derived from the myths about Romi Kumu — women : men ::
menstruation : He instruments. There is a parallel between the open¬
ing up of male penises by the playing of He instruments and the
opening of the female womb. This fits with an informant’s statement
that women see their hair as it falls to the front of their faces and this
is their He which makes them menstruate. Tom Langdon reports
that women dream of He immediately before their first blood appears
(1975). In diverse ways, women’s natural menstrual cycle is linked to
the concept of He and, conversely, He wi is linked to women’s men¬
strual cycle. We were told directly that He wi is like women’s men¬
struation, but that women really do menstruate while He wi is bahi
kesoase, imitation. This statement implies that both are forms of
13 This black dye is not genipa and it is very possible that when other Vaupds specialists refer
to use of ‘genipa’ they are mistaken.

153
The life-cycle
renewal repeated throughout a person’s adult life but that basically
menstruation occurs naturally, in spite of all the shamanism and ritual
that surrounds it, whereas He wi has to be socially contrived: unfor¬
tunately the ancestors do not come out of the river of their own
accord. This situation is related to the fact that the onset of menstru¬
ation is a sudden and obvious mark of female physiological maturity,
while male maturation has no equivalent focus.
Just as myth shows that male shamanic power came from Romi
Kumu's beeswax gourd, so the actual use of the gourd during He wi
appears as the source of male renewal (or initiation). The beeswax
gourd is even more sacred than the instruments themselves and is
kept secluded with the shamans. The climax of the He wi rites is the
coincidence of the burning beeswax from this gourd with the
initiates’ first attempt on the Yurupary instruments. In other words,
the sexual potency of the initiates is made to coincide with the
release of the contents of the female womb. After the appearance of
the He watia, which confirms that the living are now in maximum
contact with the ancestral world, the participants identify themselves
with female sexuality by actually eating from the gourd (they eat
coca impregnated with beeswax aroma). These actions bring male and
female sexual processes together so that the female opening (release
of beeswax) assumes joint responsibility with male opening, the see¬
ing at first and then the blowing of the instruments, for the change in
state of the initiates.
Blowing the instruments up and down the beeswax-filled house and
eating from the beeswax gourd can be regarded as acts of ritual ferti¬
lisation. Pira-parana Indians say that the house represents a womb,
and they also say ‘penis is eating’ as a joking metaphor for sexual
intercourse, so that this would be entirely consistent with their own
ideological forms. Sexual intercourse is a time when both men’s
penises and women’s vaginas are opened for the womb to receive the
seminal soul-stuff which will develop into a foetus. In He wi, as in the
joke, the fertilisation is reversed and the man is a mouth who eats the
contents of the womb instead of losing his own soul-stuff through the
penis. Therefore, during He wi, female sexual material is passed from
an ancestress, Romi Kumu, to the men, who have become identified
with ancestors for the purpose. Furthermore, the previous analysis of
the nature of shamanised samples showed that eating these samples
transfers processes outside the body to within it, and thus it could

154
Male initiation (He wi)

be said that the men are made to experience an opening which repeats
that of Romu Kumu (pp. 1190-
Although the ultimate creative power is allocated to female sexu¬
ality in the rite, real women are excluded. Even seeing them, let alone
touching them or having intercourse, is prohibited. The prohibition
protects men and women alike, for ancestral sexuality, whether male
or female, is dangerous to ordinary women, just as the sexuality of
these ordinary women is dangerous to the ‘ancestral’ men. By
possessing the beeswax gourd (amongst other things, including ances¬
tral red paint) the men appropriate the ultimate female powers of
sexual reproduction for themselves and so maintain their control over
women. This reminds us of one of the fundamental differences be¬
tween the menarcheal girl and the He wi community — while the girl
must voluntarily withdraw to the edge of the house, the He wi com¬
munity of men do not withdraw from the women, they send the
women away to the periphery.

The natural and social

We have seen the social character of He wi both in its ‘contrived’

occurrence and in the numbers of individuals involved. We have also
seen that the men are hierarchically divided both by broad age-based
categories and by ritual occupations such as shaman and chanter. By
differentiating between male social categories and integrating them
into a single occasion, He wi stresses the interdependence and co¬
operative character of male roles and groups. Menstrual seclusion, on
the other hand, sets individual women apart in an order which is
purely random from the social point of view. The only distinction is
between those who have reached the menarche and those who have
not (who are never secluded).
Although He wi is a social occasion in comparison to menstruation,
both are basically concerned with the physiological changes in the
individual and changes in the soul. The difference is in the fact that
male physiological change and the accompanying soul-change is
related to a change in social status, whereas the female one is not.
The menarcheal girl does not change sleeping place; she does not learn
particular skills; she does not leave the female secular domain and she
does not enter a social hierarchy.
The thoroughly natural character of menstruation and the semi-

155
The life-cycle
social character of male physiological maturity are demonstrated by
their concurrence with other cycles. He wi, together with fruit rites,
makes up an annual cycle controlled by the stars, the maturation of
the fruits themselves and the rhythm of wet and dry seasons. Men¬
struation obeys a monthly cycle and is thus related to changes in the
moon. The Cubeo make this explicit by saying that the moon copu¬
lates with a girl, bringing on first and subsequent menstrual periods
(Goldman 1963 : 180-1). Pira-parana mythology says the moon
copulates with menstruating women and that during an eclipse of the
moon, called the ‘dying moon’, the moon becomes a small red ball of
menstrual blood which comes to earth and fills the house and its
objects.
The annual cycle is of great economic significance and He wi occurs
at the point where the annual cycle renews itself. This is the change
from the long dry season to the long wet season. Rain is conceived of
as both a skin of the universe and also the menstrual blood, or some¬
times urine, of Romi Kumu, and thus He wi occurs at a time of cos¬
mic skin-change. This is consistent with the idea that He wi succeeds
in renewing the natural processes of the world. While He wi renews
the natural world as a whole and also the souls of its male inhabitants,
the fruit ceremonies renew particular species of fruit. Thus, the annual
ritual cycle in general is concerned with the maturation or renewal of
the natural products upon which man depends, and at the same time
with the maturation or renewal of men.
The renewal of women, being associated with the moon, is also
associated with the opposition between day and night. There is a
myth in which Sun and Moon quarrel about which shall ‘dry up the
vaginas of women’ and which shall be the night (S. Hugh-Jones
1979 : M.3). The benefits of the night are described as ‘water for
cooking and the rainy season’. We may conclude that the opposition
between day and night is linked to that between dry and wet. There¬
fore the menstrual cycle with its alternate phases of loss and retention
corresponds to both the daily cycle and the annual cycle. Now, we
have already seen that the annual cycle is the menstruation of Romi
Kumu. The daily cycle is also associated with the skin-change of Romi
Kumu because she bathes at dawn (p. 137). However, the daily cycle
has Underworld connotations too, because sleep is regarded as bad
and akin to death. Besides, Romi Kumu’s bathing at dawn recalls the
point in mythical progression at which she had already lost some of
her power, for she no longer had the beeswax gourd when she played
156
Male initiation (He wi)

the men’s He at the port at dawn. Remembering that ancestral

female sexuality is opposed to sexuality of ordinary women, we may
construct the following analogous set of relations:
waning moon — night — day wet season —
waxing moon dry season
menstrual cycle secular producing He wi and fruit
and consuming cycle ritual cycle
ordinary women ordinary women Romi Kumu and
and ordinary men male ancestors
Romi Kumu powerless Romi Kumu semi¬ Romi Kumu all-
powerful powerful
(losesHe, punished (loses gourd but (possesses
with menstruation) plays He at dawn beeswax gourd)
at port)

Now we can concentrate on the Moon, who is closest to ordinary

women.
(1) He copulates with his younger sister without revealing his identity
and makes her pregnant with Warimi who is ‘pure soul’.
(2) He comes down to earth and eats the bones of recently buried
men who copulated with menstruating women during their lifetime.
(3) He eats cooked agouti and swells and then goes hungry. This is
his waxing and waning.
He is associated with the Underworld. He swells by eating agouti,
an Underworld animal, or alternatively he satisfies hunger by eating
Underworld bones of the recently dead. This sinister activity is
mythically associated with copulating with menstruating women. He
also has incestuous sexual relations, and the lack of proper social dif¬
ferentiation between mother and father results in a child who is so
entirely ‘male’ that he lacks a proper body. It therefore seems that
the actions of the ancestral Moon have the common characteristic of
being ‘too natural’; they ignore the proper distinctions made by social
rules, bringing things together that should be separate: brother and
sister, penis and released menstrual blood, the living and Underworld
bones. The rules are that one must not commit incest, copulate with
menstruating women or contact the Underworld. There is no rule
prohibiting agouti as food (in spite of the Underworld associations)
but this is the weakest and ‘latest’ action of the Moon, since it is
what he does today instead of in ancestral times. Even so, meat is
last in the food series and thus meat-eating indicates a position fur-
157
The life-cycle

thest in time from He wi. If we take the action of the Moon to charac¬
terise the menstrual cycle as a whole, we may say it is ‘too natural’,
confusing women with the natural world and counteracting the prin¬
ciple that human blood should stay inside human bodies.
If this is excessive conjunction, then He wi is excessive separation,
for no women, no copulation and no food are allowed at all. In
ordinary life there is a balance: one can copulate with women from
other groups, one can copulate with women who are not menstruat¬
ing and one can eat a mixed diet of vegetables, fish and meat. If men¬
struation is a move away from this happy norm in one direction,
then He wi is a move in the other. In this respect, they are equal but
opposite: equal in their opposition to the norm but opposite in the
form that this opposition takes. However, it has often appeared that
menstruation and all things female are regarded as bad, while He wi
and all things male are good: thus. Underworld bones are bad and
ancestral bones are good; decay of the body is bad and life of the
soul is good and so on. This amounts to an assertion that social dis¬
tinctions are good, but negative, because they create a world in
which nothing can happen; everything is too far apart. A lack of
social distinctions is bad but it is positive in that anything can
happen because everything is too close together. A balanced world is
one in which there are social categories which are just the right dis¬
tance apart for ordered exchange between their members. I set out
some of the relations between menstruation, He wi and ordinary life
below. The first set emphasises the simple opposition of both male
and female events to ordinary life, while the second emphasises the
opposition of male and female events with ordinary life as an inter¬
mediate point. These are alternative ways of looking at the same
things.

Simple opposition of like extremes to normal life

female renewal ordinary life male renewal
separation from opposite cooperation with opposite separation from
sex sex opposite sex
no sexual relations sexual relations allowed no sexual relations
shamanised foods of ordinary diet shamanised foods
minimal diet of minimal diet

158
Summary of the life-cycle

Opposition of extremes
menstruation ordinary life He wi
woman alone men and women in men in large
small social groups social group
seclusion at edge sexes together in seclusion in centre
of house middle of house front of house
\
Moon’s meat diet mixed diet ancestors’ coca and
tobacco diet
Underworld bones people’s living bones ancestors’ bones
(rot) (endure for life-time)
Moon’s sex with sex with affine
sister
sex with menstruating sex with non¬
woman (in myth) menstruating woman

Summary of the life-cycle

*We may now summarise the life-cycle. The new-born child is com¬
posed of a maternal contribution (female blood/body liquid) and a
paternal contribution (semen/bone), and it soon receives a paternal
grandparent’s contribution (name/soul). Its growth to maturity is
conceived of as a growthaway from female origins towards male
destiny, but nevertheless it takes place within the female domain.
Growth is promoted by female food and male shamanism which (on
the whole) influence body and soul respcctively-Tt is both an open-
ing up of the senses and orifices and a gaining.oTeontrol over these.
The menarche for a girl and initiation for a boy mark a turning
point in this gradual growth, for they give way to repeated cycles of
renewal thereafter. In girls this is achieved through an internal skin-
change which is an involuntary fusion with the natural world. In
boys intakes place through a ritually induced soul-change, partially
modelled on the female creative c.vcle. which is achieved through
contact with the ancestral world. The major male soul-change takes
place at He wi, which is the climax of an annual cycle of fruit rituals.
The physiological turning point of first menstruation or first He wi
is the potential start of the process of conception, birth and growth
of the next generation. From the mother’s point of view, pregnancy,
birth and breast-feeding form a two-phase cycle which conforms to

159
 The life-cycle
the same structure as the menstrual cycle although it is more drawn
out in time and has a product — the child. Once the father’s physio¬
logical relationship with the child has been acknowledged during the
post-natal seclusion, he returns to his male domain from where he
contributes shamanism (if he is competent) and, later on, male-
produced foods.
At death the body rots in the Underworld while the soul is installed
in a new child. The rotting of the body completes a bodily cycle
begun by the growing of the child from the ground: the freeing of
the soul completes a soul-cycle begun by naming.
Although the male and female life-cycle have very much the same
basic StructureTcontinual growth followed by repeated.renewals)
when they are described in this way they are really very different,
because male ritual experience has a cumulative aspect as well as a
repetitive cme This means that men start growing or ‘changing up-
wards’in ^ritual sense in the second period of their lives which fol¬
lows the first period of childhood growth. Correspondingly, adult
—male-society is.differentiated by age to a much greater extent than
female society^!
So far, I have made no attempt to incorporate marriage into the
life-cycle apart from drawing a parallel between the position of the
warrior role in the set of five specialist roles and the position of
marriage in the life-cycle. Apart from this, marriage was described as
an event in another domain — that of kinship and intergroup relations.
Although there is a sense in which marriage obviously is a life-cycle
event, it is not ritualised like birth, menstruation, Yurupary rites and
death. The physiological possibility of a new generation has already
been ritually recognised in initiation and first menstrual rites per¬
formed for all individuals of all groups by the time marriage occurs.
In this context, we must therefore conclude that marriage is solely a
redistribution of female reproductive powers which makes the new
generation socially possible. Conversely, the menstrual and initiation
rites are full of physiological sexual references; the sanctions for their
rules are inability to give birth, inability to father sons and so on.
IT is considered,wrQnfl-to.iia.vesexual relations before these rites
have been performed; it is my impression tha_t boys do so less than
girls, because they are usually initiated before the question arises.
Boys approaching initiation are sometimes involved in homosexual
teasing which takes place in hammocks in public: this play is most
common between initiated but unmarried youths from separate
160
Perpetuation of Pira-parana society

Exogamous Groups. After initiation or first menstruation, it is com¬

mon for young people of both sexes to have illicit heterosexual affairs,
many of which are classified as incestuous. These affairs invariably
incur the disapproval of the girl’s parents. If an unmarried girl bears a
child it is almost always killed at birth.
AlthoughJ/e wi and the onset of menstruation release the sexual
powers of individuals, they in no way determine whom these indi¬
viduals should marry. As we have seen, that is taken care of by rules
phrased in terms of descent-group membership and kinship categories.
The maturing of sexual powers and redistribution of rights over
women are different kinds of precondition of the next generation,
while birth of children to an exogamous marriage is the realisation of
this new generation in both its physiological and social aspect. All
this is to state no more than the obvious — that socially defined
descent groups are made up of biological individuals and that, there¬
fore, birth of descent-group members is also birth of biological indi¬
viduals. The family is both a meeting of members of opposite
Exogamous Groups in order to create a new generation of the
father’s group, and also a meeting of opposed sexual powers in order
to make children whose sexes are biologically rather than socially
determined. It is the latter physiological aspect of reproduction that
I have dealt with so far in this section but now it is possible to bring
the two aspects together.

Perpetuation of Pira-parana society

To consider the case first of all from the point of view of the social
structure, we may remember from chapter 2 that the married women
remain permanent outsiders within their husbands’ longhouse com¬
munities. They are essential to the continuity of the patrilineal group
and yet they are never incorporated into it. The growth of longhouse
descent groups through marriage and birth of children has its corollary
in the dissolution of united sets of brothers into separate family units
and ultimately into separate longhouse groups. Thus, marriage breaks
up the sibling groups of the established generation at the same time
as it creates the new united ones of the next. Neither process is
accomplished in an instant, but they are related over time, for as chil¬
dren grow up their fathers focus more on the family of procreation
than on the family of origin.
Seen in this way, women are both creators and destroyers of the
161
The life-cycle
generations making up the path of patrilineal continuity over time,
yet since they come and go in each generation, they do not appear as
stages on this path. Women shuttle back and forth while generations
of men accumulate: it is the interrelation of these two processes that
creates the social persons and groups of Pira-parana society.
In one sense, the female shuttle and the male accumulation process
coincide every generation when the men reach adulthood and swap
sisters for wives (or otherwise lose sisters and gain wives in forms of
marriage other than sister-exchange). Yet, in another sense, in as
much as the ideal marriage with the mekaho mako is achieved, the
processes diverge in one generation, as sisters are lost, and coincide in
the next when the daughters of these sisters are returned. In the first
generation a descent group receives a woman who is physiologically
equivalent, but socially opposed by different Exogamous Group mem¬
bership, to the sister who was lost. In the next generation it receives
a woman who, in addition to these qualities, has the advantage of
being directly linked as child to the sister who was lost, as shown in
fig. 22(2). Thus, it is in the second generation that the true fruits of
the original gift are recovered and the continuing alliance is established.
Now we may turn back to the earliest phases of the life-cycle in
which we have seen that a one-generational cycle is associated with
male bone and semen and with female flesh and blood, while a two-
generational cycle is associated with the inheritance of patrilineal
names. While bone endures longer than flesh, together they make up
the physical body which rots after death and is opposed to the soul-
stuff inherent in the name which is handed on in perpetuity. If we
simplify the life-cycle and impose a midpoint at which marriage and
procreation occur, we may juxtapose the cycles of social reproduction
of patrilineal groups, the life-cycle of the individual of each sex and
the inheritance of names (fig. 22). From this exercise it is apparent
that ideally the re-creation of society depends upon the interplay of
no more than two living generations — parents and children, for as the
parents die the children’s children are born and take on their grand¬
parents’ names. In the case of female children, the names which are
overtly a function of patrilineal status may also be derived from the
father’s father’s sister through the female line, for ideally this woman
is also the mother’s mother. The inheritance of names therefore
coincides with the recombination of a socially stressed male line and
a socially unrecognised female line. The principal reason for thinking
that this ‘unrecognised’ female line is significant is that separation
162
Perpetuation of Pira-parana society

and recombination of sexual elements is typical of creative process in

Pira-parana ideology. Also there is actually a sense in which blood and
semen as reproductive potentialities are passed on in same-sex lines:
this is expressed in the theory of conception which states that girls
are made from blood and boys from semen.
Returning to the contributions of semen, blood and names, at the
level of social structure we see that, on the one hand, semen and blood

DESCENT LINES SOUL LIFE-CYCLE

TRANSMISSION
1 ONE- 2 TWO-
GENERATION GENERATION
MODEL MODEL SEMEN NAMES

T y x,£y, p.fcq, Xjfcy2 Pt£<p

/^= - - (t) x£y p£q-birth-

A O dj) k i'x/ ±-sexual

maturity
blrth_

A^O ^^ v N' -death maturity birth-

death sexual - birth.

Maturity |

KEY

J patrilineal ties ^ } vvomeh from outside Exogamous Groups

j female (mother-daughter) ties X 6 p Men's names

1 yl cj^ women's names

Fig. 22 Aspects of alternation of generations

163
The life-cycle

represent a man incorporated into his local descent group and an

incoming woman. On the other hand, the naming system implies a
dynamic relationship between the two opposed groups such that the
female products of one are transformed into the female products of
the other in the next generation. The endurance of names, as opposed
to the ephemerality of flesh/blood and bone/semen, corresponds to
the dynamic character of the two-generational system, as opposed to
the simple static opposition of groups in the one-generational system.
This conclusion raises an important problem, for it suggests that
the transmission of substance from father to son — which actually
creates patrilineal structure and continuity — is ideologically less
powerful than the naming system as a model for perpetuating patri¬
lineal groups. We have already seen that, in spite of the firm patri¬
lineal structure, there is little emphasis on genealogy in Pira-parana
society, and that the repetition of names over the generations assists
in the destruction of genealogical memory (p. 39). We have also seen
that the seniority structure within patrilineal groups allows new-born
members to derive their exact position in the hierarchy from their
fathers’ positions without any reference to more distant generations.
The further finding that Pira-parana social reproduction hinges on the
relationship between only two living generations (parents and children)
means that father—son transmission is only relevant to the world of
the living, for ideally one father—son tie is severed by the death of
the father just before the son himself is transformed into a father.
Father-son transmission is thus a Tiere-and-now’ phenomenon which
places a new child at the end of a path, the previous stages of which
have already been obliterated by time. Naming, by contrast, serves to
keep the stock of patrilineal names which existed in the beginning in
circulation, so that, ideally speaking, each alternate generation con¬
sists of the very same names and the very same souls. Thus the bonds
between father and son, having a firmer physiological base, are eroded
by time while names which are consciously and ritually bestowed
transcend time.
The naming system is superior as a guarantee of continuity in
another way because it overcomes the fluctuations and failures in the
reproduction of the group through seminal (father-son) ties. This
derives from the very nature of names which bestow separate ident¬
ities on members of a set in a way which is never wholly a function
of kinship or other relationships between these members. For instance,
in the case of Pira-parana society, names are ideally — and sometimes
164
Perpetuation of Pira-parana society

in practice - passed from FF to SS and FFZ to BSD; but this ideal

could never be kept up in all cases (even if grandparents did always
die before their grandchildren were bom) because the same sex sib¬
lings would have the same name. The name would therefore no
longer serve the distinguishing purpose of a personal name. The fact
that names can be chosen in other ways than the ideal one, although
still from a limited set belonging to a wider patrilineal group, means
that both personal identity and social continuity can be maintained
in spite of group expansion and premature death of descent-group
men.
As well as providing an ideologically less hazardous means of social
continuity than do seminal paths, the type of classification provided
by names is prior to seminal transmission in time. Seminal ties are a
means of transmission of group identity but they operate in a similar
way within each group and in no way account for the separate identity
of groups in the first place. This latter lies in the separate identity of
the ancestral anacondas, who were alike in form and place of origin
but had separate names. It is the original separation of Fish Anaconda,
Stone Anaconda, Sky Anaconda and so on that founded the
exogamous groups and made marriage alliance between them possible.
Finally, the link with the ancestral past provided by the inherit¬
ance of names is recognised and contrasted to the fate of the physical
body in a statement made by a Barasana Indian, ‘If we did not take on
names we would die out like a rotting corpse’.
According to the one-generational and two-generational models dis¬
cussed above, women’s contribution to social continuity has appeared
as complementary to that of men, the exchange of female repro¬
ductive powers being associated with the repetitive cycles within the
cumulative development of patrilineal groups. Although these female
movements are very much less susceptible to genealogical record than
is patrilineal succession, there is a permanent testimony to them in
the spatial separation of longhouses. After sexual maturity, women
move physically to another longhouse in another exogamous group
territory and are thereby transformed into wives. From the point of
view of any one longhouse community, the resident women divide
up in the same way into descent-group sisters, who are forbidden in
marriage, and wives, who are from affinal exogamous groups. Over
time, sisters are swapped for wives, who bear a new generation of
sisters and so on.
These two phases of the female life-cycle are reminiscent of the
165
The life-cycle
two phases of the menstrual cycle which we saw was also divided
into a creative phase (retention of blood) and a potentially creative
phase (loss of blood). There is confirmation of the parallel in the
myth of the Frog Wife, where a female state which may be identified
with menstrual loss is associated with a visit home.

Frog Wife
A Frog Woman (of unidentified species: goha) arrived from far off
and settled down with a man. She visited her own people each umari
season: she went to the cold, white Mildew House far down the Milk
River in the east and became a mildewed umari lying on the ground.
Although she forbade her husband to follow her, he disobeyed, failed
to recognise her and pinched her mildewed umari flesh. She was
‘grease-filling’, a Snake Woman, and so when he got home he was
bitten by a snake and died.

The decay of the Frog Wife’s outer skin, her periodic journeys away
from her husband and her dangerous properties during her secluded
periods liken her visits home to menstrual seclusion. Besides this,
umari is said to be an ideal food for menstruating women. If the
assumption that Frog Wife is metaphorically menstruating is correct,
then the link between menstrual loss and female residence among
agnates is established. The married life of Frog Wife is divided into
cycles of alternation between her husband’s and her own natal com¬
munity. Each cycle is a small-scale replica of her life as a whole which
divides into a pre-marital and a post-marital phase.
It might occur to the reader that the patterns of alternation of
residence in a woman’s life suggested by the myth of Frog Wife is
seemingly different from the patterns of physiological growth and
decay during the female life-cycle, which are set out in fig. 20. The
myth makes the return to the natal group, which is metaphorical
menstruation, a small-scale repetition of the childhood period spent
among agnates. This makes good sense, since pre-pubescent women
and menstruating women are both useless from the point of view of
procreating affinal groups. But the physiological pattern of growth
and decay equates pre-pubescent with non-menstruating women
instead; this is because both are undergoing periods of growth. How¬
ever, if we look at the kinds of growth, it is growth of the pre-
pubescent woman herself in the childhood phase and growth of womb-
contents which (if not lost) become incorporated into a child in the
166
Perpetuation of Pira-parana society

post-menarcheal phase. From the point of view of a continuing female

line, these two types of growth are integral parts of the same process,
but from the point of view of patrilineal exogamous groups, they
represent growth of members of opposed exogamous groups. All this
is simply a rather laborious way of saying that the physical continuity
between mother and child, and likewise that between the first and
second half of the female life-cycle, are severed by the rules of
exogamy, patriliny and patrilocality.
The menarche occurs before marriage and so exogamy does not
make an exact break between the pre-menarche phase and the post-
menarche phase: for a while the girl’s patrilineal group is in control of
her mature reproductive powers but it is forbidden to make use of
them except as an item of exchange. In this way, female physio¬
logical development and female social development may be seen as
parallel processes: in real life the social process can only control the
voluntary behaviour associated with the physiological process, but in
myth the two processes are made to coincide through use of metaphor.
We have seen that the male and female modes of continuity are
respectively cumulative and repetitive, the male mode creating the
patrilineal path from ancestral times to the present, while the female
one is broken up into repeated alternate phases consistent with the
exchange of women between groups. The male mode represents con¬
tinuous extension over time, and the female one represents continuous
renewal. Although the male mode is the dominant one from the point
of view of the basic division of society into exogamous and longhouse
groups, there is an inherent advantage in the female mode. The very
construction of the patrilineal path removes the living progressively
further from the source of power in the ancestral past, while the
repetitive female cycles allow constant regeneration. In order to tap
ancestral power, men periodically go back in time and become ‘people
of an underneath generation’ by participating in the He wi rituals. The
discussion and analysis of such rituals showed that they incorporate
female metaphors of regeneration and are compared directly to men¬
struation. It therefore appears that female repetitive cycles are an
essential element in the negation of cumulative patrilineal time necess¬
ary for ‘soul-change’ during the life-cycle. It is important to note here
that integrating the collective reversal of patrilineal time in identifi¬
cation with ancestors achieves a personal reversal of life-cycle time for
each participant, since each undergoes soul-change.
If we turn back to the introduction of patrilineal soul-stuff in
167
The life-cycle

naming, we see an analogous process taking place in the social-

structural domain, for the accumulation of patrilineal generations is
counteracted by the reincarnation of timeless soul-stuff. This reincar¬
nation of soul-stuff, it was argued above, is determined by the cyclical
exchange of women’s reproductive powers between affinal descent
group^frhis cyclical exchange of women represents the ability of the
patriline to shed sisters and take on wives in a regular, dependable
fashion. The female line is thus like a skin which the patriline puts on
and takes off according to the social rules governing marriage. Here
again, the voluntary control over clothing or cultural ‘skin’, which
can be separated from the wearer without being lost, contrasts with
the involuntary control over natural skin, which grows naturally and
can only be separated by decay. Thus, when men put on ritual orna¬
ments and ‘change soul’ they are imitating the powers of women, but
at the same time doing what women cannot doJc
Many of the points made in this chapter will be incorporated into
the analysis of concepts of space and time in the final chapter.

168
6
Production and consumption

Introduction

It is the very same people who produce and consume on the one hand
and who grow, experience ritual change, marry, reproduce and die on
the other: Pira-parana Indians make the most of this fact.
In this chapter, we shall see that the processes of producing and
consuming various substances are analogous to the processes of repro¬
ducing both individuals and the social structure. The relations be¬
tween the individuals who make up Pira-parana society are ordered
through production and consumption in the daily routine and on
ritual occasions. In promoting these ordered relations, socio-economic
processes play a positive part in social reproduction. We saw that
when individuals absorb substances, they also absorb the processes,
whether mythical, shamanic or practical, which contribute to the pro¬
duction of these substances: here, the same argument is extended to
the ‘relations of production’ and also to the relations between natural
species (as conceived of in Indian ideology).
I must warn the reader that the ordering of this chapter is rather
complex. Because the same substances appear in different contexts,
the analysis is built up on many different fronts from one part to the
next. Throughout, the conclusions about production and consump¬
tion are used to further the analysis of the life-cycle begun in the pre¬
vious chapter.
For subsistence purposes, the longhouse group is a virtually self-
sufficient unit. It is divided in two principal ways — into family units
or ‘family productive units’, and by sex. Most of the objects exchanged
between members of separate longhouse communities, pepper, tobacco,
pottery, basketry, weapons, canoes, red paint etc., could equally well
be produced at home. The most important goods entering from out-
169
Production and consumption

side the Pira-parana area are poison and raw materials for ritual orna¬
ments from the Maku, and manioc-grating boards from the Arawak-
speaking Kuripako. The exchange of ritual paraphernalia between
Tukanoan groups forms a separate system or ‘sphere’. Such items are
given at communal rituals as part of a perpetual exchange between
geographically distant communities who refer to each other as He
tenyua (p. 81). We have seen that smoked meat, fish and insects
accompanied by tree-fruits may also be exchanged at communal
rituals. In addition, the provision of fruit for He rika soria wi is some¬
times conceived of as a similar type of intergroup exchange.

The sexual division of labour

The most significant facts about the sexual division of labour are
summarised below. Although broad generalisations such as these
obviously do not apply to every concrete productive act, they hold
for nearly all productive activity. For the sake of brevity, I do not
attempt to do justice to the variety of the Pira-parana diet or material
culture.

Men Women
felling and burning manioc gardens planting, harvesting, preparing
manioc
hunting and fishing cooking all food
cultivated ‘drugs’0 cultivated ‘foods’
cultivated tree-fruits cultivated vegetables and low-
growing fruits
large-scale gathering small-scale gathering
production of wild food for ritual preparation of wild food for immedi¬
exchange ate consumption
use of high, above-ground resources use of low, underground resources
manufacture of all wooden and manufacture of all pottery items
basketry items (including house)
manufacture of ritual goods and manufacture of paint and garters for
ornaments ritual use
°The ‘drugs’ are tobacco, coca (Erythroxylon coca) and yag6 (Banisteriopsis sp). I
show later that they are distinguished from ‘foods’ which nourish the body rather
than the insubstantial aspects of the individual.

170
The sexual division of labour

Some of these relationships bear out the analysis in the previous

chapter. For instance, the sexual associations of low and high positions
are consistent with the model of growth of children away from ma¬
ternal origins towards ‘male’ maturity. Men’s role in producing foods
for ritual exchange, cultivating the drugs essential for ritual perform¬
ance and manufacturing almost all ritual ornaments serves to re¬
enforce male control of ritual life. On the other hand, the few ritual
items produced by women — paints and garters {yuta gasero, ‘woven-
fabric skins’) — are associated with skin-changing, which we have seen
to be a natural female ability.
In the opposition between manioc cultivation and basic protein
provision (hunting and Fishing), the most important relationship in
the day-to-day feeding of the community, there is a clue to a more
general factor in the sexual division of labour in food production.
Most of women’s time is spent in producing manioc, which is a
continuous-cropping and extremely reliable source of food. Success
in hunting and fishing, the most time-consuming of male contri¬
butions to food production, is far less certain. Nevertheless, fishing is
more certain than hunting and, although meat carries more prestige as
a food, fish makes up the bulk of the protein supply. Women never
hunt, but occasionally they fish. The method they use most often is
poisoning: this is very different from other fishing methods, because
the water is made to yield up the fish so that they may be gathered
from the surface. Poisoned fish are actually referred to as ‘gathered
fish’ (huari wai). It is significant that when the sexes co-operate in
poisoning, the men dam the river or stream and then introduce the
poison into the water upstream. The women remain downstream,
gathering up the fish as they suffocate. Thus, men do the trapping
and killing and women the ‘harvesting’.
Again, women do collect seasonal plant and animal species from
the forest, but they do so less often and in smaller quantities than
men. These fruits, insects etc., are less reliable food sources than
manioc on two counts: first, because they are seasonal and secondly,
because they have to be searched for. However, they are more reli¬
able than game or fish because, once located, they are there for the
taking. Although seasonality is by no means the same as the unpre¬
dictability which makes wild foods difficult to find or catch, there is
a similarity between these two qualities, for both are manifestations
of the independence of the natural order from social manipulation.

171
Production and consumption

Seasonal cultivated fruits are mainly controlled by men; they are

also lumped together with wild seasonal fruits in the category He rika,
and thus seasonal tree-fruits cross-cut the cultivated—wild distinction.
Overall, the allocation of tasks in food production does suggest that
women are given the most reliable ones, for which manioc cultivation
provides the ideal model, while men are given the least reliable ones,
for which hunting provides the ideal model. Success against the odds
makes meat, followed by fish, the most highly esteemed food, while
the absence of seasonal products for most of the year makes these
more highly esteemed than the dependable daily fare of manioc
products. Thus, prestige, risk of failure and male food production go
hand in hand.
This division of labour in food production is reflected in communal
eating patterns. There are two basic forms of communal meal; as far
as I know, they do not have names in Indian languages but they are
readily distinguished in practice by a number of interrelated factors.
Both consist of hot, boiled foods seasoned with chilli pepper and
served in the centre of the house. Cassava is supplied by each one of
the female family productive teams (mother and daughters) and this
is dipped into the hot food and eaten. In general, the first type of
meal consists of food supplied by a man, cooked by his wife or sister
and served to all the men, women and children of the community. A
single family may provide the meal or several may produce dishes
simultaneously. The second type of meal consists of manioc-based
dishes or other readily available food produced by women. Each
female family team produces a pot, and men eat first while women
and children eat afterwards or not at all. It is said that women and
children have private access to these foods in any case. The second
type of meal is held at dawn and only at other times if there have
been no meals of meat or fish. Even then, the women only co-operate
to provide a meal if the men have been engaged in useful activities,
which have prevented them from hunting and fishing, or if there are
visitors present. Thus, the second type of meal is a response to ‘legit¬
imate’ hunger and is regarded as a poorer substitute for the first.
In practice, while fish and meat are the most regular elements of
the first type of meal, large quantities of insects and some cooked
tree-fruits may be served to the entire community in the same way.
Meat is always served on its own at a separate meal, whereas both fish
and insects may be mixed with vegetable products in the same meal
or even in the same dish. Also, while the second type of meal consists
172
The sexual division of labour

mainly of manioc-based dishes, small quantities or leftovers of insects,

fish or tree-fruits may be incorporated into these. The more ritually
dangerous fish, mainly the largest species, are rarely served at meals
of this second type. Therefore, meat and some kinds of fish are set
apart because they are always served alone at separate meals of the
first type; other fish, insects and tree-fruits may be incorporated into
mixed dishes and served at either type of meal, the deciding factor
being the quantity available. Manioc-based dishes, unless they contain
a high proportion of fish, are only suitable for the second type of
meal. The minimal form of the second type consists of pots of hiari,
caramelised manioc juice highly seasoned with pepper (alternatively
called ‘pepper pot’, bia sotu). This food is always available, for a pot
of it sits in the crook of the stand supporting the family cassava
supply. It is the standard food offered to visitors on arrival.
In these meal patterns meat, the least reliable food, stands at the
opposite extreme from hiari which is readily available at all times.
Large, ritually dangerous fish are closest to meat, and then large
quantities of naturally occurring or seasonal foodstuffs eaten alone
are followed by these same foods eked out with manioc products;
finally, pure manioc products form the least-esteemed meal and hiari
is the ‘poorest’ extreme. We can see that the same related sets of con¬
trasted characteristics which underlie the organisation of food pro¬
duction are also apparent in the patterns of communal consumption.
There are good meals and substitute meals, just as there are prestige
foods and the basic foods which are taken for granted: both are dis¬
tinguished according to the contrasts between the following:
male producer female producer
wild food cultivated food
unreliable food reliable food
large quantity of wild food small quantity of wild food

Although women’s cultivating activities associated with maximum

reliability are, in a sense, the strongest form of social control over
natural processes, this control is routinised. The very reliability of the
crop suggests that women harmonise with manioc rather than pitting
their physical and mental powers against it. Just as in the case of
menstruation and the very much more dangerous soul-change at He
wi, dependable female powers are less valued than the male ability
to succeed in risky encounters with the natural world, whether this be
the natural world of ancestral forces or the opposed one of natural specie
173
Production and consumption

Manioc

Production
The garden sites are chosen by men who clear the undergrowth, fell
the trees and bum the dried wood. Main gardens are felled each year
from October onwards and are burnt between November and March
in the long dry season. The site is ritually cooled with beeswax by a
man, and then the women take over.
Manioc is ready to harvest a year, or slightly less, after the sticks
are planted. With continuous replanting of the harvested areas, a main
garden may be kept in manioc production for about three years. Of
course, there is a sharp decline in yield after replanting, and in the
end the small size of the roots and the encroaching weeds make the
effort worthless. However, people continue to visit old gardens for
other crops long after the manioc is finished and, in this way, each
family productive team has a number of manioc gardens, which
together represent the entire cycle formed by felling, cultivating and
encroachment of the forest.
Women sometimes receive help from men with carrying huge
bundles of vigorous manioc sticks from a newly grown garden to a
newly burnt one. Thereafter, women plant alone. The sticks are
broken up and each section is poked into the earth, with about half
a metre of space left between plants. The entire garden is covered. In
practice, the fallen logs form natural boundaries between one day’s
work and the next. The half-grown crop must be weeded, and then
the later harvesting and replanting falls within the women’s regular
daily routine.
This daily routine can be divided into (1) harvesting, (2) separating
the three basic raw materials: fibre, starch and juice and (3) baking
cassava. This three-stage process is better understood with the aid of
fig. 23. A complete schematic account of the processing and use of
manioc plants is given in fig. 24; it is intended to demonstrate the
enormous versatility of the crop and show the production of foods
not included in fig. 23.

(1) Harvesting. Women leave the house soon after dawn when break¬
fast is over. They spend the time until midday working in the gardens,
digging up manioc, replanting the sticks, peeling the roots and loading
them into baskets. These baskets of manioc are shaken violently in
174
 HARVESTING SEPARATING DRYING & BAKING

175
Manioc
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177
Production and consumption

the river on the way back in order to wash the earth off the roots.
The manioc is tipped out into a flat basket in the house, which ends
the first stage of production; this is the point at which the woman
may break her work and eat.

(2) Separating. The roots are grated on a board set with chips of
quartz and the sloppy mash is piled into a ceramic pot. Grating boards
should ideally be leant up against the ‘manioc-grating posts’ for this
(see fig. 5). The grated mash is placed up on a large close-woven bas¬
ketry sieve which is supported on a wooden tripod. It is pounded and
squeezed in the sieve as water is poured over from a gourd; this stage
can be completed much more efficiently if two women pound alter¬
nately. The water washes the starch through into a pot below while
the fibrous parts remain in the sieve. The three important manioc
products are now separated: starch (weta) settled at the bottom of
the pot; juice (nyuka) is decanted from above the starch layer; fibre
(kuha) remains above in the sieve. If the manioc is pounded with no
additional water a concentrated starch and juice mixture called
nyukaria collects in the pot below. Starch and fibre may be stored
for several weeks in holes dug in the plaza outside the women’s door
or, for a shorter time, in baskets kept in family compartments.
After this separation of starch and fibre, the women leave the house
for firewood. This is used to boil up the decanted manioc juice in a
large open-necked pot; choking poisonous fumes come off the boiling
juice, and when they have subsided the juice is removed from the fire
and cooled by taking gourdfuls and pouring them back into the pot
from high above. Other women are invited to help with this: it is
regarded as a sociable pleasure as well as giving the women an oppor¬
tunity to drink before the juice is handed over to the men. When it is
barely cool enough to be drunk and each of the cooling-women has
had a sample, the juice is offered towards the centre front of the
house where the male partner of the producer invites the other men
to drink. The serving of the boiled juice before dusk marks the end
of the two-stage process begun at dawn. Some of the juice may be
kept back for elaboration into a variety of manioc-based dishes, the
most important of which is hiari.

(3) Baking. The third stage of the manioc process is typically done at
the same time as the juice is boiled, making use of the same load of
firewood. But it is also timed to meet demand and may be fitted in
178
Manioc

whenever the family cassava supply is finished. It is important to

note that the products, which are separated on one day, are used for
baking on a subsequent day. In fact, starch and fibre may be stored
for days or even weeks, while the interval between the first and sec¬
ond stages cannot be delayed for more than one night or, at most,
two. Overnight delay is only allowed during ritual preparations and
it means altering the sequence of processes slightly, as the roots are
left unpeeled. Peeled roots deteriorate in a matter of hours. I should
mention here that Vaupes Indians differ from many other Amazonian
groups in carrying out the entire harvesting and separating process in
a single day, and in making fresh cassava daily whenever possible. The
analysis of daily and ritual cycles will show that this idiosyncracy is
highly significant.
To begin the third stage, fibre is taken from the store and fed into
the tipiti, a cylindrical tube made of basketry which hangs from a
high horizontal pole. The tipiti is extended by the weight of a woman
who sits on another horizontal pole threaded through the loop at the
bottom. The liquid squeezed through the sides of the extended tipiti
is caught in an old gourd and thrown away. The dried fibre is tipped
out through the upper, open end of the tipiti into a flat sieve placed
over a wide shallow basket. All except the coarsest bits pass through
and are then further dried by shifting them around on the griddle —
a huge round ceramic plate supported on a clay wall with a fire lit
underneath. The dried fibre is alternately sieved and dried until it
reaches the right consistency to be mixed with starch. The sieved
mixture is baked into a large flat cake which is cooked on one side,
quartered, turned with a basketry palette, cooked on the other side
and then removed from the griddle to cool. The quarters are piled
into an open basket lined with yarumo leaves (Cecropia sp.), white
underside up, and this is placed on a wicker stand above the hiari pot.
The stand belongs by the entrance to the family compartment in the
open interior of the house.
When manioc beer is made, an enormous volume of manioc juice
is boiled up as the base. This is added to solid ingredients; these may
be cultivated roots (arrowroot, yam, taro etc.), maize, peach-palm
fruit or thin circles of toast made on the griddle from manioc fibre.
The previously cooked solids are chewed and spat out by the com¬
munity of women, sometimes with the aid of men, in order to assist
fermentation and to reduce them to a pulp. The pulp is placed in the
bottom of a hollowed log (idire kumua, beer canoe) or a huge, tall pot
179
Production and consumption
and the juice is poured over it. Sometimes sugar-cane juice is added
and a more alcoholic beer results. The beer ferments overnight and
the solids are removed before dawn the next morning by pounding
the liquid through the tripod-and-sieve arrangement used to separate
the three basic manioc products. Drinking may begin immediately
but the alcoholic content improves over the days. The distinctive
time-structure of the beer-making process is extremely important
and will be discussed later.

Analysis of the manioc process

The stages of the manioc process are not arbitrarily defined by me;
they are distinguished in time, in space and by the basic nature of the
operations. The first stage, outside the house, transforms growing
roots into detached, peeled and washed ones which are now at the
beginning of their inevitable human-controlled journey ending with
human consumption — inevitable, because if they are left they will
rot. The second stage, inside the house, is one of liquefying and
separating the constituents of the solid roots. The storage of the
starch and fibre recalls the underground origins of the roots and their
disinterment at harvesting. The third stage is the opposite of the sec¬
ond, for instead of separation through liquifying it involves combi¬
nation by drying: the fibre which was first washed is now dried and
added to starch to make solid manioc bread. The final association of
manioc bread with hiari brings back the ‘lost’ element of juice to
complete the combination. After this there is a fourth stage of con¬
sumption which is discussed later. Now that the nature of the stages
and their separate identity is clear, the entire process may be repre¬
sented in a cycle diagram (fig. 25).
The facts we have learnt already about the underground origin of
life, metaphors of death and rebirth and separation and recombi¬
nation of the sexes in the life-cycle process are sufficient to give the
manioc process a ritualistic ring. Although it is a series of techno¬
logical operations it is also more than this. Mythical allusions to the
various stages, the context of use of the products and comments
about both these and the productive equipment used all confirm this
impression. In the following discussion of aspects of manioc pro¬
duction, I claim that the technologically essential elements refer
metaphorically to the processes of reproduction of social groups.
While manioc production itself is not ‘a ritual’, that is, it does not
180
181
Cl.
7

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Fig. 25 Cycle diagram of cassava production
Production and consumption
have the immediately recognisable ritual elements such as special orna¬
ments, shamanic mediation etc., it is because of these metaphorical
associations that manioc products are suitable for incorporation into
rituals concerned with the same themes of social reproduction. The
evidence suggests that the manioc process is seen as a female counter¬
part of the male Yurupary rites. Let us start at the true beginning.

The origin of manioc

Manioc-stick Anaconda burnt himself up with the Primal Sun’s
shamanic snuff (see pp. 880- A manioc stick grew from the charcoal
and simultaneously a man, the renewed Manioc-stick Anaconda, came
into being. Also, a series of plants grew up in the order in which they
actually appear in a newly burnt garden. Most of them are naturally
occurring species such as fungi and calaloo {aw. Phytolacca sp.), and
each grows from the charcoal made from a different soft part (body
liquid) of the hero’s body - the fat, gut-lining, liver and so on. The
charred logs of the burnt garden are Manioc-stick Anaconda’s burnt
bones. The manioc bread in its basket is Manioc-stick Anaconda coiled
up on his stool.

The burning of Manioc-stick Anaconda is described as the charter

for annual burning of gardens. Manioc-stick Anaconda therefore rep¬
resents the forest which bums to yield three products: (1) the new
garden composed of burnt logs (bones) and fertile, charcoal-rich
earth (body liquid), (2) manioc and (3) regrowth of forest. The orig¬
inal manioc stick is in one sense a total representation of Manioc-
stick Anaconda, since it shares his name and grows simultaneously
with his renewed form. In this sense it is male, as its hard woody
structure would suggest in any case. We can interpret the stick as a
phallic object being introduced into the fertile, charcoal-covered
earth which originates from body liquid. In view of the analysis of
birth, in which the earth of the manioc garden was identified with
the womb, this interpretation is convincing. Besides, it leads to the
identification of the manioc roots, produced by association of manioc
sticks and fertile earth, with female-controlled children. This is borne
out by the subsequent treatment of the roots, for they are taken to
the house along the same ‘manioc-stick path’ (metaphorical vagina) as
the new-bom child. This is the very path along which the men carried
the sticks to be planted in the near clearing, and the parallel between
this male journey and insemination is demonstrated in the myth of
182
Manioc

the origin of Yeba’s coca. Here, a man who is carrying sticks for a
woman repeatedly makes love to her along the path until he finally
impregnates her in the garden (p. 212). I take up the relationship
between the two ‘male’ products — manioc stick and logs — on p.
215. However, although the manioc sticks are phallic and the logs
(burnt bones of Manioc-stick Anaconda) must also be regarded as
male in relation to the earth (his charred body liquid), the garden as
a whole with its earth, logs and above all its manioc crop is female in
relation to the forest. This is emphasised in another myth.

The original planting of manioc

Yawira, Fish Anaconda’s daughter and wife of Yeba (son of Manioc-
stick Anaconda) got her younger sisters to help her plant Yeba's first
clearing. The sisters were different varieties of manioc except for two
— Widio, Weed Woman and Wakuo, Yarumo Woman. Yarumo is the
tree that bears the white leaves in which cassava is wrapped — and is
the first tree-weed to overrun a garden. Yawira told Yeba not to watch
the planting. She ordered the Manioc Women to work in the middle
of the garden and the Weed Women to stay on the edge. Yeba's curi¬
osity overcame him and he lifted the thatch to peep out of the house.
One of the women saw him, and in the confusion that followed Weed
Woman and Yarumo Woman came into the middle and the manioc
wilted. Ever since, gardens have gradually succumbed to weeds and
the manioc has been prone to disease.

In the myth, the female weeds move from the periphery to the centre,
just as the weeds gradually close in today. Weeds and manioc are
inversely related in such a way that encroachment of weeds reduces
the manioc crop, and thus the cycle of manioc cultivation within a
single garden has two major phases — the filling of the round garden
with planted sticks and the reduction of the planted area by weeds.
The myth represents both these phases as female.
Overall, the burning of Manioc-stick Anaconda results in a dichot-
omisation of himself into a repetition of the male original, the first
stick and the reincarnated Manioc-stick Anaconda, and a female
element, the first garden. Although the first garden is male in origin
in both myths, since Manioc-stick Anaconda made it in the first and
Yeba made it in the second, in the later period of the second myth,
the sticks have become women and the garden cycle is represented
by female movements. We may remember that Manioc-stick Anaconda
183
Production and consumption

also made a wife for himself (p. 88), so that sexual dichotomisation
is one of his powers.
The analysis of the origin of manioc myth in terms of sexual dichot¬
omisation is supported by another myth, presented in detail by
Stephen Hugh-Jones (1979 : M.5.A), which states that He Anaconda,
Yurupary Anaconda, was burnt, and that the palm that grew from his
ashes was cut up to make the various He instruments. When all the
instruments are played together Yurupary Anaconda lives. Now, this
hero is explicitly identified with Manioc-stick Anaconda, and once
again the burning is explicitly linked with the burning of cultivation
sites, and thus we can see a more fundamental sexual dichotomisation
between Yurupary Anaconda and Manioc-stick Anaconda. Following
on from this, the woody stem of the manioc plant can be compared
to the He-palm (paxiuba) for it is broken into pieces for replanting
just as the T/e-palm was broken into separate instruments. The
expression for planting manioc, ki bia-, is literally translated as
‘renewing manioc’, and therefore the succession of manioc crops may
be considered a female mode of renewal parallel to the male mode of
renewal associated with Yurupary instruments. Not only this, but the
manioc starts as a stick representing Manioc-stick Anaconda himself,
and after a process of differentiating growth, it yields roots which
are separated and put together again into cassava: this cassava also
represents Manioc-stick Anaconda coiled on his stool. So, just as the
Yurupary instruments are separated and brought together to make
Yurupary Anaconda live, the manioc-stick products are separated
and brought together again to make Manioc-stick Anaconda live.
Another interesting confirmation of the existence of the parallel
between male rites and female manioc activity comes from a myth
collected by Jean Jackson (personal communication) which is a vari¬
ation on the common Vaupes theme of the downfall of the rule of
women. According to this version, the women eventually obtain the
tripod upon which the pounding sieve sits, instead of the Yurupary
instruments. Thus, instead of the set of instruments which can be
united to draw upon ancestral power, they got the power to separate
the three manioc constituents which can be united to nourish the
community. The opposition between female manioc separation and
male He is echoed in versions of ‘the rule of women’ myth collected
from different Pira-parana groups. In these, it is mentioned that
when the women had Yurupary, men had white arms up to their
elbows from the pounding of manioc in the tripod sieve.
184
Manioc

Separation. Pounding in the tripod sieve separates starch, which

settles out of the juice in the pot, from fibre which remains suspended
in the basketry sieve. This sieve is thus a male-produced classifying
agent retaining the harder, fibrous part of the root and releasing the
finer, softer part. Three separate factors — position (low—high), sexual
division of labour (female pot—male basket) and texture (soft—hard)
— coincide to distinguish starch as female in relation to male fibre.
Starch is the most valued of the two, both nutritionally and on
account of its superior whiteness, which is emphasised in many con¬
texts (fibre is actually a dirty cream colour). The settling of starch is
regarded as a natural process beyond the ordinary technological con¬
trol of women, for in the old days they used to put magical stones
representing Romi Kumu, the female creatress, in the pot to increase
the yield. People also talk of bygone days when manioc was all starch
and no fibre. Therefore, starch is better food, whiter, softer, smaller
in particle size, more closely linked with the past than fibre and is
also a product of female ancestral power. Cassava bread can be made
of starch alone or of starch and fibre combined. While complete
cassava is the daily fare, starch-cassava is the basis of the ritually pure
seclusion diet. Several mythical episodes help in exploring the relation
between starch and fibre: the first two are especially concerned with
starch.

Dragonfly’s daughters
Dragonfly had two daughters, Starch Woman and Fibre Woman, kept
hidden under a basket on a shelf by the men’s door. They made
cassava by rubbing the stuff of their bodies off, and they were very
cold, white and ‘alive’ (katira), although Fibre Woman was rather
yellower. A male visitor (Yeba in some versions), mystified by the
abundance of manioc products and the absence of women, refused to
accompany Dragonfly out of the house, and lay in wait. When they
emerged he wanted to seduce them, but they accused him of being a
beast and not at all alive and said that their father would be cross. He
made love to Starch Woman as she was getting water to make starch
drink (oko kamo) (or to process manioc in another version). His front
became white and very living, while his back stayed only slightly alive.

Yeba’s penis
Yeba, newly married to Yawira, Fish Anaconda’s daughter, was like a
forest jaguar with his penis fixed on his belly. He had to impregnate
185
Production and consumption
Yawira with his fingers. To make him into a civilised man, she gave
him toasted starch crumbs to eat and hit the back of his neck so that
his penis dropped to the normal human position. It left a scar, the
original belly-button. After that, he impregnated her with his penis.

From the myth of Dragonfly’s daughters, fibre is a similar but weaker

version of starch. Starch and fibre are cold, skin-changing daughters
secreted away from the sexually curious stranger, but nevertheless
capable of imparting life to him. From the myth of Yeba’s penis we
learn that starch is humanising — a female product promoting male
sexual creativity. It appears to be like semen and, in fact, Indians
jokingly refer to semen as starch drink (a glutinous drink of starch
boiled in water) - the very drink that Starch Woman meant to make
when the stranger made love to her. Starch is thus specially female,
even more so than fibre which can also be female, and yet related to
semen. Again, the technological separating arrangement classifies
fibre as male while the myth classifies fibre as a woman. However,
the myth is not specifically about the separation process and we can
explore the starch-fibre relationship at separation by means of
another myth about the poisoning of White Spirit. This myth simply
confirms the analogy between the separation process and part of the
digestive process. The analogy is suggested by the Indian statement
that fibre makes food pass through the intestine so that it does not
get clogged up. To appreciate the role of this Amazonian Allbran we
need to understand the Indian theory of digestion.
The stomach (nyeme maku) acts as a periodic dam which retains
food and then releases it into the intestine (guda misi ma, ‘internal
winding way’ or ‘inside vine’) when the next food is eaten. While in
the stomach, the relatively liquid part of our food and drink passes
into the bloodstream where it flows to the extremities of the body;
some remains as blood (ri) and the rest becomes more solid flesh (ri)
and bone (ngoa). One can tell this is happening, because the blood
comes down our limbs and emerges as hard nails whose continual
growth is evidence of our life. The food that women eat also becomes
milk. As they are ready to pass into the intestine, the solid parts that
have not been absorbed begin to rot and they become progressively
more solid and rotten as they approach the anus and pass out as
faeces (guda). The intestine acts liks a tipiti manioc squeezer (Indians
explicitly compare the two) squeezing the liquid out through its walls.
The liquid from rotting food becomes urine (ngone).
186
Manioc

The poisoning of White Spirit

A man died, but continued to live with his wife and children in spirit
form. This man, White Spirit, brought in poisonous snakes to eat and
his wife boiled them up with manioc fibre to make a mush. The chil¬
dren ate the mush, believing it to be made with fish (which is com¬
monly prepared in this way), and discovered they had been cheated
when they saw snake remains in their faeces. They were furious and
compared the disgusting food she offered them with the specially
coveted nyukaria she offered her husband. In revenge, they secretly
put pounded fish-poison in the nyukaria gourd. White Spirit asked
his wife if the poisonous fumes from the boiling nyukaria had sub¬
sided and she assured him they had. He drank the nyukaria full of
poison and died.

Nyukaria is made up of the terms nyuka, manioc juice, and ria, chil¬
dren or semen. It is the thick starch and concentrated-juice mixture
which results from pounding manioc with no extra water (see p. 178),
and when boiled makes a superlative drink. The term nyukaria thus
suggests once more that the starch component is equated with chil¬
dren or semen. More important here is the implication that fibre
carries the snake remains through the gut, while juice and starch carry
the poison into the blood. To bring the point home, play is made on
the parallel between the poison in manioc juice and fish-poison. The
myth suggests that the pounding process separates useless food from
creative body-building food. Indians also say that manioc juice is like
milk, which fits my identification of the separated starch and juice
with body liquid, for milk is also a type of body liquid made from
digested food.
Once it has been washed free of juice and starch, the fibre is stored.
There is a reference to the fibre store in the myth of Live Woman in
the Underworld (pp. 11 Of), for it is where Live Woman’s spirit husband
hides when he sees her mourning and deserts her for good. The earlier
analysis of this myth allows us to identify the fibre store with the
rotting corpse. The storage is thus a rotten ‘dead’ phase associated
with both faeces and corpses. Appropriately enough, if the fibre is to
be used in making cassava, it must be transformed or ‘reborn’ in the
tipiti.

Combination. The tipiti is called hinobu, which literally means

‘anaconda-tube’, and is said to be the mask or skin of Fish Anaconda,
187
Production and consumption
the first ancestor of the Fish People Exogamous Group and father of
Yawira, who introduced manioc from underwater. The liquid that is
squeezed out through the side of the anaconda-tube drips into an old
gourd from which it is thrown away. This gourd is mentioned also in
the following myth:

Yeba in the Vulture’s land

Yawira was seduced by Vulture. Yeba appeared to her in the sky dis¬
guised in a disgusting scabby skin made of roasted manioc starch.
Vulture told Yawira to serve him manioc juice in the old gourd under
the tipiti because he was so repulsive. Later, he revealed himself to
Yawira; she was contrite and offered him juice from a good gourd.

This episode serves to contrast the rotten liquid from the tipiti with
the good juice from the separation process. Since the tipiti is like an
intestine, we may assume the waste liquid is like urine. However, the
fibre is not passed through the tipiti, it is tipped out of the mouth
and thus ‘vomited’ out. Vomiting is the method by which Fish Ana¬
conda created his people, and it is also a mythical mode of creation
of the He instruments known as Sun’s bones. These instruments are
swallowed and regurgitated initiates and, like present-day initiates,
they are ‘vomited’ into a seclusion compartment (see S. Hugh-Jones
1979 : 217 and M.5.A). Thus, the fibre is rid of its poisonous element
and reborn. As in the pounding stage, it is high up in a basketry object
while the liquid is on the ground in a female container; however, the
values of ‘rotten waste’ and ‘nourishing food’ are reversed.
In view of the association of the tipiti stage with ancestral creation,
it is not surprising that the women who sit on the tipiti pole (Buhe
Romia) are represented as Romi Kumu's daughters; two Yurupary
flutes. Like their mother, they have uncertain sexual identity and are
described as ‘men with women’s names’. It has been pointed out to
me that they are in the anatomical position of testicles in relation to
an obviously phallic agent of male creation (T. Turner, personal
communication).
When the fibre leaves the tipiti it is in hard cylindrical sections
which are broken down by sieving and then further dried before
starch is added and the final baking is completed. Since the earth is
Romi Kumu’s cassava griddle and its people are all her children, it
follows that the cassava on the griddle in some way represents human
society. In exploring the nature of this human society, it is important
188
Manioc

to remember that the cassava can either be made of starch and fibre
or of starch alone.
Returning to the earlier processing; the starch, in contrast to the
fibre, remains technologically unchanged between the time it naturally
separates from the liquid at the bottom of the pot and the time it is
incorporated into cassava. It has soured in the underground store, but
this is a natural process and the souring is an improvement in Indian
eyes. It contrasts with the rotting of the liquid adhering to the fibre.
The natural souring of starch contrasts with the complete human con¬
trol over the drying of fibre in the tipiti: the fibre can be shaken down
and re-squeezed as often as necessary. This control over the tipiti and
its metaphorical association with rebirth by initiation suggests that
the hardened fibre which emerges is like hardened, purposefully
matured boys after initiation, and is also like bone He instruments. In
this case, the addition of fibre to starch can be interpreted as the
addition of a hard, mature physical quality to the child — for we have
already seen that starch may be identified with semen and children.
This opposition between the starting point of the individual’s life and
the culmination of growth in physical maturity may be described in
terms of the relationship between semen and its product, bone.
Furthermore, although the semen-to-bone development is particularly
associated with the male life-cycle, it is also a general feature of
natural bodily growth of either sex. This makes starch a particularly
suitable food for secluded individuals (of either sex) who have not
yet completed their transformation into a mature state (see pp. 217ff
for further discussion on this point).
If starch and fibre are like seminal origins (or childhood) and
hardened bone (or maturity), then the juice, which washes the starch
from the fibre and occupies an intermediary vertical position between
the two, may be considered a connecting or mediating factor. This is
consistent with its identification with milk, a substance which
nourishes children so that they grow.
In the analysis of the life-cycle I showed that maturity is ‘male’
and ‘high’ while childhood is ‘female’ and ‘low’ and thus we have the
relations maturity : childhood :: adult men : adult women. When
applied to the relationship between fibre and starch, this conclusion
suggests that starch is identified with female maturity as well as with
childhood in general. This is consistent with the process whereby
starch separates from the juice of its own accord and then undergoes
seclusion (storage underground or in the compartment) like a girl at
189
Production and consumption

first menstruation. The separation process is thus like the life process,
in which girls grow up automatically and naturally through menstru¬
ation, while boys must have both maternal succour and sisters
separated off from them as they enter initiation. The natural effects
of storage also fit this analogy, for starch sours while fibre rots. Men¬
strual blood is described as ‘sour’ (hiase, sour, bitter; the same word
that is used for sour starch) and the boys are painted black, the colour
of ‘rottenness’ (hogase; the same word that is used for the rotten
liquid adhering to the stored fibre).1 The rotten black paint is pro¬
vided by women and is associated with the decay of outer skin and
the natural ‘dead’ aspect of He wi. All these factors oppose it to the
complementary aspect of He wi, which is concerned with life of the
soul, ancestral contact and social control. In the same way, storage of
fibre, during which it naturally accumulates rotten liquid, contrasts
with drying in the tipiti when the rotten liquid is removed. The under¬
ground storage of starch and fibre may thus be identified with the
separate natural changes undergone by girls and boys in achieving
maturity. The controlled ‘rebirth’ of fibre which actively rescues the
‘dead initiates’ from waste is consistent with the social character of
initiation; starch, like girls, achieves creative power naturally.
Now it is possible to turn back to the separation process and
explore the likeness of separated fibre to faeces and the decaying
corpse. Although this rotting process can be reversed in the tipiti,
when pure starch cassava is made there is no ‘rebirth’ of fibre and
thus, by implication, the fibre component of the roots goes to waste.
In this case the separation appears like the separation of the new
generation from the mature one. This separation marks the midpoint
or climax of the parents’ lives after which gradual decay sets in (see
p. 162). The new, low products — starch and juice — may be likened
to the substance of the child and the fluid which connects it to its
parents. The fibre in the basket may be likened to both a mature
penis and a breast and, similarly, the juice may be likened to the
released seminal fluid or milk, and the starch to the child which grows
from these. The starch pot is thus a female container which represents
both the womb and the female domain within which the baby is
nursed. The various interpretations of separation, storage and the
tipiti process are set out in fig. 26.
I am sure it seems that I am having it all ways, but I would argue
1 Hia- is the root in hiairi, ‘sour/bitter stuff’, peppery caramelised manioc juice which is
otherwise called 'pepper pot’. Hiari is also related to menstrual blood.

190
Manioc

that Indian ideology has it all ways too, for I am simply following the
implications which it contains. Starch and fibre are two skin-changing
women; they are semen and rotting waste; fibre is both the resort of
the corpse and the product of the regenerative anaconda and so on.
Just as it was in the discussion of the life-cycle process, it is imposs¬
ible to assign specific meanings to the acts and products of the manioc

MATURITY : IMMATURITY :: MALE : FEMALE - FIBRE : STARCH

F •' MATURITY either F, mature man or F1 mature woman

Bi penis &, breast

seminal fluid J, milk

S, child developed Si child developed

S : IMMATURITY from Semen from milk.

womb P, womb

F: MALE b boy- Fj boy'dies’-death'of boy

naturally counteracted
male domain through paint by ancestral
life
J. maternal ■ b &S+
succour reborn boy
&
S: FEMALE Si Sister separated ->Si girl dies’->5, girl 'reborn reborn girl
from boy naturally naturally by
through menstrual
female domain menstrual loss retention

Fig. 26 Alternative interpretations of manioc-separation process

191
Production and consumption

process, because each of these has a multitude of references. Ulti¬

mately, these references are processes rather than discrete elements
such as ‘milk’, ‘female’ or ‘body’. Moreover, the analysis of the life-
cycle showed clearly that the various life processes to which the
manioc process refers - conception, growth, initiation etc. - are
metaphorically related to one another. In general, Pira-parana Indians
are concerned with the separation and combination of the different
elements that are involved in the life process both of the individual
and of society. This separation and recombination goes on at all
levels — between the sexes, between opposed descent groups, between
the natural and social worlds and so on. I have simply shown here
that manioc production is yet another such separating and combining
process and that its analogy with certain others is recognised in Indian
ideology. The way in which the manioc process is brought into prac¬
tical, concrete conjunction with other life-processes through timing
of production and the rules governing consumption of the products
is taken up again later in this chapter.

Meat: analysis of production

Meat boiled with pepper is the ideal food for the communal meal —
a manifestation of the hunter’s skill in overcoming the ‘indepen¬
dence’ of the animal world. It is also a contribution from the family
unit of hunter (husband) and cook (wife) to the community. While
the previous analysis showed manioc preparation to be metaphorically
concerned with the ritual and physiological growth of the sexes, a
similar kind of analysis of meat production and consumption will
show this to be metaphorically concerned with a different but related
process - that of the marriage and sexual reproduction of community
members. The analysis is set out in fig. 27 A, B. Comparison of these
two, and fig. 25 (representing the manioc process) with fig. 27C,
shows that all have the same basic structure.
The process of production of the meat dish for a communal meal
is divided into the following stages, described according to activity,
sex and location:
(1) hunting (male; forest)
(2) bringing home carcass and handing over to wife (male to female; forest
to house)
(3) singeing off fur/feathers (after plucking) (female; path to port)
(4) washing, gutting, butchering (female; river port)
192
A PRODUCTION OF MEAT ( IN FAMILY UNIT)
t

OUTTEO
WASHED
butchered
BOILED
WITH PEPPER

MEAT
MAM HUNTS
MEAL SERVED
EDIBLE ANIMALS

DIGESTED
IM GUT

B REPRODUCTION OF CHILDREN (IN FAMILY UNIT)

HUSBAND'S
CONTROL OVER
WIFE'S REPRODUCTIVE
MENSTRUATION POWER PREGNANCY

A
FOREIGN [FOREIGN STATUS
WOMAN EMPHASISED]

MEN RAID
FOREIGN WOMAN
BIRTH

C general model (for a Sr B ABOVE 6- f ig.ZQ)

Fig. 27 Comparison of meat production and reproduction

193
Production and consumption

(5) boiling with pepper and salt (female; family compartment)

(6) serving cooked meat (female; family compartment to centre of house)

Stages (3) and (4) may be done by men in the case of a large creature.
During butchery, the gut is allowed to float away; liver, heart and
sometimes kidneys are kept. Animals are not skinned, nor are the feet
and head discarded. At serving, the chunks are laid out on a banana
leaf; they are eaten with cassava dipped in the peppery juice from the
pot.
First, the meat brought in by men is like newly obtained wives,
particularly raided wives. One man made this clear when setting out
on a wife-raid, for he announced his departure by telling different
individuals he was going to hunt a different species of game (see also
p. 223).
To become edible, the creature must be divested of its hair — a
sign of animal nature that differentiates birds and forest mammals
from humans. In terms of the human cycle, the wife must be divested
of her foreign nature before incorporation into her new community.
Appropriately enough, the singeing of animal fur is related to men¬
struation: this occurs in the myth of the origin of fire, where fire to
singe a game animal is released womb-contents (pp. 1370- Menstru¬
ation is also related directly to singeing animal fur in the expressions
for menstruating women, who are ‘singeing sloth or deer’ or ‘burning
the path to the port’ (the location of the singeing fire).2
If fire for singeing — stage (3) - is like released menstrual blood,
then fire for cooking, stage (5) — which retains and transforms flesh
in pots instead of burning directly, should be like retained menstrual
blood. There is evidence that release of menstrual blood is opposed
to retention in pots, because it is said that if menstruating women
make pots these will crack. Conversely, there is no restriction on pot¬
making in pregnancy, which is the longest retentive phase in the
female cycle. We may assume that of the two kinds of female reten¬
tive phase — monthly growth of blood and pregnancy — it is preg¬
nancy that is most like boiling. Both pregnancy and boiling involve

2 Although the origin of fire myth confirms the link between menstruation and singeing,
we have to explain why two of the expressions for menstruating women (p. 136) refer to
alternative uses of fire. I do not think this damages the case because the inedibility of the
species concerned plays the same role as the singeing. Inedibility is a metaphorical refer¬
ence to menstruation since (a) one cannot ‘eat’ (have sexual intercourse with) menstruat¬
ing women and (b) (prohibited) intercourse with menstruating women does not result in a
child, just as singeing or otherwise cooking an inedible animal does not result in a meal.

194
Meat: analysis of production

transformation of a retained substance to yield a valued product,

whereas the monthly growth of blood is wasted when it is released.
Besides, the salt and pepper added during boiling may be likened
to semen and blood.3 Not only are their white and red colours appro¬
priate for semen and blood, but also the Barasana terms for them
relate them to the sexual roles in conception. Salt is moa, ‘activating
stuff’ (moa-, to move, to work) and pepper is bia, ‘renewing stuff’
(bia-, to renew, to repeat). Furthermore, in myth, Tapir shaman’s
wife asks, ‘Who has been stirring my pepper pot?’ when she means,
‘Who has been making love to me?’ (S. Hugh-Jones 1979 : M.6.A). In
this case, the ‘stirring of pepper’ is clearly like the activation of womb-
contents during insemination. Although salt is added to boiled food
whenever it is available, it is not nearly as important as pepper in
Indian culture or ideology. Here, then, the boiling process is meta¬
phorically associated with a particularly female aspect of reproduction
in which salt is merely an activating agent.
If we return to the intermediate stage of washing, gutting and
butchering at the port, stage (4), this may be likened to the rebirth
achieved by bathing at the end of menstrual seclusion. Not only is
the carcass bathed, it loses the gut and reproductive organs which
controlled the animal life process, and its physical form is destroyed.
There is evidence to suggest that the end of the menstrual seclusion is
not simply a practical incorporation of the wife into her husband’s
community; it is also a metaphorical incorporation, since myth relates
menstrual seclusion to the married woman’s contact with her descent-
group origins (Frog Wife’s visit home: p. 166). Therefore, we may say
that just as the meat loses its animal nature, the wife loses her foreign
status to the extent necessary to render her a potential mother of her
husband’s descent-group members. Her integration after ‘menstru¬
ation’ marks the completion of the transfer of her productive powers
to her husband’s community.
The butchering stage is followed by cooking/pregnancy and serving,
or birth - stage (6). The community absorbs the food just as it
absorbs the children bom to wives from outside. Inside the bodies of
community members, the eaten food is digested and turned into
body substance and waste, and so we may suggest an analogy between
socialisation of children and the internal processing of meat (see the
theory of digestion p. 186).
3 Salt used to be made by burning an unidentified water-plant to ash: now it is obtained
from whites.

195
Production and consumption
The analogy between the digestive process, in which nourishment
is separated from waste, and the growth of the longhouse community,
through formation and dispersal of family groups, is implied in the
Indian statement that the longhouse is a human body which lives
when the house is occupied. If we follow this implication, the
separation of nourishment from decaying waste has its parallel in
the separation of family groups into their constituent units. This
separation may be seen in two ways: (1) within the family as a whole,
the new generation is separated from the decaying older generation or
(2) within the new generation, the boys are separated off from the
‘wasted’ girls who cannot reproduce the community. We have reached
a position exactly similar to that in the analysis of manioc processing,
when we saw that the separation of elements was like both the
separation of generations and the separation of male and female pro-
creative powers (at first menstruation and initiation). However, in
the meat-digestion process either the girls or the parental generation
are the waste. The production of waste is essential in both cases, for
it is the necessary complement to reproduction of life. Girls must be
given away so that wives can be obtained, and parents must grow old
and die so that new generations can be created and grow up. Simi¬
larly, waste must be eliminated by action of the gut or the body
would become full of rotten food and we could not eat again. There
is plenty of evidence to prove the rather obvious connection between
faeces and decaying bodies (S. Hugh-Jones 1979 : M.7.J). There is
also evidence that faeces are like lost daughters, for a man may joke,
saying, ‘I am going to deposit my daughter’ when he means, ‘I am
going out to shit’.
The meat-preparation and consumption cycle and the community
reproductive cycle are not merely analogous, they are interrelated at
various points. It is wives who enter the reproductive cycle and bear
children and who also prepare the meat for communal consumption
in the meat-production cycle. Besides, the hunting-and-cooking
partnership is regarded as a ‘sign’ of marriage. Wives also provide the
manioc that is necessary to all meals. The give and take of women is
therefore closely connected to the obtaining and relinquishing of
food supply and the catching and releasing of natural products (meat
and faeces). An irritated headman told a shy member of his house¬
hold, ‘If you can’t get yourself a wife, you’d better go and eat your
own shit’. The human reproductive cycle, the community repro¬
ductive cycle and the meat-production and consumption cycle are
196
Meat: analysis of production

set out in diagram form so that the analogies mentioned in the text
are apparent. However, once again, I stress that the character of Pira-
parana Indian thought is such that the separate transformational
process within a single cycle are metaphorically related, and there¬
fore, my diagrams show one version of these analogies amongst many
possible ones.
The exchange of sisters for wives, the loss and regrowth of men¬
strual blood, the birth and regrowth of a new foetus and the use and
re-creation of body energy in the production and consumption pro¬
cesses are all examples of cycles composed of two interdependent
phases — the one leading on to the other. A myth about No-Anus
Spirit provides abundant evidence that the cycles I have presented in
the diagram are related, as well as illustrating what happens if the
destructive phase of one cycle cannot be completed so that the
renewal of the entire cycle is impossible. No-Anus Spirit is unable to
complete the digestive cycle.

No-Anus Spirit (‘Wati Gude Mangu’)

Dragonfly’s children refused to accompany their parents to the
manioc garden. No-Anus Spirit came into their house with a basket
of the pig-teeth belts which are part of the ritual dance dress. He
dressed the children in these and led them in a mock dance. A weak¬
ling among the children told the parents, who instructed the children
to cut the carrying strap (a tump-line) of the basket and so steal it
from No-Anus Spirit. The children did as planned, and the parents
hid the basket, but the children still refused to accompany them.
Soon, the spirit arrived to take his revenge for the stealing of his belts.
Pretending he was going to cook caterpillars, he got the children to
light a fire by the lighting post and when the water boiled, he sum¬
moned them to watch and pushed them in. The weakling fell out,
turned into Yago Mini, Mourning Bird (unidentified species) and
warned the father, who was felling a garden. The father laid the
cooked pieces of his children out on a banana leaf, arranged the
bones so as to reconstruct their bodies, and coated them in tree
cotton. They turned into gake hosa (Cebus albifrons) edible mon¬
keys; the father whipped them and they went off into the forest. He
did the same with the children’s flesh, which turned into manioc
pigs (ki yese, Tayassu tajacu). He told each group of animals that
they would be ‘edible game’ from now on.
No-Anus Spirit disappeared for a whole season until he met
197
Production and consumption

Dragonfly scooping fish out of the water. Dragonfly farted and the
spirit implored him to make him able to fart too. Dragonfly took the
pole for stirring red pigment (ngunanya) while it cooked and pre¬
tended to bore out an anus for No-Anus Spirit. No-Anus Spirit asked
if the hole would allow him to rid himself of the rotting food in his
belly and was pleased to learn that it would. Dragonfly hammered
the pole in until he killed No-Anus Spirit and then deposited the
body in various river beds, where the liquid and soft parts became
potters’ clay of different grades and colours.

The sequence of the myth is set out in fig. 28. It begins with children
asserting their independence from their parents and a spirit unable to
digest. The transformation of the children begins with dancing in
animal teeth, dancing itself being an other-worldly activity. However,
the use of this single piece of equipment heralds their transformation
into animals rather than ancestors (the teeth are taken from pigs
destined for the pot). The acquisition of teeth results in the children
being cooked, except for the weakling younger brother who has not
grown so far away from his parents. The fire is in the position of the
night-time lighting fire and is thus the opposite of the daytime cook¬
ing fire. When they are served, instead of being eaten the children are
put together and are thus reborn. They are given hair and sent off as
game animals, divided into bony monkeys and fleshy, round pigs.
They are sent off by whipping, which is also employed at initiation
to make bodies grow.
We can now outline a backwards cycle. The children assert their
independence by obstinately ignoring the productive rhythm instead
of taking a useful part in it. They and the spirit do not complete
their respective digestive and socialisation processes. Instead, the
children become identified with the sinister world of the spirit
(dancing), are cooked, put together, given hair and sent to the forest.
Human productive energy is changed into game animals by a back¬
wards movement through the cycle which normally changes game
animals into human productive energy. When ‘a season has passed’,
the activity is transferred backwards into the end of the previous
cycle, where it continues in reverse. Farting, literally ‘anus-blowing’,
is a socially approved act that is made as noisy as possible and draws
laughter and jokes. Possession of an anus would both make No-Anus
Spirit socially acceptable and enable him to digest and ‘live’. But in
fact he achieves neither, because he is killed by the pole which goes
198
 (-»

199
X (U
(11

nu

Fig. 28 Reverse cycle made in the myth of No-Anus Spirit

Production and consumption
in where the rotten food should come out and thus a complete cycle
is made. It is appropriate enough that this sinister food-retaining
spirit should become the clay from which pottery retainers are made.
The cycle described in the myth is set out in diagram form so that it
may be compared with the previous forwards cycles.
Turning children into game animals in the myth of No-Anus Spirit
has its counterpart in the shamanic practice of swapping new-born
babies for game animals (p. 61). In fig. 28, the point of entry on the
far left represents the ‘other world’, and the far right represents the
interior of the community (its nourishment with either food or chil¬
dren) and so, once more, the shaman is performing his characteristic
mediating role.
Before leaving the meat-preparation cycle, we should briefly con¬
sider how this would apply to fish. Fish come straight out of the
water and do not need singeing, and thus they enter the cycle at the
washing and butchering stage. If we follow the analogy set out
above, they are born from the water as potential food rather than
reborn from water as potential food, or, alternatively, we could say
that meat is reborn in the water as fish. This fits the conclusion above
that fish are more susceptible to human control than game animals.
As mentioned at the outset, this analysis suggests a preliminary
distinction between manioc preparation and meat preparation. Manioc
preparation is metaphorically concerned with physiological and ritual
reproduction and differentiation of the sexes, while meat preparation
is metaphorically concerned with marriage and the reproduction of
the descent group through its constituent family units. In the follow¬
ing discussion of the structuring of time and social relations by pro¬
duction and consumption, we shall see that manioc and meat are also
opposed in other ways related to this distinction, and the analysis will
yield a more specific formulation of the relationship between them.

Structuring time by production and consumption

Secular production and consumption

Production. The daily cycle is governed by the sun, but, within the
framework set by the alternation of day and night, time is structured
by the activities of the longhouse community. The most important
of the regular, daily productive activities are manioc production and
cooking meals by women, and hunting or fishing and coca production
200
Structuring time by production and consumption
by men. Other activities are either seasonal or occasional, while these
regular activities are part of every normal daily cycle. Since coca pro¬
duction is the only regular activity not described so far, I make a
brief digression to outline the process.

Coca production. Old coca bushes are stripped and broken into sticks
which are planted in long straight rows several plants wide (see fig.
29). The long intersecting rows make up a huge geometrical form
representing a spreadeagled human body (p. 212). The coca bushes
planted simultaneously with the first manioc crop remain in pro¬
duction after the garden has been abandoned as a source of manioc.
Men pick coca in a group, conversing, joking and passing cigars and
coca as they go. The leaves are carried in a single basket and tipped
out into a large shallow basket in the centre front of the house. They
are toasted by stirring in a deep round-bottomed pot over a fire laid
in the side front; meanwhile, someone is sent to fetch dried leaves,
preferably of the jungle grape (Pourouma cecropiaefolia). The toasted
leaves are pounded in an upright cylindrical wooden mortar with a
heavy wooden pestle. The grape leaves are set on fire, also in the
centre of the house, and the resulting ash is gathered and added to
the coca poundings in a male gourd. The mixture is sieved through a
bark-cloth bag tied onto the end of a long pole, which is rhythmically
banged inside another, much longer, cylindrical tube tied up to the
‘ritual post’. The particles that remain in the sieving bag are repounded
and resieved, usually twice more. The sifted powder is transferred to
the gourd, from which it is served to the community of men. This
gourd sits on a wicker stand, similar to the one supporting the cassava
basket, placed by the ritual post. The process is usually completed
at dusk. Picking may be in the morning or afternoon depending on
the quantity required.
The processing of coca is followed by formal speeches recounting
the preparation process and the stages are ordered, roughly rather
than precisely, according to prestige. Toasting is a skilled task allo¬
cated to an experienced elder who often sings ritual dance-songs as
he works. Pounding requires great energy and is allocated to young
men, while sieving is skilled and is usually performed by the owner
of the growing crop. Fetching leaves for ash is a menial task typically
given to the youngest men, to extra residents or even to women. The
differentiation of processing tasks therefore serves to bind members
of the productive team in interdependent relationships.
201
Production and consumption

We have seen that the harvesting and separating stages of the

manioc process take up a day, dividing it neatly in half between the
two and providing a culmination point when the manioc juice is
boiled up and served to the men at dusk. Cassava making — stage (3)
— and cooking foods for communal meals are fitted into this day as

1- -1
replanted
in new
COCA garden

1 \1
kahi

DRY GRAPE LEAVES STICKS

LEAVES kahi ha kahi raku
■
[Pourouma cecropiaefolia\ toasted by
ttdye h u stirring in pot
over Fire

set alight
I-«—
pounded
in upright
mortar
ASH
oh a
I
POWDER
t returned
to sieve

sieved through
bark cloth in
leaning tube a l

coarse
bits emptied
¥ from bark doth

FINISHED COCA
Fig. 29 Coca processing
202
Structuring time by production and consumption

the need arises. However, the men’s day is less rigidly structured,
because coca production and hunting or fishing are alternative pur¬
suits, neither of which need take up a whole day. For one thing, the
communal sharing of both protein food and coca means that a man
may temporarily rely on the production of others, but it is regarded
as a very bad reflection on a woman if members of her family draw
on the cassava supply of other women. For another, coca production,
although elaborate, can be completed in less time than manioc har¬
vesting and separation. If a large quantity is prepared, picking and
processing may occupy the morning and afternoon respectively (in
the manner of manioc), but if a small quantity is required, picking
usually starts relatively late in the afternoon when the men have
returned from hunting or fishing. Nevertheless, coca production must
be planned to end at dusk, and it is evidently seen as an important
factor in structuring time, for, in a myth describing the origin of
night, it is explained that when there was no differentiation of day
and night, people got muddled up with their coca processing. We
may therefore sum up by saying that both coca and manioc pro¬
duction serve to structure the day and bring on the transition to
night at their completion, but that manioc is more practically
effective in this respect than coca. Men’s protein production does not
structure time, and is an alternative to coca production.
While production is confined to the daytime (although cassava
baking and coca processing may slip over into the dark a little), con¬
sumption is divided, so that food consumption is confined to the day
while coca consumption is not. Meals are initiated by breakfast at
dawn and then held whenever appropriate until dusk. After each meal,
drinks are served. These are made of manioc juice, starch and fruits,
but they do not contain pepper. They are supplied by each female
family productive team in the manner of pots of food for the manioc-
based meal and cassava. After the meal, everyone washes carefully
and then the men hand round coca and cigars amongst themselves.
These must never be taken in conjunction with food and, since they
are the substances off which the spirits or souls of the ancestors live,
they may be described as ‘soul-foods’, as opposed to the cassava and
peppery dishes which nourish the body. Men who are smoking or
chewing coca may accept drinks and therefore, in some respects,
these may be said to mediate between the food and soul-food.
The cigars are smoked a puff or two at a time, and the coca is
taken from a round gourd on a bone or leaf scoop; it becomes a sodden
203
Production and consumption

wadge in the side of the mouth and is gradually swallowed. One man,
acting as host, passes first the cigar and then the coca to another, who
uses them and then either returns them to the host or hands them on
to the next man.
This slightly formalised distribution of coca and tobacco is especially
appropriate after meals before the community disperses for productive
labour, but it is also typical of any time when several men are together
and no food is being served. When alone outside the house, men draw
on their individual pouches of tobacco and cigar stubs. However, the
‘soul-foods’ come into full force after dusk when the men’s circle
gathers. The men sit on stools in a circle towards the right-hand centre
front of the house (see fig. 5) and converse, tell myths and joke
together. Throughout, coca, cigars and frequently snuff as well, are
handed from the headman along the line and back (for in spite of the
circular seating pattern the line has a beginning and end). Like its pro¬
duction, the consumption of coca is accompanied by formal speeches
and verbal acknowledgements, which may be lengthened and exag¬
gerated to suit the formality of the occasion. Towards midnight, the
headman disperses the circle by initiating an exchange of ‘goodnights’
and shutting the men’s door. Women, who spend the time after dusk
in small groups around the outside of the men’s circle, usually leave
for their hammocks before the men. They are less strict in observing
the prohibition on eating after dusk.
It is clear that the daily pattern reproduces the smaller-scale pattern
of the meal. This is represented in fig. 30. While the latter contains
the sequence: food, drink, coca and tobacco, dispersal, the former con¬
tains the sequence: food during the day, manioc juice at dusk, coca
and tobacco in the men’s circle, sleep. Although the day as a whole is
opposed to the night according to the presence and absence of food
consumption, the night is also internally divided into the men’s circle
and sleep - the transition ideally occurs at midnight. We should also
note that the organisation of time by consumption is different for the
opposite sexes, because women are virtually excluded from tobacco and
coca consumption and retire much earlier than men. The patterns evi¬
dent in the organisation of the daily socio-economic cycle can be identi¬
fied more clearly by comparison with ritual occasions (fig. 30A, B and C).

Production and consumption on ritual occasions

Indians attend communal rituals every few weeks. These gatherings

204
MEAL community ’
CYCLE gathers drinks
A
\
\\
\

w■v
j\ \

food

B
DA/LY DAWN DUSK
CYCLE

food

C
SECULAR-
RITUAL
CYCLE

Note Women do not normally participate in consumption

of coco, tobacco S-yage or observe seclusion after
communal ritual.

Fig. 30 Structuring time by food and drug consumption

Production and consumption
break the normal routine of maintaining the material basis of exist¬
ence of the community. The daily pattern is suspended, and both
food and sleep are forbidden during the ritual (strictly for initiated
males and less so for women and children). At the same time, long-
house communities lose their autonomy and become temporarily
drawn into a wider social unit, which represents the interdependence
of separate longhouse groups for marriage and political purposes.
Since the presence of visitors increases the formality and ritualisation
of daily life, in one sense the ritual occasion may be seen as a product
of the gathering of longhouse communities.
Members of the host community visit the guest communities some
days before the dance to invite them ‘to drink beer’, adding the
nature of the ritual and the names of the dances to be performed.
The invitation speech sets the day by giving the calendar of the prep¬
aration of beer, which is made up as follows: ‘bringing-in-manioc
day’, ‘pairing-off bringing-in-manioc day’ (in the case of a large
gathering), ‘beer-working day’ and ‘beer-drinking day’ on which the
ritual begins. The invitation also mentions the coca preparation
throughout the days previous to the ritual. Visitors who arrive before
the appointed day are drawn into the preparations.
The beers are made by particular women on the orders of the male
host; they may be based on different vegetable materials and are kept
separately - the main one in the beer canoe and others in tall pots.
The rest of the women assist the beer-makers.
It is clear both from the phrasing of the invitations and the actual
sequence of events that the beer preparation, and, to a lesser extent,
coca preparation, structures the preparation period and actually
achieves the transition into ‘ritual time’. During the preparation, cer¬
tain elements of the ordinary daily pattern of work are extracted
and stretched out while others, hunting and fishing and cooking
dishes for communal meals, simply continue in desultory form.
Making beer involves the harvest and separation of roots and boiling
up juice, which form part of the normal manioc process, but these are
drawn out over two or three days instead of being confined to one.
Cooling the juice prior to serving is replaced by pouring juice onto
chewed solids followed by overnight fermentation. The fermentation
is actually a cooling process too, but it is delayed in time by heaping
hot ashes round the base of the fermentation vessel. The fermentation
transforms daily foods and juice into a ritual drink which must be
kept separate from the foods and juice from which it was made. This
206
Structuring time by production and consumption

transformation takes place most appropriately in a canoe (idire

kumua, which literally means ‘beer canoe’) which is the means of
transport between communities, transport from the ancestral beings
in the east to the present inhabitants of the Pira-parana and also
transport from life to death, since corpses are buried in canoes. Pots
are also transformative symbols, as we have seen from their use in
manioc and coca processing and also in cooking. Finally, drinking
beer when the ritual begins is like drinking manioc juice at the begin¬
ning of the night on ordinary days.
While manioc-beer processing has its own momentum, culminating
in the correct degree of fermentation, the coca leaves must be toasted
fresh: the whole process is repeated daily and the product accumu¬
lated. Nevertheless, the few hours spent on coca in the normal day
are extended to fill the whole day and sometimes a number of hours
after dark, too. The obliteration of the division between day and
night can also be seen in women’s pre-dawn sieving of fermented beer
(p. 180). Therefore, overall, preparation is like a long day devoted to
coca and manioc work and relatively devoid of protein production
and family cooking.
During the night of fermentation which achieves the transition
into ritual time, the men make their own transition. They sleep very
little and anticipate the next day by finishing their coca, preparing
tobacco snuff (rather similar to coca preparation) and starting pro¬
tective shamanism of sacred substances to ward off the potential
dangers of contact with the ancestral world. They also start to play
musical instruments and, if He instruments are to be used, they play
them outside the house during this pre-ritual night. Although, in one
sense, it is the women’s beer-making that brings communities
together, we should not forget that it is the men who issue the invi¬
tations and, during the ritual itself, wear the sacred ornaments, chant,
lead the dance and consume the sacred substances. Of the latter, only
beer is freely consumed by women and children and, even so, it is
reserved for men if there is a shortage.
The female-promoted gathering of groups and the essentially male
interaction which follows during ritual may be compared with sex
roles in the creation of the social structure. Women are the substance
of affinal links between groups; they also differentiate and order the
members of a sibling group through their child-bearing cycles and yet
relations between groups, whether they are affines or ‘brothers’, are
conducted by men, who wage war, exchange ritual invitations, take
207
Production and consumption
women in marriage and perform either dangerous or beneficial sham¬
anism.
The role of women in providing the beer which creates the ritual
occasion has yet further significance. It transposes one aspect of the
everyday relation between the sexes — the flow of manioc products
from women to men — to the relationship between the opposed
groups of hosts and guests. The guests, as invited recipients of beer,
are like men in relation to the ‘female’ hosts. This is confirmed in the
use of house space, for the guests are confined to the men’s end of
the house (where they enter) and the hosts travel back and forth
serving beer and maintaining a female position in relation to the
guests. It is significant that the guests bring coca, but no manioc
products, with them. Furthermore, there are two kinds of ritual at
which food changes hands: one is the cassava distribution after re¬
integration of initiates, when the cassava passes from host to guest,
and the other is the food exchange already discussed, in which the
guests bring the gift of wild products. Kaj Arhem reports that an
informant from Cano Komeyaka actually likened the guests entering
with their ceremonial gift of fish or meat to a penis entering a womb
(personal communication). This accords perfectly with the relative
positions of guests and hosts, as well as with my own material on the
symbolism of house space (ch. 7), and is a further indication that
symbolic fertilisation may be important in the structure of all com¬
munal rituals. There is actually a point in communal ritual proceed¬
ings at which the chief guest and host retire to the extreme female
end of the house to chant together, which may well represent the
climax of the symbolic fertilisation process (but unfortunately I do
not know the content of the chant).
Returning to the parallels between the daily and ritual structuring
of time, many of the essential features of the communal ritual appear
as stronger versions of corresponding features of the men’s circle. The
loose arrangement of participants on a circle of stools below the box
of feather ornaments (normally suspended from the roof) is replaced
by two rows of men (roughly ‘visitors’ and ‘hosts’) who wear the
ornaments and sit nearer the men’s door. The cigars, coca and snuff
consumed each night are present in greater quantities in the dance
context and they are accompanied by yage. Yage is called idire kahi,
‘drinking’ coca, as opposed to coca which is bare kahi, ‘eating’ coca,
or simply kahi. This suggests that yage may be regarded as a liquid
extension of coca, in much the same way that beer is a liquid exten-
208
Structuring time by production and consumption

sion of manioc. Beer and yage are actually served as a pair; yage,
which is very bitter, cannot be kept down without a draught of beer
immediately after drinking it.
These same sacred substances that are an essential feature of all
communal rituals may also be used to differentiate between more-
sacred and less-sacred rituals. The different varieties of yage, the
vessels and implements for taking snuff and coca, and the special
ceremonial cigars believed to derive from ancient times are graded
according to their degree of sacred power and are chosen to suit the
occasion. In this, they are like certain ornaments and musical instru¬
ments (for instance ‘imitation’ and ‘true’ He) and the factor of
‘absence of women’, all of which indicate the sacredness of the
occasion. All these sacred elements make the dance participants enter
an alternative world identified with the ancestral past. This alternative
world is present in a weak form as an aspect of everyday life access¬
ible to men, but hardly at all to women and children.
Since yage is only the cultivated ‘drug’ used exclusively during
ritual, it obviously plays a special part in distinguishing ritual life
from everyday life. It provides what might be described as the ‘ritual
frame’ — the other-worldly experience of the participants. Being
both produced and consumed during the ritual itself, it is not associ¬
ated with the cyclical alternation of ritual and secular time in the
same way as manioc beer. Instead, it refers to a mode of time in
which the beginning of creation in the mythical past is the point of
reference, for it is said to show the men how to chant and dance —
activities which reproduce the original creative process, as we have
already seen.
Besides creating the ritual in the sense of making the participants
perform in the appropriate way, the yage also creates an alternative
experience of time and space to the everyday one. Those who drink
it see and hear things beyond everyday reality. Although their souls
remain within their bodies it is, as one informant put it, ‘as if we were
so large that the universe is small by comparison and we can see
everything’. Indians also say that the house becomes the universe
during ritual so that the men’s door becomes the eastern entrance to
the earth we inhabit. Much of the chanting ‘shown by yage’ is about
the mythical associations of the landmarks on the journey upriver
from this eastern entrance made by the group of ancestors. The
chanters actually identify themselves with these ancestors, saying,
‘We, Fish Anaconda Son (or some other group ancestor) came up river
209
Production and consumption
and . . . demonstrating that, although they do not move trom their
stools, they are travelling in time and space. The accounts ot yage
visions which are filled with anacondas, jaguars, ancestral houses and
distant geographical settings fit with this ‘ritual frame achieved by
yage. Indians say that the hallucinations are produced by yage in the
form of an anaconda which, having entered the body, thrashes around
inside and slides out as a stream of vomit. Thus, the anaconda form
of the ancestors within the universe is united with the anaconda form
of the yage within the bodies of the participants.
We are now in a position to draw together the scales of organisation
of time. The relationships which follow are represented in fig. 31. In
the men's daily cycle the day is divided between protein provision
and coca production, while the night is divided between the men’s
circle and sleep. The ritual is like an extended men’s circle and the
preparation period is marked by the extended production of coca.
Similarly, for the women the daily cycle divides into manioc pro¬
duction and cooking meals, while the night is filled with a weak form
of social interaction after dusk, and sleep. The ritual is like an
extended form of this interaction and the preparation period is filled
with the extended first two stages of manioc production. Ritual,
together with the preceding preparation, may thus be seen as an
extension of selected aspects of the daily cycle. The aspects that are
not selected are production, cooking and consumption of protein
(and other peppery dishes), stage (3) of manioc production, cassava
consumption and sleep. These may be contrasted with the selected
aspects: stages (1) and (2) of manioc production, coca production,
consumption of the product of manioc; stages (1) and (2), beer,
consumption of coca and formal social interaction.
We have already seen that the provision of communal meals takes
place within the family unit, involves both husband and wife (protein
provision and cooking) and also refers metaphorically to the process
of formation and dispersal of family units. For everyone except the
unmarried, initiated youths, sleep takes place in the family compart¬
ment where husband, wife and children are enclosed together. It
therefore seems that interaction between the sexes within family
units is incompatible with ritual time, while separation of the sexes
in their respective manioc and coca work and during the ritual pro¬
ceedings themselves is appropriate during the preparatory phase and
the ritual itself. Although the sexes dance together during the least
‘sacred’ rituals, the partners are not husband and wife. At the most
210
Structuring time by production and consumption

extreme form of ritual, male initiation, the sexes are totally segre¬
gated.
The chief problem with this conclusion is that although the manioc
process has a product at the end of stage (2), beer, which is closely

DAILY CYCLE

PROTEIN

MANIOC
STAGE 3

MANIOC
STAGES
1 &2

COCA

RITUAL CYCLE

MANIOC
STAGES
I6r2

COCA

KEY

NO PRODUCTION
OR
NO consumption

SEX OF PRODUCER
CONSUMPTION
OR CONSUMER

Fig. 31 Production and consumption of protein, manioc and coca

211
Production and consumption

parallel to coca, it has another at the end of stage (3), cassava, which,
as a food, is opposed to coca. However, there is plenty of evidence
that coca and manioc are paired both as crops and as final products
(cassava and coca). First, coca and manioc are the most important
male and female crops. Secondly, they are planted in a pattern which
recalls the bone-flesh relationship, the coca resembling a skeletal
human form and the manioc ‘covering’ it to make the circular manioc-
garden shape. Thirdly, as they are originally planted in Yeba's garden
- the ‘first garden’ - coca is the body of Yeba's brother and manioc
is Yawira's sisters (p. 183).

Origin of cultivation of coca

When Yawira had brought the cultivated food plants to Yeba from
her father, she ordered Yeba to fell her a manioc garden and not to
care for his younger brother too much. She got Yeba's younger
brother, Nyake, to help her carry the bundles of manioc sticks ready
for planting. As he did so she seduced him and they made love on the
path, at the edge of the garden and finally in the middle of the gar¬
den. Here he died on the point of ejaculation and she laid out his
body to make the rows of coca. This was nyake-coca., the variety
owned by Yeba's people ever afterwards; it was different from Fish
Anaconda’s coca. When Yeba went to pick his coca, the bushes bled
with human blood. Later, Yawira bore a son, the ancestor of Nyake
Hino Ria (Nyake Anaconda Children), also called Rasegana, a dancer/
chanter sib.

Thus, Yeba obtained coca from his brother’s body and Yawira
obtained manioc from her sisters’ bodies. The myth suggests that
male descent-group relations and coca are associated (the more so
since the creation of coca also leads to the birth of a descent line) and
that these are contrasted to female descent-group relations. In
addition, the male descent-group members need the creative powers
of females from opposed descent groups to perpetuate their lines. In
one sense, Yawira is obviously like the fertile earth on which she lies
and Nyake’s ejaculation is a ‘planting’ act, for both the coca and the
child bear the same name. The identification of coca with a male
descent line and of manioc with a woman of opposed descent-group
origin will be discussed again later (pp. 228f).
Fourthly, Indians consider that the vegetative reproduction of both
manioc and coca create continuous ‘paths’ over time. This type of
212
Structuring time by production and consumption

reproduction distinguishes the two from pepper and tobacco (which

have fertile seeds) but it likens them to yage which, we saw, shares
the name kahi with coca.4 I return to other aspects of these simi¬
larities and differences on pp. 228f. Finally, processing manioc into
cassava and processing coca take place in the open female and male
part of the house respectively. Both make use of dry toasting (gate-)
rather than boiling (roa-), the cooking method appropriate to the
peppery foods which accompany cassava. In both cases, some of the
productive equipment is communally used (although it is owned by
the maker or purchaser). At the end of processing, each is set up on
a wicker stand.
All these factors suggest that, although cassava is a food rather
than a soul-food, it is a female counterpart of coca and is opposed in
many ways to the foods into which it is dipped. Like other foods, it
nourishes the bodies of consumers rather than their souls, but, as
will be shown below, it is connected with a particular aspect of bodily
growth opposed to that connected with the other foods. However,
first we must consider how the various foods are related together in
the re-establishment of secular time after ritual, pointing out some
of the salient features of the order in which they are shamanised.

Reintegration through food consumption

The serial shamanism of foods which occurs at the beginning of life

or after the onset of menstruation or ritual participation was briefly
described on pp. 122f. Here, I use the post-initiation period, during
which reintegration through foodstuffs is most carefully ordered, to
bring out the basic principles of this process. The sequence is repre¬
sented in fig. 32. There are slight differences between this food series
and the one at the beginning of life, since, as the baby only takes
milk, it does not undergo a seclusion diet.
At first, the diet consists of thin starch cassava, raw and toasted
ants and termites, some of which are caught by the participants, and
drinks of toasted starch crumbs in water. All must be eaten cold.
Basically, this diet lasts until the pepper shamanism, but certain forest
fruits and then cultivated vegetable foods are added. At first, the only
cooked foods allowed are toasted ones; even coca is reshamanised
after the ritual, in order to make the toasting fire, which is used to

4 Pepper may be reproduced either by seed or by planting the sticks of an old plant.

213
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214
Structuring time by production and consumption

make the new batch, safe. With the vegetables, boiling is introduced,
but food must still be eaten stone cold. Shortly before pepper sham¬
anism, cold manioc juice (also boiled) and salt are added. Pepper
shamanism introduces pepper and hot manioc juice and removes the
danger of fire. It is followed immediately by shamanism of small
fish (wai ria, which literally means ‘fish-children’) caught in funnel-
traps by the initiates and cooked with manioc leaves and pepper.
These are followed over a period of months by other fish roughly in
order of size, but also arranged into categories according to fishing
methods, cooking methods and special natural characteristics referred
to in myth. Long after the least harmful fish, but before the largest
‘grease-filling’ fish (p. 120), come ground-living game birds and small
mammals. Later on, other categories of mammal and the most
dangerous fish are introduced; the series culminates with tapir. The
sequence in the post-pepper shamanism part of the series depends
partly on availability of the rarer foods. Complete cassava (made
with starch and fibre) is introduced immediately after pepper sham¬
anism.
The series has certain dominant themes: one of these is the gradual
emergence from the cold world of He xvi. During the emergence,
various elements associated with domestic fire are introduced in an
ordered fashion: toasting, boiling, hot food, pepper and direct contact
with fire. Firewood is obtained by women from cultivation sites, and
is thus a female-controlled by-product of men’s forest-burning. The
once-burnt wood which lies in the clearing is also the burnt bones of
Manioc-stick Anaconda, a product of the burning process which we
saw was paired with the burning that resulted in men’s He (p. 184).
The term for both fire and firewood, hea, also suggests a link between
these and the sacred instruments and, besides this, it is said that mad
people try to play pieces of lighted firewood as if they were He. Just
as the manioc stick was shown to be a female equivalent of He, fire is
a female inversion of He.
Another theme is the gradual emergence from the ‘underneath
layer’ represented by He wi. The ants and termites in the seclusion
diet are classified as ‘inside the earth’ creatures, and in the full version
of Manioc-stick Anaconda’s competitive relations with Macaw, the
emergence of initiates from their ritual experience is specifically
linked to the seasonal emergence of the flying form of one of these
permitted species of ground termite (p. 261; S. Hugh-Jones 1979 :
M.6.A). In eating these, the participants are identifying themselves
215
Production and consumption
with this emergence from underground. Also, while starch may be
considered the lowest, underground part of the manioc plant, the
first ordinary meal of boiled fish and pepper is mixed in with manioc
leaves, the uppermost parts of the manioc plant, which are called ki
gaha, upper end of manioc. Thus it seems that the participants are
also identified with the vertical structure of the manioc plant which
spans the space between underground and sky. This is consistent with
the general analogy between birth and manioc cultivation set out
before (p. 125), and with the prohibition on any foods that do not
grow from the ground during seclusion. After pepper shamanism, the
overall progression is from wai ria (small fish) to wai bukura (game
animals), just as human growth is from ria masa, children, to bukura
or bukura masa, elders. Thus, during seclusion, the participants emerge
from the ground and afterwards they grow from water onto land,
becoming harder and more mature. The contrast between the starch
of the seclusion diet to the complete cassava eaten with the normal
communal meals following pepper shamanism once more implies a
change from origins to maturity (see analysis of manioc process p.
189).
Yet another general change throughout the series is from foods
which may be obtained by both sexes to ones that are exclusively got
by men. Although the participants are supposed to obtain at least
part of the non-female-cultivated portion of their diet themselves as
an integral part of their growth process, all the foods included before
pepper shamanism may be collected by women also; in fact, women
did supply the participants with some of their foods during the
seclusion period we witnessed. The foods introduced after pepper are
in an order roughly corresponding to certainty of success, as discussed
above (pp. 171—3); fish come before game animals and tiny fish
caught in traps come first; poisoned fish follow these, preceding
larger fish and game. The first of the game creatures are tinamou
(.ngaha), ground-creeping birds which were also traditionally caught
in large numbers by trapping. We saw before that certainty of success
or reliability in production of food correlates with allocation of pro¬
duction to women, and lack of reliability with allocation of pro¬
duction to men. Overall, the dietary progression is from female to
male productivity and from reliable to risky food sources. By obtain¬
ing the foods to be newly introduced for themselves the participants
are learning both a progressively more male economic role and to

216
Interpretation of foods

overcome the independence of the natural world by building up fish¬

ing and hunting skills.
An additional progression easily observable in the series is from
small to large. The contrast between the extreme diets of thin starch
cassava and ants or termites on the one hand, and thick cassava con¬
taining coarse fibre with tapir meat on the other, is sufficient to
demonstrate this.
A composite change which may be derived from the particular
changes noted above is from a cold, underground diet eaten in
seclusion to participation in communal meals. These meals incorpor¬
ate the very elements — boiling, addition of salt, addition of pepper,
and consumption while hot — which we saw to be metaphorically
linked to the female gestation process and the family as the focus of
sexual reproduction of community members. Meat, the ideal sub¬
stance for such meals, was shown to represent the transformation of
a woman obtained from outside into children bom into the husband’s
community. It is appropriate enough that pepper should be the focal
point of this change, since it stands for the essence of this female
sexuality — the creative blood. The coincidence of pepper shamanism,
the henyerio rite, and the reintegration of participants into the hetero¬
sexual community with its secular daily routine serves to underline
the ability of the ritually reborn individual to partake in this world of
creative conjunction between the sexes.

Interpretation of foods

Starch

The secular world is characterised by hot sexual conjunction, family

relations, a complete diet of foods and productive economic activity.
It contrasts strongly with the world of He wi, which is cold, dead and
characterised by consumption of soul-foods, separation of the sexes
and emphasis on ancestral female sexuality. These hot and cold
worlds are the worlds of natural conjunction and social restraint men¬
tioned before (p. 158). The seclusion period is both intermediate in
time and of an intermediary character: the sexes are still separated,
but the participants depend on a constant flow of starch products
from women: they eat food, but only when it is very cold, and there
is no dipping cassava into other, peppery foods as in normal times.

217
Production and consumption
There is some productive activity, but the ants and termites collected
are not shared with women and the basketry artifacts made are not
given to women until after pepper shamanism. In the analysis of
birth, I suggested that the seclusion after birth is a re-enactment of
foetal development. The general position of seclusion periods between
metaphorical death and life makes them open to the same interpret¬
ation but, of course, the interpretation must take account of the dif¬
ferent natures of the occasions for seclusion: birth, menstruation and
He wi. The principal seclusion food is thin starch cassava, and, by
looking closely at the ritual role of starch, we can relate the different
types of seclusion.
Although it is prohibited as food during He wi (pp. 144f), starch is
rubbed into the incised patterns on some of the He instruments.
During the initiates’ seclusion, marked by a starch-based diet, there is
the elders’ pepper shamanism rite at which the initiates throw pieces
of thin starch cassava on bark-cloth strings into the roof. The initiates
retire to play He on the plaza, while the elders receive their shaman-
ised pepper and hot manioc juice and afterwards dance with women
— all inside the house. The initiates must not see this activity, but the
elders periodically dance out onto the plaza, revealing themselves to
the initiates and the He. On this occasion, and on the later occasion
following pepper shamanism for the initiates when thick rounds of
starch cassava are distributed, the house is said to be ‘white all over’
with starch.
Indians say that the house is a womb and that manioc juice is milk.
Remembering that starch is like semen in various ways, we may see
the initiates during seclusion as conceived but unborn creatures. The
thin starch cassava is the seminal stuff of which they are made and
the house is the collective (male-constructed) womb to which the
starch—foetuses are attached by umbilical cords (strings). The re-
introduction of hot manioc juice, explicitly identified with milk, into
the diet coincides with their ‘birth’ out of seclusion and thus repre¬
sents the milk drunk after birth. While the initiates are still identified
with the cold, dead world during the elders’ pepper rite, the elders
themselves receive pepper and dance with women inside the ‘womb’,
as well as seeing He, without coming to any harm. This is evidence of
their established periodicity, their mastering of the transition between
the hot and cold worlds. The thick rounds of starch cassava (about
four times thicker than the seclusion cassava) distributed at the
initiates’ reintegration can be identified with the fully grown foetus
218
Interpretation of foods

which is released into the living world or, in terms of the initiates,
into heterosexual society in a new adult status.
While this interpretation rests on the identity of starch and semen,
we should not forget that cassava is produced by women. In myth,
both starch and fibre were represented as sexually desirable women,
and we also saw that in certain contexts starch may be contrasted to
fibre as female maturity contrasts to male maturity. An interpret¬
ation of the role of starch in terms of cold seminal origins opposed to
the hot female sexuality embodied in pepper is not sufficient by
itself, because it seems that starch is also associated with mature
female sexuality. However, the cold female sexuality compatible with
He instruments and likened to semen is obviously very different from
hot sexuality. While cold starch cassava is provided by women who
are segregated from the initiates and observing ritual restrictions, hot
peppery food is cooked by women engaging in normal heterosexual
relations with men and co-operating with them in production of pro¬
tein meals. Starch is thus metaphorical sexual nourishment from
women, who are actually sexually forbidden. Birth of new descent-
group members depends upon correct exogamous marriage and this,
in turn, depends upon relinquishing sisters. Thus starch, in represent¬
ing the sexuality of forbidden women, can also be said to represent
the forbidden sisters in their positive aspect — it is these sisters who
‘nourish’ the descent group with wives. Put in another way, it is the
descent-group aspect of women that is represented by starch. This is
opposed to the natural sexuality represented by pepper, and so the
relationship between starch and pepper is one of cold, social classifi¬
cation to hot, natural conjunction. Both the opposed descent-group
membership of wives (exogamy) and the natural sexuality (the female
reproductive cycle) are essential to the reproduction of the husband’s
group.
I believe that there is linguistic support for the association of
ritual restrictions, starch and prohibition of incest. It seems highly
likely that the terms for ‘younger brother’ and ‘younger sister’, bedi
and bedeo, are related to bedi-, ‘to observe ritual restrictions’. If this
is so, then the root bed- may be given the general gloss ‘to be for¬
bidden or closed off’.5 In Makuna, the closest of all Tukanoan
languages to Barasana, starch is bede, a term which apparently utilises
the same root.
While the natural female sexuality associated with pepper resides
5 The gloss ‘closed off’ also covers the appearance of bed- in bedo, ring (a closed-off line).

219
Production and consumption

in the menstrual cycle and is therefore adequately represented by

menstrual blood, it is not yet clear what represents the cold, descent-
group aspect of mature women. Although women’s descent-group
membership, like men’s, originates in the father’s contribution of
semen, we have seen that the interpretation of starch as semen does
not account for the specific associations of starch with female sexual
maturity. Here I would like to suggest tentatively that starch may
have an additional reference to vaginal fluid, and that this substance
is regarded as a product of sexually mature women which constitutes
a transformation of the semen from which they originated. Although
I have no direct evidence to support this suggestion, the term for
vaginal fluid, ahea badi (ahea means both penis and vagina), is the
same as that for semen, and the whiteness of the two also unites them.
This identification also makes sense of the reference to starch in the
mythical episode of Yeba’s penis (p. 185) and that of Dragonfly’s
daughters (pp. 1850 as well as the use of starch on He instruments.
In the episode of Yeba’s penis, Yeba eats starch. Since eating is
metaphorical sexual intercourse, we may say that it is sexual contact
with Yawira’s cold, vaginal fluid representing her separate, under¬
water descent which transforms Yeba’s penis to the human position.
This interpretation accords with my association of starch with the
descent-group aspect of women and also with the Indian view that
the Yeba—Yawira cycle is about the interdependence of civilisation
and exogamy. In the episode of Dragonfly’s daughters, the cold,
white Starch Woman was hidden away from strangers by her father.
However, the stranger who succeeded in making love to her became
white and alive on his front. The fact that the starch-skin of this
woman is transferred to the stranger during sexual intercourse fits
my interpretation of starch as vaginal fluid. The starch is associated
with natal origins, since Starch Woman is closely guarded by her
father, and yet it is life-giving to outsiders: this is consistent with its
association with the descent-group aspect of women. The starch
rubbed into the He instruments is also open to interpretation as
vaginal secretion, especially in view of the analysis of the He wi rite
as a symbolic fertilisation, in which the phallic instruments ‘eat’
from the house filled with beeswax aroma — a cold, ancestral version
of the blood-filled womb (pp. 154f).
Now the starch diet during menstrual and post-natal seclusion can
also be explained. The seclusion of women following the onset of
release of blood is a type of social control imposed upon natural
220
Interpretation of foods

female periodicity. The women are set apart spatially and they are
also sexually forbidden, so that their relation to the male community
becomes like one of sister to brother. The first menstrual seclusion
which is imposed by the girl’s descent group may be seen as evidence
of their control over her newly matured sexuality, while menstrual
seclusions following her marriage may be seen as recognition of her
opposed descent-group origin. Thus, while the menstrual cycle as a
whole is a natural cycle, social rules divide it into a natural, hot
phase which coincides with natural retention of blood, and a ritual,
cold phase which coincides with the release of blood. In the myth of
Frog Wife, there is evidence that the seclusion phase is associated with
the descent-group status of a woman, while the intervening period is
associated with wifely status. We have seen that Frog Wife’s return to
the cold, white Mildew House in the ancestral east where her own
people live is actually a metaphorical menstrual seclusion (p. 166). In
eating starch, the menstruating woman is recreating her own seminal,
descent-group origins and at the same time she is reinforcing the cold
aspect of her sexual maturity. When she takes shamanised pepper she
moves into a phase of hot sexuality again.
In the post-natal seclusion, father, mother and new-born baby
withdraw together into the family compartment. By eating starch,
the father identifies himself with semen and thus stresses his new
parenthood, but he also performs metaphorical sexual intercourse
with cold female sexuality. Meanwhile, the mother emphasises her
own descent-group membership and cold female sexuality. Therefore,
besides stressing the father’s creativity (semen) at the expense of the
mother’s (blood), the starch consumption also refers to the social
aspect of family structure, its foundation in exogamy. Of course,
these two aspects of the seclusion are related.
I have suggested that starch represents semen and also vaginal
fluid, while pepper represents menstrual blood. Although vaginal
fluid may be said to represent the descent-group status of sexually
mature women, there is no evidence that it contributes to the foetus
— the only female contribution to the foetus is blood. We saw that
both semen and female blood are related to the physical substance
of the body but that semen, unlike blood, establishes the descent-
group membership of the child. However, the male power to create
the physical substance of the child with semen contrasts with the
male power to install or renew the soul of the child at naming and at
He wi. This explains the position of the starch diet midway between
221
Production and consumption

ritual periods, characterised by a diet of soul-foods, and secular

periods when all food is eaten with pepper. Starch represents the
physical aspect of the descent group manifest in the bodies of its
male and female members, rather than the spiritual aspect manifest
in names or souls. Thus, although starch is the whitest and purest of
foods, it is still food for the body rather than food for the soul. We
now have a simple model relating consumption patterns to the
elements in the reproduction of the individual, as follows:
time sequence: ritual seclusion secular life

food consumed: soul-food cold food hot food

(starch) (pepper)
associated
element of
individual: soul , semen female blood,
body
Although the model above describes the reproduction of the indi¬
vidual, it omits the descent-group aspect of women which is crucial
to the creation of an exogamous marriage, and which is also embodied
in starch. Likewise, it omits an aspect of men associated with pepper.
Pepper is not only eaten; the juice of raw peppers is sniffed by men
to induce fierceness and it is also rubbed into the skin to draw out
grease, which forms a base for red paint (ngunanya). Red paint is
also associated with fierceness, for those intending to kill paint their
faces and bodies solid red. Again, the red paint applied to men’s
navels during He wi induces fierceness. The chain of associations runs
full circle, because the sacred red paint is a male, ancestral version of
menstrual blood, and we already know this to be associated with
pepper (p. 195). Besides, pepper, red paint, the blood of killing and
menstrual blood are all linked by their red colour. The association of
male aggression with pepper completes a paradigm which opens the
way to an interpretation of the ideal meal:
white (starch) red (pepper)
male descent-group substance natural destruction
female descent-group substance natural creativity

Cooked meat

The ideal meal eaten on secular occasions consists of thick cassava

made of starch and fibre and meat boiled with pepper. The cassava
represents mature males (fibre) and mature females (starch) in their
222
Interpretation of foods

capacity as descent-group members (pp. 218ff). The pepper represents

hot, female sexuality and the meat hot, male aggression, since it is
the result of male killing. These last two are the paired natural aspects
of sexuality concerned with the increase of the community and its
success in competition with outside communities. The first two are
the paired social aspects of sexuality concerned with the exchange of
female reproductive powers between descent groups. Just as the
cassava is dipped in the peppery meat juice, the cold descent-group
substance of males and females must be imbued with the hot natural
powers of female sexuality and male aggression before children can
be born. Or, put the other way round, these hot powers must be
cooled by exogamy for the purposes of social reproduction. This
fits with the practical stress on the immorality of eating meat without
cassava.6 The salt, which I have omitted so far, was earlier interpreted
as semen in its minimal role as ‘activator’ of the female creative
powers. I suggest that this ‘female-activating’ role of male sexuality
contrasts with the descent-group role embodied in manioc products,
and is conceived of as the least spiritual manifestation of the male
reproductive capacity.
The distinction between the cold and hot constituents of the meal
may be represented as that between the separate descent origin of
husband and wife and the natural conjunction of the two. As with
the specialist-role series, the contrasted elements may be conceived of
as differentiated by time — the transformation of brothers and sisters
into husbands and wives — or, alternatively, as opposed aspects of
each sex which are present all the time. Another way to conceive of
the same relationship is as the one between the two basic modes of
obtaining a wife, described in chapter 4: sister-exchange and the
aggressive raid. According to the practice of sister-exchange, sisters
actually represent future wives, and opposed groups are able to
reproduce in a socially controlled manner. However, wife-raiding
implies the reproduction of the most aggressive group at the expense
of the weaker group. This is a ‘natural’ form of marriage compared
with the first and, as we saw from the Tukano text, it is just one
stage above warfare. My discussions of the analogy between killing
game and raiding wives in the context of meat production provides
further evidence that meat is related to wife-raiding. Also, Indians say

6 The word uko-, to complement or balance, is used for eating cassava together with
peppery food or any animal product. The same root exists in the word for medicine, uko,
and a great many medicines are designed to cool the dangerous heat of disease.

223
Production and consumption
that the warrior ‘sees his enemies as game animals’, and thus killing
people and killing animals are basically the same kind of activity, dif¬
ferent only in degree. We may therefore conclude that wife-raiding
and game-killing are alike in being one stage more social, or at least
one stage less antisocial, than warfare.

Pepper pot
Having considered the ideal meal of meat with cassava, I turn now to
the minimal meal in which boiled meat is replaced by pepper pot,
hiari. I have already shown that hiari is paired with cassava in the
wicker stand. It is also opposed to cassava, as follows:
cassava hiari
colour white red—brown
consistency dry solid viscous liquid
seasoning no pepper lots of pepper
cooking toasting boiling
position above on stand below on stand
container basket pot
container colour pale brown with black
white leaves
According to parts of the previous analysis in this section, these
qualities should liken hiari in its pot to retained menstrual blood in
the womb. The meaning of hiari as ‘bitter/sour stuff supports this,
as does the reference to Tapir shaman’s wife’s ‘pepper pot’. In spite
of these qualities, hiari is made from manioc juice which is explicitly
likened to milk — a pure white substance. The production of hiari
involves the transformation of thin, sweet, straw-coloured juice to a
viscous, bitter, dark caramel by prolonged boiling, that is, by absorp¬
tion of a great deal of heat or fire. The obvious inference to be drawn
from this is that menstrual blood in the womb is a hot, concentrated
product of milk in the breast. I heard no direct statement to this
effect, although at least one Amazonian group holds this theory.7
However, my discussion of birth and growth shows certain relations
between these two manifestations of female body liquid: first, they
are related as respective sources of ante-natal and post-natal nourish¬
ment of the child; secondly, from the mother’s point of view, they
are retained and released nourishment respectively; and thirdly, at
7 The Kayapd believe that the female contribution to the foetus is milk which drips down
from breasts to womb inside the body (T. Turner n.d.).

224
Interpretation of foods

birth, the released placental blood becomes dangerous and is buried,

while the milk takes over as nourishment and is retained in the growth
of the child. We may therefore construct the cycle in fig. 33, accord¬
ing to which retained milk in a high position — the mature girl’s
breasts — is heated and transformed into retained menstrual blood,
which in turn nourishes the foetus via the umbilical cord: the new¬
born child is a hot, dangerous product of this blood, but its link with
the blood is made to decay in the ground and is replaced by cooling
milk from above.
If we return to the parallel domain of cooking, manioc juice is pro¬
duced by boiling the liquid separated from manioc solids and it is

MOTHER [FOETUS] CHILD

HIGH

MILK IN CHILD
BREAST RECEIVES
MILK ir
LIVES

PLACENTAL FOETUS CHILD 6 - PLACENTAL

BLOOD IN umbilical RECEIVES birth BLOOD
WOMB cord PLACENTAL # BORN
BLOOD IN
WOMB

BLOOD
DECAYS
IN GROUND :
DANGEROUS
HEAT LOST
LOW

Fig. 33 Transformation of female body liquids

225
Production and consumption
turned into hiari by further boiling. Therefore, manioc juice may be
said to mediate between cold cassava and hot hiari. It is thus a perfect
transformative symbol which belongs between hot and cold worlds;
this fits with serving partly cooled manioc juice at dusk — the tran¬
sition between day and night within the daily cycle which is itself
intermediary between the hot and cold worlds (see pp. 1560- By
analogy, milk is both a transformative product of cold descent-group
status manifest in semen and vaginal fluid and the material out of
which hot natural female sexuality and male aggression are made. We
shall see this analysis supported in the following discussion of relations
between cultivated plant products. In the present context, that of the
relationship between the minimal meal and the most valued meat
meal, it confirms that the hiari represents an entirely female aspect
of sexual reproduction. This is consistent with the fact that hiari is
produced by women to feed men, who have withdrawn from food
production (pp. 209f).

Cultivated plants and social models

It has already been shown that the meal consists of cassava dipped
into food boiled with pepper and that these foods are forbidden at
times when coca and tobacco, the soul-foods, are prescribed; that in
addition, freshly boiled manioc juice mediates between food and
soul-food during secular time, but for ritual it is fermented into beer
— together, beer and yage differentiate ritual from the men’s circle in
secular periods; and finally, that starch cassava and the absence of
both hot manioc juice and pepper distinguish the seclusion period
from the re-established secular time when complete cassava, hot
manioc juice and pepper are normal fare. Therefore, although other
food-stuffs, body paint and a host of other substances are significant
in the regulation of ritual and secular life, a small handful of culti-
gens are of particular importance. These are manioc and pepper,
grown by women and consumed by everyone, and coca, tobacco and
yage, grown and consumed by initiated men. Furthermore, the
products of male cultivation are paired off with the products of
female cultivation, and these pairs of sexually contrasting products
are cultivated, consumed and otherwise used in such a way that their
interrelations provide a model of the process of reproduction of
social groups. However, they do not simply refer to this process of
reproduction, they enter into it by uniting and separating the sexes,
226
Cultivated plants and social models

families, longhouse communities and even the living and the dead at
different times and in different ways.
Much of the evidence for the existence of these male—female pairs
has already been given. We have seen that cassava and coca are paired
(pp. 211 — 13) and that their consumption is alternated. The same
relationship exists between yage (or ‘liquid coca’) and freshly boiled
manioc juice, for when fresh manioc juice is turned into beer instead
of being drunk immediately, yage takes over. The pairing of yage and
beer during the ritual and the drinking of hot manioc juice at the
pepper-shamanism rite, when the effects of the He have disappeared,
make up the following sequence:
secular life : preparation : ritual : seclusion : secular
for ritual bfe re¬
established
fresh manioc : manioc juice : beer — : boiling hot
juice fermented consumed manioc
consumed juice sha-
manised
.no yage. :
yage pre- : .no yage.
pared and
consumed
Furthermore, liquid manioc juice together with starch-and-fibre
cassava accounts for the whole root of manioc (ki), while yage and
coca are also liquid and solid members of the same category (kahi)
(pp. 2080, as follows:
solid liquid
kahi coca yage
ki starch + fibre manioc juice
Since cassava and pepper, as complementary foods, contrast with
coca and tobacco as complementary soul-foods, there is reason to
assume a relation between pepper and tobacco which is similar to
that between cassava and coca. Both pepper and tobacco are ‘essences’
rather than solids, because pepper infuses cooked food and tobacco
is taken as snuff or smoked. So far we have the following relations:
solid liquid essence
male coca yage tobacco
female cassava manioc juice pepper
There is evidence that pepper and tobacco are regarded as paired
substances in their cultivation. Normally, pepper is grown dotted
over the round, mounded beds and tobacco is grown in rows in
227
Production and consumption

mounded oblong beds: both are frequently cultivated around the

plaza border instead of in the manioc gardens. People state that the
two crops should be grown in conjunction on sites where abandoned
houses have been burnt, and that the pepper beds represent the com¬
partments. The soil is worked into neat beds which are almost exclu¬
sively planted with these two;gourd vines are an optional extra. The
only such site I saw was of a small, non-dance house which had not
been planted by the owner and was therefore probably less constrained
by formal rules than is usual. Nevertheless, the planting was consistent
with the differential use of house space by the sexes, for the tobacco
was mainly in oblong beds in the centre and towards the men’s door,
while the pepper was mainly in smaller round beds on the periphery
and towards the female door (fig. 34). The shape of the beds is also
consistent with the sexual pairing of the crops (see ch. 7). The associ¬
ation of these crops on old house sites is parallel to the association of
coca and manioc in the manioc garden. Also, in contrast to manioc,
coca and yage, both tobacco and pepper are used as trade items.
The analysis of the manioc process, together with the discussion of
starch and complete cassava in the reintegration of initiates, showed
that cassava represents the cold descent-group substance manifest in
the physical existence of the descent-group members. The myth of
the origin of Yeba's coca suggests that coca, which is paired with
manioc in many respects, is also identified with male descent lines.
The ideal is that each Exogamous Group owns a different named
variety of coca, just as Fish Anaconda and Yeba did, although in
practice, communities often cultivate ‘other people’s’ varieties. If
coca represents an aspect of descent-group structure, then this must
be an incorporeal aspect since coca is soul-food. However, yage is
also related to descent-group structure, for the set of varieties owned
by a descent group are said to originate from inside the set of Yuru-
pary instruments owned by that group. The vine itself is described as
‘men’s life path’ (kana ma), and as such is opposed to manioc which
is ‘women’s life path’. Moreover, when fathers drink yage, their chil¬
dren are said to experience the effects: this suggests that the yage has
the power to travel along human descent lines of its own accord. We
may therefore hypothesise that coca and yage represent separate but
related aspects of descent-group structure. The use of coca in every¬
day life, the united and yet internally differentiated structure of the
male local descent group that picks and processes it, and a particular
element of ritual proceedings in which hosts and guests offer each
228
Cultivated plants and social models

cf
Key :
P : PEPPER
I: TOBACCO
G : GOURD VINE
5 : SUGAR CANE

Fig. 34 Old house site planted with pepper and tobacco

229
Production and consumption

other their own coca, all suggest that coca represents the fixed struc¬
ture of the descent group in its spiritual or incorporeal aspect. The
more formalised or ritualised the production and consumption process
is, and the more sacred the implements used, the deeper the descent-
group structure elicited by the coca and thus the wider the present-
day descent group referred to.
Yage, on the other hand, is not described as food for ancestral
souls and this, I believe, is for good reason. The function of yage is to
transport people into an ancestral state (pp. 209f); this, and its ability
to flow along descent lines, suggest that it connects past and present
and thus enables travel into the ancestral past. Thus, if coca repre¬
sents descent-group structure built up over the generations, yage
represents the ability to go back to the beginning and repeat the pro¬
cess today. Thus, the more sacred the ritual occasion, the stronger the
yage required, the closer the contact with the original ancestors and
the greater the potential danger to participants. To translate the
coca—yage relationship into concrete terms, we might say that if coca
is the structure of the path, yage is the vehicle, or, for a river¬
conscious people, if coca is the structure of the river beds, yage is the
water or the canoe which travels over them. Indians do actually say
that the river system of the earth is a yage vine connecting longhouse
communities to the ancestral east in the same way as an umbilical
cord: they say that when the vine is cut for use, the scar this leaves is
a navel. Besides this, yage is identified with an anaconda — the
supreme self-propelling water vehicle (pp. 2090- Its liquidity, as com¬
pared to the solidity of coca, is also consistent with its transporting
power.
So far, the analysis has shown that coca and cassava are differen¬
tiated as descent-group structure created by relations between men
and descent substance created by women. It was argued above that
yage represents the connection between present-day men and the
foundations of descent-group structure in the ancestral past. If my
model of the relations within the set of cultivated plant products is
correct, manioc juice should be related to cassava in an analogous
manner: it should represent the connection between present-day men
and women and the origin of their descent-group substance. This
origin is not in the ancestral past, for the physical substance of the
descent group is formed at the birth of descent-group members. In
the discussion of hiari it was shown that the relationship between
manioc juice and cassava is analogous to the relationship between
230
Cultivated plants and social models

milk and descent-group substance (pp. 224—6). This confirms that

manioc juice is indeed a female ‘milk’ connecting the child to the cold
male and female elements which contributed to its conception. Be¬
sides, yage is also described as milk (Romi Kumu's milk), and thus
yage and manioc juice are paired directly as ancestral milk for the
‘dead’ and ordinary female milk for the living. The statement that
yage is milk also fits its identification with the river system of the
earth, for all rivers flow eastwards into the Milk River.
The remaining pair is tobacco and pepper. Pepper represents hot,
natural conjuction manifest in the menstrual cycle and cooking fire.
The myth of Manioc-stick Anaconda and Macaw shows that tobacco
is derived from an opposed kind of fire — the Sun’s heat (pp. 88f). At
the same time, it shows that tobacco is the foundation of shamanism
which is, in effect, the power to cross between cosmic layers. The
shaman’s cigar is said to be his ‘eye’ with which he sees the mystical
causes of illness: the rising smoke is associated with his travel to the
Thunders, the Sun and other inhabitants of the upper cosmos. The
special power of shamans is due to their ability to let the soul leave
the body, and thus tobacco is associated both with the independent
existence of the soul and the ‘direct line’ to the ancestral forces.
Ordinary men are not as powerful as shamans in this respect, but
they are all capable of minor shamanic acts and of soul-change
during ritual. Thus, male use of tobacco is associated with the
shamanic ability of men as opposed to women. The shaman is con¬
cerned with the hot natural activity of the ancestral world rather
than its cold ‘dead’ aspect, which is contacted through ritual alone.
He refers to the mythical events about killing, snakes, sexual inter¬
course, poison and other dangers which are an ever-present influence
on the processes of human life. However, tobacco is associated with
cooling, harnessing and controlling these forces, while pepper repre¬
sents unrestrained natural activity.
If tobacco is linked to the insubstantial soul, pepper is definitely
linked to the substantial body, as its association with menstruation
and growth of the foetus would suggest. We were warned not to eat
pepper before going in aeroplanes for fear of being too heavy. There¬
fore, together, pepper and tobacco may be said to represent the
dichotomy of female body controlled by natural forces and male
soul which controls natural forces. The body/soul distinction
embodied in the relationship between pepper and tobacco is an
aspect of each individual, independent of descent-group membership,
231
Production and consumption
and is thus a relatively ‘natural’ one. In keeping with this, both sub¬
stances are items of trade. Since we already know that the house with
its resident community represents a living individual, we can also see
why pepper and tobacco should be planted after the house is
destroyed. These impart a plant-equivalent of the body/soul relation¬
ship within the former house and thus mediate between the organised
longhouse community and the later encroachment of unrestrained
forest growth.
These findings can now be brought together as follows:
1 aspects of 2 link between 3 aspects of
the descent present individuals ‘natural’
group and origins of 1 individual
insubstantial link with origins of insubstantial
structure descent-group structure soul
male drugs (coca) (yage) (tobacco)

substance of link with origins substantial

members of descent-group body
substance
female foods (cassava) (manioc juice) (pepper)
Coca and cassava represent the insubstantial and substantial aspects
of descent groups. Yage and manioc juice represent the link between
present descent-group members and the origins of these insubstantial
and substantial aspects of their descent-group status. Tobacco and
pepper represent soul and body as aspects of the natural individual.
The male products are thus associated with insubstantial phenomena
and the female products with substantial ones: this fits their respect¬
ive associations with change of the soul and change of the body. The
sequence, as I have set it out, represents a progression from cold to
hot. Within the set of female products the progression: cassava —
manioc juice — pepper is closely analogous to the process of pro¬
ducing hiari, or ‘pepper pot’, in two separate boiling stages (pp. 225f).
Alternatively, according to the interpretations above, the progression
is from social to natural, from group to individual and from separation
to conjunction, for at one extreme groups are separated according to
rules of descent, and at the other, body and soul are united together
in the natural individual. These are all oppositions which have pre¬
viously been associated with the one between cold and hot.
If we turn from the nature of the plant products to the context of
their use, we find that the division into male and female products is
232
Cultivated plants and social models

associated with a division into cold and hot, for the male products
are used during ‘cold’ ritual occasions when fire is avoided, while the
female products are consumed during ‘hot’ secular periods when heat
is allowed, as shown:
Cold (social) Hot (natural)
Cold (social) coca yage tobacco
Hot (natural) cassava manioc juice pepper

We thus find that the supposedly ‘cold’ world of He wi contains ‘hot’

tobacco while the supposedly ‘hot’ secular world contains ‘cold’
cassava. If the axes are rewritten as ‘social’ (cold) and ‘natural’ (hot)
we find again that the supposedly ‘social’ world of He wi contains
‘natural’ tobacco while the supposedly ‘natural’ secular world con¬
tains ‘social’ cassava. In fact, these superficially contradictory pheno¬
mena are represented in the qualities ascribed to the products, for
we have seen that tobacco is associated with the division of the
natural unity of the individual, and that cassava is associated with the
substantial or ‘natural’ aspect of descent groups. We have also seen
that tobacco is a substance derived from the Sun’s heat and yet used
for cooling, and that cassava is a cold substance which gets heated by
being dipped into peppery foods. Consideration of these points,
which support the structure of the model above, suggests a reformu¬
lation of the previous description of He wi as ‘social’ and ‘cold’ and
of secular life as ‘natural’ and ‘hot’; instead, it would be more accu¬
rate to say that during He wi people exercise social control and cool
things down, while during secular life they utilise natural forces
including heat. This change from adjective to verb is not as trivial as
it might seem, for it implies that the positive aspect of He wi, far
from being ‘cold and social’, is actually the natural, hot activity of
the ancestral world. Cooling and social control is only necessary in
order to avoid the danger of excessively close contact. Similarly, I
suggest that there is a sense in which the secular world of human
society is really too cold and social; it requires purposeful use of
natural forces to heat it up and sustain life. The dipping of sterile,
boring cassava into nice, hot, tasty food is the perfect expression of
this fact.
In the different parts of this chapter we have seen various ways in
which processes of production and consumption of various foods and
drugs are both directly and metaphorically related to the processes of
physical and social reproduction of social groups. Throughout the
233
Production and consumption

discussion, it has been apparent that these creative processes are

related to one another as wholes, so that the metaphorical relations
between them do not simply exist between fixed elements; they
exist between the different types of transformation with which the
processes are concerned. To give an example, in certain contexts I
have said starch represents semen, but I have shown that this sym¬
bolic identity is actually based on the analogy between the processes
in which semen and starch are involved. Semen is separated from
penises of mature men in the same way as starch is separated from
fibre and, in turn, insemination belongs in the wider process of repro¬
duction and growth of individuals which is analogous to the manioc
process in which starch separation belongs.

234
7
Concepts ofspace-time

Introduction

The source of the contemporary natural and social order is the ances¬
tral past known through myth. However, it should be clear from the
material so far discussed that the ancestral past is also an alternative
aspect of the present which can be contacted through shamanism and
ritual. In this chapter, the universe is treated as a conceptual construc¬
tion which contains the activity and power associated with ancestral
creation. In order to contact this alternative reality, people must
transpose the system of the universe with its creative processes onto
the concrete systems which they are able to control, or at least
change, through practical action. To do this, they construct their
houses to represent the universe. They also conceive of their bodies,
their sexual reproductive systems, their natural environment known
through direct experience and the structure of their patrilineal groups
in such a way that these too correspond to the structure of the uni¬
verse. Thus, the concrete world is derived from the ‘imaginary’ ances¬
tral world, but it also provides the way to it. Countless examples of
the transposability of different systems have already been given;
instead of repeating them all here, this final chapter is focused on the
more fundamental concepts of space—time upon which such trans¬
position is founded.
I start out from a set of statements made by Indians: the house is
the universe, with the male door in the position of the Water Door;
the house is a man who lives when there are people inside; the
Exogamous Group is derived from the body of an ancestral anaconda
who has both human and anaconda form; the main river of the earth
is the gut of the universe with the ancestral anacondas as intestinal
worms; the universe is a womb. These statements suggest the anal-
235
Concepts of space—time
ogous conceptual organisation of five spatial structures: the universe,
the house, the anaconda body (with its division into specialist roles),
the human body and the womb. To these can be added a sixth - the
longhouse setting, which comprises the differentiated space around
the longhouse within which the productive and social life of the com¬
munity is lived.
This extra structure is not a bounded entity like the others: it
represents the concrete, known natural world for any single long¬
house community. It is important to include it, because, whatever
people are doing in metaphorical terms, in real terms they are acting
within the confines of the longhouse setting and its focal point, the
longhouse. Thus, when they identify themselves with ancestors, they
are actually putting on feather head-dresses, drinking yage and so on.
The products they use come from the various domains of the long¬
house setting - the river, the forest and the gardens. None of them
originates within the house itself, for this is merely the place of
manufacture or preparation. Indians say that the house becomes the
universe during ritual: the longhouse setting is crucial in this trans¬
formation because it mediates between house and universe, as it is
both in contact with the inaccessible parts of the universe through
movements of natural species, heavenly bodies, river flow, etc., and
also, as a result of human activity, with the life inside the house.
The longhouse setting represents an alternative structure to that
of the anaconda body. Each is concerned with a different aspect of
the relations between the longhouse community and the external
world. The longhouse setting is the natural environment within
which the community exists, and the anaconda body represents the
social descent structure within which the local descent group or
agnatic core of the community takes its place. This follows from the
fact that the anaconda body is ideally made up of five sibs which are
strung along a river in seniority order.
It is now possible to arrange all six structures into a hierarchy of
scale so that they fit together in chinese-box fashion:
womb human body longhouse river territory of universe
Exogamous Group
or
longhouse setting
If we temporarily ignore the longhouse setting which is concerned
with the non-social base of longhouse life, the series corresponds in a
general way to the construction of Tukanoan society which may be
236
Introduction

conceived of as a series of ‘creative levels’, as follows:

construction I sexual 1 individual S local I Exogamo us | Tukanoan
of society | reproduction | J descent | Group | society
1 1 j group 1
corresponding ! (womb)
spatial
! (human
j body)
J (longhouse) J (river) J (universe)

structure 1 1 1
The details of the analogies between my six structures are built
from a variety of data concerning the movements and changes made
within each by people, food, mythical heroes, heavenly bodies etc.
Thus, the structures themselves, conceived of as static physical forms
in space, are actually the products of changes in space and time that
occur within them. The spatial structures are like empty shells; as
physical entities they are built or otherwise created by human,
ancestral or natural forces, but as conceptual entities they are main¬
tained and ordered by the processes that occur within them. Thus,
the house is built with a male and female door, but the sexual ident¬
ities of the doors are maintained by the movements of the longhouse
residents. The creative character of ongoing activity is recognised in
many Indian beliefs: for instance, the house only lives when people
are inside it; the sites on the ancestral journey upstream did not
exist until the ancestors stopped at them; the rivers did not flow
until their beds had been trodden out by the ancestors and so on.
Henceforth, I shall refer to the six structures I have isolated as ‘space-
time systems’ in order to convey the idea that the movements they
contain are all-important.
Each of these space—time systems has three spatial dimensions,
but in order to simplify the analysis I shall deal first with the hori¬
zontal planes or ground-plans, and then with the vertical axes of cer¬
tain systems, particularly concentrating on the universe. From the
Indian point of view, this is working backwards, because the present
order, which is represented on the horizontal plane of the earth, is
derived from the vertical order of the universe as a whole. However,
precisely because life is mainly lived out on the earth’s surface, the
horizontal order of the various systems I discuss is more clearly and
consistently differentiated than the vertical order (see pp. 257f): this
is why it is best described first. In can then be shown that the hori¬
zontal and vertical orders of certain systems are transformations of
one another. For the purposes of this argument, the systems may be
divided into ‘movable’ and ‘immovable’ as in fig. 35: in the movable
237
Concepts of space—time

systems, the human body, the anaconda body and the womb — the
principal horizontal axis (head to toe of the prostrate human body,
head to tail of the anaconda and recess to opening of the womb) —
may be rotated to a vertical position, just as the human being can lie
down or stand up. This transformation of a horizontal axis to a ver¬
tical one provides the key to the relationship between the horizontal
and vertical planes of the immovable systems. These immovable sys¬
tems are the universe, the longhouse setting and the house, all of
which have their central horizontal plane fixed, since it is provided
by the earth’s surface. These points will be easier to appreciate after
the analysis of the horizontal planes.

Horizontal space—time

Description of horizontal systems

The earth. The earth is round and is structured by the river system

MOVABLE SYSTEMS

human body anaconda body WOMB

IMMOVABLE SYSTEMS

HOU5E LONGHOUSE SETTING UNIVERSE

HIGHEST ^'-'1 ;—
ROOF NATURAL LIFE
• / N\

/ 1
1 /
/ \
\

J
\
EARTH’S <3* FOREST-j-RIVER WEST ■-
SURFACE ! —--r-
/ i \
1 / 1 \
\ / /
\ /
LOWEST \ /
/
NATURAL LIFE
GRAVE
_
UNDERWORLD

Fig. 35 Comparison of movable and immovable systems of space—time

238
Horizontal space—time

draining into the Milk River, as shown in fig. 36. The rivers of this
system have their headwaters in the west and culminate in a single
flow at the Water Door in the east or, in Indian terms, an upstream
journey corresponds to the daytime path of the sun. Besides the
Water Door in the east there is a Back Door (Hudo Sohe) in the west,
and two side doors, or Rib Doors (Warubu Sohe, sing.), to the north
and south. These doors are important as the exit points for dangerous
forces dispersed by shamanism. According to some accounts, there is
also a river encircling the earth’s perimeter.
For the moment, let us imagine a single river bisecting this earth.
This river provides a continuum between pure forest and river mouth,
or land and water, the river itself becoming wider and more differen¬
tiated from forest as it runs downstream. The Tukanoan groups of
the Vaupes are river people, both ideologically and by virtue of econ¬
omic emphasis. Longhouses are built near rivers; communication is
mainly by river; fish is the principal source of protein. Towards the
headwaters the availability of fish gradually declines. The waterfalls
and rapids act as natural barriers to many species of fish, particularly
the larger ones, so that those who live in the headwaters are described
as ‘eaters of tiny fish’. The headwaters people are forced to rely
more on forest products, not necessarily because these are more
abundant, but because the fish are scarce. Furthermore, there is an
ideological link between downstream location and cultivation, since
crops were originally brought upstream from Fish Anaconda’s under¬
water house. Political relations between longhouse communities,
being largely determined by exchange of invitations to rituals, are
dependent on a surplus of manioc and coca. Thus cultivation has a
direct bearing on political dominance. Although this association be¬
tween downstream location and superior cultivations linked with pol¬
itical dominance is neither proved nor disproved by Pira-parana pat¬
terns, it is clearly described for the Cubeo (Goldman 1963). Also, in
the Vaupes area as a whole it is notable that the large groups, such
as the Tukano and Tariana, occupy the downstream regions. In the
past, these groups dominated the westerly, upstream groups, such as
the Bara, Tuyuka and those on the Pira-parana.
If these differences between upstream and downstream location
serve to differentiate the Tukanoan populations which live in the
middle of the earth, they are also associated with different types of
supernatural power located beyond the people in the extreme east
and west. The mouth of the Milk River is the source of origin of
239
 RIB DOOR

240
Fig. 36 The earth’s surface
Horizontal space—time

human culture, from whence the ancestors and all aspects of culture
came, while the headwater forests are the home of cannibalistic
spirits in which normal bodily characteristics and processes are re¬
versed. Both ancestors and forest spirits are dangerous, but the for¬
mer are essential for the well-being of society, while the latter are
unambiguously threatening. The ancestors represent the pre-social
origins of society, and the forest spirits represent the realm outside
present-day social control: while the ancestors are ‘before’ in time,
the forest spirits are ‘beyond’ in space. Indians insist that they live in
the middle of the world between these opposed supernatural powers.
Their land is hot from the overhead sun, whereas that of the whites,
which is on the periphery of the earth beyond a circle of mountains,
is cold.1
Now that the associations of the east—west axis of the earth have
been set out, it remains to adapt the model to take into account the
so far neglected natural shape of a river system. The headwaters are
spread out and the successive confluence brings them into a com¬
mon flow. This means that the mouth has a single location in the east,
while the headwaters form an arc on the western periphery, so that
the qualities associated with the west are spread, as is shown in fig.
37A. According to this model the journey upstream, whatever its
actual direction, has the characteristics of the dominant east—west
axis described above. The fanned river system, it will be noticed,
leaves the north east and south east quadrants of the circular earth
empty of significance — this corresponds to the lack of any mention
of them in Indian ideology.2

The anaconda body. The association between the seniority order

among sibs and their position in the body of the Exogamous Group
anaconda ancestor, as well as the ideal correspondence between
downstream residence and seniority, have already been discussed
(pp. 24, 29). I also mentioned that the servant sibs are modelled
upon the true Maku who live in the extreme headwaters (interfluvial
areas) and who are believed to have no rules of exogamy, no houses
and a bare minimum of artifacts. Both in location and life-style, the

1 The model is adapted to local features, so that in any particular region the dangerous
mythical spirits are said to live in specific watershed areas and the ancestors are said to
have come from downstream.
2 Although I never obtained a drawing of the earth as a whole, my models may be com¬
pared with the Tatuyo drawing in Bidou (1972 : 80).

241
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242
Horizontal space—time

Maku mediate between the servant sibs of the Tukanoans and the
forest animals themselves in their ‘animal houses’ (p. 61); this position
is borne out in their role as suppliers of meat and forest products to
Tukanoan groups. There is therefore a series of relationships associ¬
ated with position along a river in which the river and anaconda body
are treated as analogous systems. Superimposing this anaconda body
model upon the main river of the earth, we arrive at fig. 37C. The
statement that this river is the gut of the universe with anacondas for
intestinal worms, and the association between gut and anaconda skin
in the form of the tipiti (pp. 187f) support this model of the earth’s
east—west axis.
Conversely , the Exogamous Groups originated from the east in the
form of anacondas and swam towards the west with the last-born sibs
situated in the tails. This order was maintained until the anacondas
reached the centre of the earth, at which point the sibs were distrib¬
uted in the reverse order, with the last bom furthest upstream. The
whole process may be represented by a double anaconda model of
the earth’s river (fig. 37D). The model expresses the paradoxical
position of the first-bom as both oldest, and therefore furthest from
the position of origin, and also most powerful and therefore most
closely associated with ancestral origins. If this double anaconda
model is superimposed on the fanned river system of the earth in
such a way that the separate Exogamous Groups are dispersed at the
centre, each choosing its affluent (which is how Indians describe the
origin process), we arrive at fig. 37B, a model of the earth which con¬
tains the totality of Tukanoan society.
Comparison of the single and double models of the earth in terms
of anaconda bodies shows that the main river may be described as
either a single series of hierarchically arranged terms, or a double
series of terms arranged symmetrically about the centre. I showed
previously that there are aspects of bilateral symmetry in the order¬
ing of specialist roles arising from their membership in three separate
domains. The incorporation of both hierarchical and symmetrical
(concentric) principles of organisation into the ordering of sibs lends
itself to expression in these alternative models (see pp. 56f).

The longhouse setting. Here, it is important to distinguish between

the actual situation of the various domains of the longhouse setting,
which is extremely variable and subject to a host of natural and social
factors, and the conceptual model presented below. In this model, the
243
Concepts of space—time
differentiated domains are ordered in such a way as to bring concrete
human activity into line with the ‘imaginary’ system of the universe.
In order to develop this conceptual model, reference is made to the
description on pp. 43ff, summarised in fig. 4. The nature of the river
on which the longhouse has its main port has been discussed at various
points and may be summed up as follows: it is the ‘ancestral water
path’; it is an umbilical cord which connects the souls (the longhouse
communities) to the mouth of the Milk River; it is the branching
stem of the kana plant; it is the yage vine. All these images treat the
river as a spiritual power supply connecting the longhouse community
with the ancestral powers in the east. This means that, understood
from the point of view of a single community, there is a sense in
which the river stops at the longhouse port, for that is where the
power reaches the community. If the model of a typical longhouse
setting, fig. 38A, is altered to accommodate the notion of a nourish¬
ing river, it appears as in fig. 38B. The latter model resolves the
apparent inconsistency between the main axis of the house and the
direction of flow of the river. Whilst in reality these two are often at
right angles, Indians claim that the house faces east and that rivers
flow east. This point brings out the special qualities of the meta¬
phorical representations of the river: the twisting yage vine, the
branched kana stem and the umbilical cord are all conceived of as
‘paths’ (ma). The special characteristic of a path is that although it
may twist and turn, it leads to a given point — in this case to the
source of life and growth. These path metaphors are thus able to
relate positions that are only conceptually east to the true east where
the sun rises. If the conceptual setting of the longhouse is compared
to the river system flowing across the earth, the common structure of
the two is clear, for the river, a single point, is opposed to the forest,
an arc, in either case. In both systems, social life exists between the
two.
It is important to stress that this conceptual model is mine.
Although it has heuristic value here, I believe that it is redundant
from an Indian point of view, because the flow of water and the
movements of natural species along or above the ground connect the
river and forest of their experience to the extremes of the earth in a
direct manner. While, from my analytic point of view, the universe is
an ‘imaginary’ extension of the known world, from the Indian point
of view the known world is determined by the structure of the uni¬
verse and is also supplied from its extremes. This direct relationship
244
245
Fig. 38 Comparison of typical longhouse setting with conceptual longhouse setting
Concepts of space—time

between the outer domains of the longhouse setting and the extremes
of the earth itself perhaps explains why the longhouse setting does not
appear in the set of analogies drawn from Indian statements (pp. 235f).

The longhouse interior. Here, I refer back to the description on pp.

46—9 and to fig. 5, which is reproduced in simplified form as fig.
39A. Inside the house, the social connotations of space are best under¬
stood as the outcome of two principles of organisation working in
combination. There is a linear male—female axis running between the
two doors, and also a concentric pattern in which the periphery
represents private, family life and the centre represents public, com¬
munal life. These principles may be deduced from the fixed positions
of male and female doors and family compartments, and from the
daily and ritual use of house space (many examples of which are con¬
tained in previous sections). The principles are not independent of
one another, for in concrete situations there are associations between
male activity and communality on the one hand, and female activity
and domestic privacy on the other.3 While these associations are
objective features of socio-economic and ritual organisation, since, on
the whole, men do things together while a woman does things on her
own or with her daughters, they are also features of Pira-parana social
structure with its solidary local descent groups and isolated un¬
married wives. In spatial terms, these associations mean that the
centre of the house is identified with the male end while the periph¬
ery is identified with the female end. This is manifest in the position
of the family compartments which are clustered around the female
end, but it is made even more obvious during He wi and He rika soria
wi. During these rituals, the men conduct their communal activities
in the centre and front of the house, shut off from the women by a
screen erected across the middle of the rear end (see fig. 39A). The
women and children, confined to their family compartments and the
small communal cooking area, may only communicate with one
another via the plaza.

3 A third principle of organisation, which I do not explore further, differentiates the left-
and right-hand sides of the house. The right contains the box of ritual ornaments, the
headman’s compartment and the men’s coca, stools etc., while the left contains the beer
canoe and the post topped with tree-resin that is burnt for night-time light. The resin is
metaphorically linked to hot female sexuality since ‘fetching resin’ (guhe umagu) is a
joking reference to sexual intercourse or to fetching a new wife. The positions of the
various objects support a general association of the left-right organisation with the pre¬
vious two, thus: right : left :: male : female :: communal : private.

246
 A HOUSE

women's door MEN’S DOOR

B HOUSE

VOMIT

FOOD

6REATM &
SPEECH
BREATH

C HOUSE

Fig. 39 Models of house as body and womb

247
Concepts of space—time

The body. The house is a person, a mythical figure called Roofing

Father (Muhi Haku), who is an enormous bird ‘the size of a house’
with a tapir’s head. The different species of palm leaf used for roof¬
ing grow as feathers from the various parts of his body. His head is
at the male end of the house, his anus at the female end, and the
sides of the roof are his rib-cage. The association of the male—female
axis of the house with the digestive tract is suggested by analogy in
the statement that the main river is the gut of the universe, for we
know that the house is the universe. It is also reflected in the use of
space. First, the front of the house is kept painted and clean like the
face. Speech, a function of the mouth related to breathing and patri¬
lineal descent (since languages are descent-group property), is clearly
associated with the male end of the house. The men’s circle is towards
the male end, the ritualised version of this — the chanting group — is
placed just inside the men’s door and visitors are greeted either on the
plaza or just inside the men’s door. Vomiting, induced by drinking
yage during ritual, also takes place just by the men’s door and,
appropriately, the yage/vomit is an anaconda which is simultaneously
swimming in the river of the universe, the gut of the drinker and the
front part of the house (pp. 209f).
On one hand, drinking yage and vomiting, listening to speech and
answering and breathing in and out are all two-way processes involving
entrance and exit through the orifices of the head, appropriately
associated with the comings and goings through the men’s door and
ritual processes of patrilineal regeneration. Eating and digesting food,
on the other hand, is an irreversible process producing both nourish¬
ment, which is absorbed from the gut, and rotten waste that is elim¬
inated at the anus. In keeping with this, the plaza outside the women’s
door, narrow and littered with debris, is used for intimate family
activities and women’s crafts.4
The occupants of separate family compartments convene in the
centre of the house to receive nourishment from communal meals
and then disperse to resume productive activity. This dispersal of the
nourished community members may be likened to the dispersal of
nourishment within the body from the centre of the digestive system
to the peripheral tissues (see the theory of digestion p. 186). Although
the community normally produces its own food, thus receiving it
from ‘inside’, when it receives food from outside communities in
4 In the Cubeo mourning ceremony the masked figures representing dung-beetles are
stationed at the female door (Goldman 1963 : 233).

248
Horizontal space—time

ritual exchange the gifts enter through the men’s door or ‘mouth’. In
fig. 39B, the house is represented as a body with a twisting gut,
drawn in the way that Indians draw the gut inside the outline of a
person.

The womb. The image of the house as womb equates the men’s door
with the vagina and therefore with the passage from womb to outside
world. This fits the use of the men’s door as entrance and exit for
journeys between longhouse communities. The women’s door, con¬
versely, is an ‘internal’ passageway to the manioc gardens, the nourish¬
ing base of the home community (see fig. 39C). The spiritual power
inherent in the river contrasts with the power of the gardens to
nourish the bodies of the community members in the same way as
semen and womb or male and female reproductive powers. Besides
the ‘pure’ cold manioc which enters by the female door, there is a
‘hot’ lining to the womb (house) made up of the cooking fires in the
family compartments, and thus both aspects of female sexuality con¬
tribute to the foetus (growing community). Overall, food from the
western periphery combines with ritual life supplied from the east to
create growth. The correspondence of the house and womb, as I have
just described it, is shown in fig. 39C.
The analogy between universe and womb may be described in the
same terms, with the Milk River representing a pathway into the
womb up which the inseminating anacondas swim. The conjunction
of blood and semen or forest and river occurs in the middle of the
womb/earth when the patrilineal descent groups finally emerge onto
land as in fig. 40A. However, there is also reason to conceive of the
upriver anaconda journey as a birth process - it is literally the birth
(‘waking up’) of Exogamous Groups, the river is an umbilical cord
and Romi Kumu, the female ancestral source of humanity, is located
in the far east. These facts suggest that it would be appropriate to
give the womb image an about-turn, so that the passage from the east
to the centre of the earth represents the birth of society — the pass¬
age from the ‘pre-descent’ to the ‘descent’ era. Returning to the
birth of the individual (pp. 123ff), which is necessarily located within
the longhouse-setting system, we may recall that the natural, female
birth in the manioc garden is contrasted to the later ‘rebirth’ from
the river. The two births are made analogous by the identification of
the womb with the ancestral waking-up houses, of the river with an
umbilical cord and so on. In spite of this, they were opposite in
249
Concepts of space—time

A SINGLE

Fig. 40 Horizontal models of universe as womb

250
Horizontal space—time
direction and concerned with the natural role of the mother and
social role of the father respectively. Since the longhouse-setting sys¬
tem is analogous to the system of the universe, we may transfer the
movements associated with birth to the ground plan of the earth,
thus producing a double womb image of the earth (fig. 40B) similar
to the double anaconda image in fig. 37D. Just as the double and
single anaconda models were consistent with the alternative hier¬
archical and concentric principles of organisation of the series of
specialist roles, the double and single womb models are consistent
with the alternative ways of viewing the relations between the sexes.
‘Male’ and ‘female’ are equal but opposite natural powers or, alter¬
natively, they are contrasted as ‘good, social creativity’ and ‘dangerous,
natural creativity’ (pp. 1580- Similarly, the east—west axis of the
earth has aspects of symmetry about the centre and aspects of nega¬
tive progression from east to west.

Synthesis of horizontal systems

Five of the six space-time systems are set out in fig. 41. The anaconda
body is missing, because it is linear in physical form rather than
rounded: I return to it below. The models in fig. 41 are constructed
according to the hypothesis that each is composed of a linear and con¬
centric ordering of space-time working in combination. In fig.
41(1), the shapes generated by the combination of a linear and con¬
centric order provide a basic model which adequately describes the
concentric organisation of the ‘western’ half of each system and the
linear order of the ‘eastern’ half. The existence of these two types of
organisation is most obvious in the house system, but the similarity
in shape and analogy between the positions and processes belonging
to the separate systems suggests that they conform to the same basic
model. It should be clear from fig. 41 that the adequacy of the basic
model depends upon there being some correspondence between the
‘western’ half of the linear axis and the radius of the concentric order.
The comparison of the values associated with C and C' and again with
B and B' shows that such correspondence does exist. Sometimes there
is perfect identity and sometimes, as in the house and the body, the
west of the linear axis is differentiated from the periphery of the con¬
centric order, in spite of being like it in some respects. In the house,
for instance, the female door is replicated in the peripheral doors and
there is a strong association between women and family life, although
251
 SYSTEM CONCENTRIC ORDER LINEAR ORDER COMBINED ORDERS
'generating!
proce.'i

1 BASIC
MODEL

2 EARTH 8' CONFLUENCE

distribution
of groups/ C' HEADWATERS
ricer-f low

A RIVER

3 LONGHOUSE b' house B HOUSE

SETTING
[^subsistence^ C' FOREST C FOREST

A MALE

4 LONGHOUSE B' COMMUNAL B HETEROSEXUAL

CENTRE SOCIETY
INTERIOR
perpetuation C' FAMILY C FEMALE
of resident COMPARTMENTS
group

A MOUTH

5 BODY B' SEAT OF B MIDDLE OF GUT

DIGESTION
[digestionj

C' ABSORBED C ANUS

NOURISHMENT

A SEMEN/BONE

6 WOMB 8' FOETUS B FOETUS

conception
£ growth
of foetus C' WOMB WALL C FEMALE BLOOD

Fig. 41 Models of horizontal space—time

Horizontal space—time

the female door retains its special relevance to division of the com¬
munity by sex rather than by family. Similarly, in the body, both
faeces and absorbed nourishment represent the end of a process
begun by eating, yet they are differentiated as rotten waste and
living flesh.
Comparison of the systems shows that the elements associated
with the east — the origin of patrilineal groups, the men’s door, the
penis, the men’s port on the river and the head of the body — are
sufficient to associate it with the starting point of patrilineal conti¬
nuity. The western periphery of each system is associated with the
opposed female elements — the natural forest, the women’s door,
family units, the lower part of the body and the womb — therefore,
it may be regarded as the seat of female creative power. In static
terms, the model is clearly suited to represent the relationship be¬
tween patrilineal core and separate peripheral female units. This
arrangement can be best seen in the layout of the house and the
womb systems. It is also apparent in the spatial relationship between
coca and manioc in the garden. These patterns suggest a more general
association of rounded, undifferentiated shapes with women and
long, straight, structured shapes with men. The bones of the body,
the branching trunk of a tree, and the anaconda body portioned off
into sibs are all examples of long, straight differentiated forms we
know to be associated with men or patriliny. Similarly, the earth,
composed of undifferentiated particles, the round garden clearing and
the rounded, fleshy part of the body are all associated with women.
There are many occasions when these opposed qualities or shapes are
purposefully brought into conjunction, for instance, when the, He
come together with the round beeswax gourd, when round pepper
beds are made together with long tobacco beds or when pots with
their continuous undifferentiated surfaces are used in association
with baskets woven from long strips of cane.
Now it is possible to see why the anaconda body does not fit the
same basic model as the other five systems. As a long, straight
(phallic) form, differentiated only along its length, it is an appropri¬
ate expression of hierarchical patrilineal structure. These character¬
istics also mean that, of the two component orders making up the
basic model, it corresponds to the linear, east—west axis only. This is
in keeping with its location in the river rather than on land and its
identification with an intestinal worm in the gut — the linear axis of
the human body system (see pp. 282f).
253
Concepts of space—time
However, the dynamic processes contained by the systems are
more important than their spatial forms. It has been shown that
linear, irreversible continuity is associated with the growth of patri¬
lineal descent groups and with cumulative growth through the male
life-cycle, while repeated two-phase cycles are associated with the
movements of women in marriage and with menstruation. My
hypothesis here is that the reversible movements between periphery
and centre of the concentric order represent female cycles, and the
linear east—west axis represents irreversible male continuity. In the
female cycles, a phase of convergence (periphery to centre) alternates
with a phase of dispersal (centre of periphery). From the shapes of
the womb and house systems it follows that the convergence phase
represents the movement of women from outside into the community,
growth of menstrual blood inside the womb, and contribution of
blood to the foetus in the centre of the womb. The dispersal phase
therefore represents the opposite processes — loss of women to out¬
side communities, loss of menstrual blood and also dispersal of
blood during its transformation into the growth of the foetus. We
may describe the convergence phase as creative and the dispersal
phase as one of loss, but with the proviso that loss of elements by one
entity may result in growth of another. In this way, loss of food from
the digestive tract results in growth of the body ‘outwards’ and loss
of blood by the pregnant woman results in swelling of the foetus.
Thus, paradoxically, gain in outward growth is a form of loss through
dispersal, while shrinking in size is a form of gain through conver¬
gence. This is illustrated in the growth of a community through ‘loss’
of descent-group youths on marriage to new peripheral family com¬
partments, and the subsequent gain of a new generation of initiates
who deplete the same family compartments.
In fig. 41, the linear and concentric orders were combined into a
single model to represent the static order of the system rather than
the dynamic processes which determine this order. The east and the
western periphery were joined by a bundle of unidirectional paths
simply because the arrows were drawn to show the correspondence
between B to C and B' to C'. In practice, however, journeys can go in
either direction along the lines connecting any of the two points
marked by letters. One can eat and vomit or eat and digest; the sub¬
stance of the body can return to the gut and drain away through the
anus (p. 119); one can travel up or downstream; all the house doors
can be used as entrances and exits and so on. All the theoretically
254
Horizontal space—time

possible movements occur, although some, such as movement from

anus to centre of the body, occur only in myths (e.g. Ingesting Tapir,
p. 267). To explore how these movements fit the hypothesis, it is
simplest to look at the dynamics of the linear and concentric order
separately.
Amongst other things, the models show, first that the centre of
the system is a point of conjunction at which female creative forces
converge to meet male creativity originating from the east; secondly,
that the first half of the male creative movement of the east coincides
with the creative phase of the female cycle, while the second half
coincides with the loss phase; thirdly, that the loss phase of the female
cycle is also equivalent to a reversal of the first half of the male cre¬
ative movement. If this hypothesis is correct, these formal relations
should exist in the systems described. A few brief illustrations of these
relationships are given below.
In the womb, semen and blood make a foetus;in the longhouse set¬
ting, a natural birth in the manioc garden and a rebirth at the river
port make a child, who is accepted into the house. In the house, men
and women make the community which eats meals, placed in the
centre, composed of female-produced manioc and male-produced
meat and fish. The listed characteristics of A, B, B', C, C', in fig. 43
show that in each case the centre is a point of conjunction opposed
to the elementary characteristics of both the east and the western
periphery.
As the systems are represented here, the journey from the east to
the western periphery may be conceived of as a continuous pro¬
gression from positive to negative in terms of the values of a patri¬
lineal society. This progression may be from chief to servant, mouth

CONCENTRIC ORDER LINEAR ORDER

Fig. 42 Comparison of linear and concentric orders of horizontal space—time

255
Concepts of space—time

to anus, ancestors to forest spirits, male door to female door. How¬

ever, we have also seen, for the womb and anaconda-body systems,
that the journey may be conceived of as made up of two halves which,
in some respects, are mirror images of one another. Since we have
ingesting anuses and vomiting mouths, the same is obviously true for
the body. This mirror-image form reflects the likeness of the two
poles when set against the centre, while the continuous-progression
form reflects the opposition between the poles themselves. The co¬
existence of the two forms fits with the co-existence of the linear
and concentric models. The combination of these results in an east-
west axis which is a one-way patrilineal path and yet, at the same
time, is composed of two reversible paths connecting centre to
periphery. This explains why even the most important patrilineal
order of all, the seniority order of sibs, should have elements of sym¬
metry about the central role of warrior.
It also follows from the double significance of this main axis that
the male seniority order from chief to servant has female conno¬
tations when read in reverse. The correspondence between this order
and the series of life-cycle stages (pp. 65—9) allows us to read the
west to east progression as one from childhood (servant) to father¬
hood (chief)- Movement from west to centre represents a creative
process, while movement from centre to east is one of dispersal or
loss. Thus, it follows that the central position of the initiated, mar¬
riageable youth (warrior) is the climax of the life-cycle from the point
of view of the female-controlled physical body. This fits with various
Indian ideas about the male life-cycle: the gain in physical strength,
which continues until physical maturity is reached, is balanced by
the subsequent loss of physical strength resulting from insemination
and fatherhood. Furthermore, in the behaviour expected of initiated
youths, great stress is laid on the strength, newness and aesthetic
appearance of the body. The initiated youths are referred to as ‘new
ones’, mamard, and are supposed to avoid sleep, fires and women. They
must bathe through the night, make an exaggerated show of strength
in productive labour and paint and ornament themselves with care.
The co-existent mirror-image and continuous-progression aspects
of the east—west journey also reflect the relation between male and
female creativity as mentioned above (p. 251). I have shown that
women’s natural or physical powers are positively valued as a com¬
plement to men’s social or spiritual powers, and yet they are also
negatively valued because they conflict with the dominant patrilineal
256
Vertical space-time

ideology as well as with the practical political supremacy of men. It

is perfectly consistent, given the values attached to Pira-parana social
structure, to identify the source of female creativity (western periph¬
ery) with the end point or negation of men’s creative powers. The very
same thing happens in other contexts. For example, domestic fire is
metaphorically associated with women’s creativity in reproduction:
men who warm themselves by it when in too-close contact with the
ancestors procreate daughters only, thus putting a stop to patrilineal
continuity while contributing to female continuity (p. 144).
The model shows that the loss phase of the female cycle may be
equated with the reversal of the male progression from east to centre.
As we have seen, male continuity is cumulative and irreversible, but
in spite of this men can achieve renewal by travelling back and
identifying themselves with ancestral times in ritual. This travelling
back involves use of metaphors associated with the loss phase of the
female cycle: the men, by their own admission, imitate the loss of
menstrual blood, and also lose skin and become ‘dead’ (by applying
black paint). This supports the earlier conclusions that a reversible
female cycle must be imposed upon male continuity to avoid
degeneration through loss of contact with ancestral times.

Vertical space-time

At the outset of this chapter, a distinction was made between movable

and immovable systems. I claimed that the linear east—west axis of
the former could be rotated into a vertical position and that, by
analogy, the vertical axes of the immovable systems — the universe,
the longhouse setting and the house — are related to their respective
east—west axes (fig. 35). The vertical axes of the immovable systems,
and then the analogous structure of these and the movable systems
(the human body, the anaconda body and the womb) are discussed
below.
This discussion is necessarily less straightforward than that of the
horizontal ground-plans, because of the nature of vertical space—time
as experienced by people. First, there is a basic asymmetry between
the space above the earth and that below it, since people live on top
of the earth’s surface, and by far the greater part of their experience
is concerned with the natural phenomena which also exist above the
earth’s surface and which they can see. Although they have limited
contact with the below, it is relatively devoid of life, relatively in-
257
Concepts of space—time

accessible to human beings and cannot be seen in the course of

everyday life. Secondly, although it is true that people can dig holes,
climb trees and so on, they are essentially earthbound creatures who
cannot use vertical space with the same freedom as horizontal space:
to put it crudely, it easier to perform ritual by the port or the men’s
door than up a tree or on the roof. This means that in order to
represent vertical movements it is often necessary to go beyond the
set of simple analogies between the systems described and to intro¬
duce further levels of metaphor or metonymy. For instance, for
most purposes it is impossible to reach the roof of the house, and so
in order to refer to the sky of the universe Indians make use of much
lower household objects (stools, the griddle, sieves supported above
the ground etc.), whereas, in order to refer to the east of the universe,
they can simply walk to the men’s door. In this way, there is a greater
transposition of vertical relations — a tendency for any vertical
(high—low) relationship to stand for any other — than is found among
horizontal relations, and this blurs the neat analogies between the sys¬
tems that were demonstrable for the ground-plans.

The universe. In the beginning there were only Sky People and the
Primal Sun remained in the sky. Then Romi Kumu dropped her
cassava griddle to make the earth. However, it was a rotten griddle
which went right through to make the Underworld, so she dropped
another which became the earth. Her present griddle, which forms
the sky, is supported by clay-pot stands, which are the circle of
mountains separating the edge of the earth from the central area
inhabited by Indians. In this, the most simple model of the cosmos,
shown in fig. 43A, the sky and the Underworld are mirror images of
earth. Our night is daytime for the inhabitants of the Underworld and
the Star People in the sky. However, myth shows that the buried
corpses of the Star People drop to the Underworld, and thus the three
layers are also related by continuous downwards progression.
Although the cosmos may be described as if composed of flat
layers, it is also said to be a great spherical gourd with the earth as a
central horizontal plane. The upper cosmos is more finely differen¬
tiated than the lower, since it is covered by a series of ‘skins’ and
paths which curve down to meet the earth’s perimeter. The identifi¬
cation of these skins and their number varies according to context,
but a typical description runs: tree-skin (inhabited by aboreal species),
swift skin (inhabited by high-flying birds), water-skin (rain-clouds and
258
Vertical space—time

thunder), mist-skin (associated with dry weather), moon’s path, sun

and star paths, sky-skin (inhabited by first beings) and finally the
domain of white people who live entirely off tobacco. These are the
skins and paths encountered by shamans in their journeys to the sky

VERTICAL PLANES THROUGH EAST-WEST AXIS OF EARTH

A SIMPLE 3-LAYERED E> COSMOS SHOWING ELABORATE

COSMOS differentiation OF UPPER
COSMOS COMPARED WITH
LOWER COSMOS

\JPPER SKl^i

SKY --
I
I
I
I
A
t
I
I
EARTH -{- x
I
I
I

t
I
I

UNDERWORLD -±-

C TRANSFORMATION OF A D COSMOS IN MYTH OF

ELIMINATING LAYER MANIOC-STICK ANACONDA
UNDER EARTH & MACAW

SKY

I
W L- E
EARTH WATER
I
/
/
/
/
/
/
/

UNDERWORLD

Fig. 43 Alternative models of vertical structure of cosmos

259
Concepts of space—time
They have both supernatural and everyday aspects, and thus may be
considered both part of the ‘other-worldly’ structure of the Universe
and of the concrete, everyday structure of the longhouse setting (see
(pp. 263f).
In specific mythical episodes, this differentiated upper cosmos is
condensed into the single domain of the sky often called the Sky
Shelf (Umua Sabua), which is inhabited by vultures, eagles, Star
People and other characters according to context.
Although people describe different layers of soil and rock beneath
the earth’s surface, in keeping with the location of human life above
the earth’s surface, the Underworld is not elaborately differentiated.
Two myths are specially concerned with the nature of the Underworld.
The Underworld River with the House of the Dead is known from
Live Woman’s adventures there, and two separate Underworld layers
are distinguished in the myth of Manioc-stick Anaconda and Macaw.
The lower one is the Sun’s River and the intermediate one, the Ter¬
mite’s layer, also contains a river associated with birth. Each of these
rivers may be referred to as the Underworld River (Bohori Riaga), and
in some descriptions they are fused into a single river (see fig. 43B).
An alternative mythical treatment of vertical space opposes both
sky (above) and water (below) to earth or land (centre). In this verti¬
cal model, fig. 43C, earthly water, which is east in relation to land,
takes the place of the Underworld and becomes the mirror image of
the sky (literally so, since Yawira reaches the land of the Vultures in
the sky by merely looking at their reflection in water). The water on
earth flows down to the Underworld River in the east, so that it is
an appropriate representative of the Underworld although, as we
shall see, it only represents one of the aspects of the Underworld (p.
272).
In spite of the many versions and separate aspects of the cosmos
mentioned in different contexts, there is one relatively simple and
coherent model, shown in fig. 43D, and described in the myth of
Manioc-stick Anaconda and Macaw. According to Indians, the theme of
this myth is the origin of the vertical ordering of the universe and the
ability of shamans to cross vertical layers. This stated theme suggests
that the myth may be taken as a demonstration of the ideal vertical
structure of the universe, and indeed the order which emerges from
it is free of the practical constraints imposed by the asymmetry be¬
tween the below and above: it contains two upper and two lower
layers, and a strong element of symmetry about the central layer of
260
Vertical space—time

the earth. A much reduced version of this myth was given on pp. 88f:
here, I retell it, still in condensed form, but in such a way as to bring
out the vertical structure of the universe. Stephen Hugh-Jones gives a
much more detailed version (1979 : M.6.A). I indicate the vertical
movements in the text by numbering the layers as follows:
1 Sky
2 Trees and mountains
3 Earth
4 Termite’s layer
5 Sun’s River

Manioc-stick Anaconda and Macaw

After these two had quarrelled over Manioc-stick Anaconda’s wife,
Macaw got Manioc-stick Anaconda to jump into a pit-trap filled with
sharpened stakes for tapir, intending to kill him. However, when
Manioc-stick Anaconda reached the bottom (3 to 4) he floated
through on a cotton flower (used on blowpipe darts) and landed on
an inga tree by the Sun’s River (4 to 5). First Moon and then Morn¬
ing Star went by upstream, and when the Sun’s canoe came, Manioc-
stick Anaconda joined him and obtained his shamanic snuff (see pp.
88f). It was midday down there when it was midnight on earth. The
Sun’s canoe travelled upstream until they reached a landing place in
the east, just as dawn was approaching on earth. Sun told Manioc-
stick Anaconda to shut his eyes on account of fire ants, and leapt
into his daytime orbit (5 to 1); the animals paddling his canoe
started downstream to collect him again at dusk in the west. Manioc-
stick Anaconda used his wooden club to vault into the next layer (5
to 4) where he met Tapir shaman who was to attend the Termite
People’s dance ritual across the Underworld River. Manioc-stick Ana¬
conda clung to Tapir shaman in the form of a tick while his host
walked across the river-bed (as tapirs do), periodically surfacing to
let Manioc-stick Anaconda breathe. This crossing is the origin of
birth shamanism. After the Termite People’s dance, Manioc-stick
Anaconda flew up from their Underworld house, together with the
flying termites, and arrived at the place on earth where his children
were collecting termites (4 to 3). Macaw, furious about his brother’s
survival, announced that he had initiated Manioc-stick Anaconda’s
children during his absence and took him off to get a macaw for the
feather ornaments the initiates would make. The macaw’s nest was
on the rocky face of a mountain, which appeared as a hollow tree to
261
Concepts of space-time
the brothers. They constructed scaffolding, Manioc-stick Anaconda
went up, and Macaw removed the scaffolding in another attempt to
strand him (3 to 2). But Manioc-stick Anaconda used his shamanic
power to summon snakes, who formed a line for him to reach the
ground again (2 to 3). Macaw and Manioc-stick Anaconda went to
trap fish for the initiates to eat. Macaw tried to make Manioc-stick
Anaconda go through the holes in the screen fish-trap to the under¬
water origin houses but failed; Manioc-stick Anaconda succeeded in
stranding Macaw beyond the fish-trap by shamanism (3 to 4) but,
instead of letting him go down further (4 to 5), he cut off his descent
and made him surface as an otter (4 to 3). The brothers went to
poison fish with the poison vine that Manioc-stick Anaconda had
obtained from the midday Sun (1). They quarrelled when Manioc-
stick Anaconda’s wife would not cook his fish (a wifely obligation)
and Manioc-stick Anaconda burnt Macaw and the wife with the Sun’s
snuff. Macaw and the wife became a pair of macaws, who flew up
into the air (3 to 2) and tried to go beyond (1), but Manioc-stick
Anaconda cut off their ascent, so they fell as macaw-down into the
river (2 to 3) where the fish-poisoning took place. They became the
pair of He called ‘Old Macaw’ which are the dancer/chanters among
the He. These remained underwater, where the He instruments are
stored today.

There are various points at which the internal consistency of the

myth supports my identification of five layers. The two-stage descent
of Manioc-stick Anaconda is made clearer by comparison with his
two-stage ascent from the Sun’s River. His initial position in the tapir-
pit corresponds to his later position as a tapir-tick. Again, macaws
appear twice - once in the nest up a mountain/tree, and later as birds
who are cut off from the uppermost layer. Trees and mountains, the
alternative locations of the macaw nest, are ritually identified and
called ‘posts’ (bota, sing). The intermediate position of mountains
between earth and sky is repeated in the notion that mountains
support Romi Kumu's sky—griddle.
This symmetrical five-layered universe, with its upper and lower
extremes set by the path of the Primal Sun, corresponds to the model
of the earth’s surface in fig. 36. Like the extremes of the earth’s sur¬
face, the upper and lower layers of this mythical cosmos are not
directly accessible to ordinary experience, but they are brought
within reach by shamanism and ritual, particularly during initiation.
262
Vertical space—time

Although it is frequently said that the Primal Sun does not circle the
earth today and that the sun we know is merely his shadow or rem¬
nant, it is clear from the stated theme of the myth - the origin of
shamanic power — and from its close association with initiation, that
this cosmos does still exist in the appropriate context. The shamans
officiating at initiation are said to repeat Manioc-stick Anaconda’s
underground journey, which, in the myth itself, occurs simultaneously
with the initiation of Manioc-stick Anaconda’s children. Also, the He
watia who appear at the climax of initiation are said to represent
Manioc-stick Anaconda and Macaw. In the myth, the emergence of
Manioc-stick Anaconda from the Underworld is followed by the
collection of termites, macaw feathers for manufacture of ornaments,
trapped fish and then poisoned fish. All are obtained explicitly for
the initiates, and the order is precisely that followed after present-
day initiation. Besides all these connections, the myth results in the
creation of He, the agents of initiation.
These correspondences between the myth and the ritual (which
are discussed further by Stephen Hugh-Jones (1979)) suggest that the
structure of the universe, which is ordinarily inaccessible, is encapsu¬
lated in the He, which are created at the end of the myth and placed
in the river where they are accessible to ordinary people. The He are
described as bones of the Primal Sun, and this suggests that they do
indeed represent the enduring aspect of the past and distant universe
contained by his path. After the creation of He, Manioc-stick Ana¬
conda marries Jaguar Woman and begets Yeba, who makes the first
exogamous marriage; thus the creation of He marks the end of the
‘pre-descent’ era associated with this ideal five-layered cosmos (p.
89).

The longhouse setting. The vertical axis of the longhouse setting is

contained in the vertical order of the natural world. Although man’s
own vertical range only extends between the top of mountains or
small trees and the bottom of holes (dug for pit-traps or to unearth
burrowing species), the vertical range of species with which man has
contact, such as high-flying birds, underground species which come
up to the surface and trees with deep roots, extend his own range.
They also yield materials with which he makes metonymical contact
with yet more distant and inaccessible vertical extremes of the cos¬
mos. For example, by wearing macaw feathers men are able to
identify ritually with the creative power of the Primal Sun, and by
263
Concepts of space-time
eating underground termites they are able to identify with the Under¬
world from which Manioc-stick Anaconda was reborn.
The present-day phenomena of the upper cosmos — weather
phenomena such as thunder, rain and wind, and the heavenly bodies
in their contemporary manifestations — are ambiguously placed,
because they are both within the ordinary experience of Indians in
the form of heat, light, noise etc., and yet outside their ordinary con¬
trol, being influenced only by shamanism and ritual. This, I think,
helps to explain the distinction which is often made between present-
day and ancestral cosmic phenomena. It is said that the Primal Sun
circled under the earth while the present sun returns to the east
along the earth’s peripheral river (p. 239). It is also said that the
shamans who ascend to the upper cosmos find perpetual light from
the Sun’s feather crown. This Sun is clearly the Primal Sun who
remained in the sky at the very beginning, and is not the sun which
forms part of our earthbound experience and disappears at dusk.
Again, the Pleiades are a present-day manifestation of Romi Kumu,
only visible at night and during part of the year, whereas Romi Kumu
as an ancestral figure is permanently in the sky. The examples could
be multiplied to show that the present natural weather phenomena
and heavenly bodies are representatives of the ancestral ones, which
in certain ritual and shamanic contexts — for instance, when shamans
travel into the sky — become the ancestral ones. In this, they are like
other natural phenomena of the longhouse setting which may be used
to evoke the dimensions of the ancestral universe.

The house. The statement that the house is the universe obviously
applies to the vertical dimension and the horizontal ones alike (see
fig. 44C). The roof of the house is the sky, the vertical posts support¬
ing it (bota, sing.) are mountains and the bottom of the grave is the
Underworld (pp. 109ff). In between the roof and the floor of the
house are the ritual ornaments, collectively known as ‘macaw
feathers’, which hang from the roof. These correspond to the mediat¬
ing tree and mountain layer between earth and sky which, appro¬
priately enough, was the home of the macaws that were obtained for
ritual ornaments in the myth.
Since the universe is spherical and, in the five-layered model, is
contained by the Primal Sun’s path, vertical space is non-existent at
the earth’s perimeter and at a maximum in the earth’s centre. The
vertical axis made by the midday sun’s rays falling on earth is empha-
264
Vertical space—time

A UNIVERSE B L0KK3H0USE C HOUSE

SETTING Note ' not ^11 posts & b
shown

Fig. 44 Relationship between vertical planes of house, longhouse setting and

universe
265
Concepts of space-time
sised in shamanism and ritual: midday is called hasari bota, meeting-
up vertical post’ — a term which suggests that at midday the sun s
rays make a direct vertical connection with the earth. The Sun s post,
a small vertical post from the centre of the roof-spine (fig. 44C),
represents this vertical connection within the house, and the hori¬
zontal east—west beam under the roof is called the Sun’s path. The
word for the roof itself, muhi, which may be glossed as ‘upper or
covering layer’ is contained in the term for sun (or moon), muhihu -
the occupant of the upper cosmic layer.
The three immovable systems may now be combined in a single
model, fig. 44, containing both vertical and east-west axes. The
model emphasises the position of the longhouse setting as the
mediator, or the connection, between the dimensions of the universe
and house. Appropriately, its highest layer of trees and mountains
and its lowest layer of termites and ants appear as intermediate layers
in the five-layered cosmos.

Synthesis of horizontal and vertical space—time

Horizontal to vertical

It is now possible to introduce the three movable systems in order to

clarify the relationship between horizontal and vertical space—time.
The human body, the anaconda body and the womb systems may all
be rotated, so that the east—west axis forms a vertical axis in such a
way that the east to west relationship is replaced by one from high
to low (fig. 35). We know that the standing body has the head upper¬
most, that the anaconda rises from the water head first and that con¬
ceptually insemination is a downward process (fig. 16). My hypothesis
here is that the set of relationships associated with the east—west axes
of the analogous horizontal ground-plans (see fig. 41) are also associ¬
ated with the vertical axes of the immovable systems. Therefore, the
vertical axes of the immovable systems should be associated with
relationships such as, male : female, ancestors : forest spirits, penis :
womb, chief : servant. Besides this, the vertical axis of the model uni¬
verse (which is not subject to the practical limitations of the house
and longhouse setting) should have aspects of symmetry about the
centre, as well as being a negative progression from top to bottom. A
great deal of evidence exists to support this hypothesis, but here we
can only consider a few examples.
266
Synthesis of horizontal and vertical space—time

The set of relations, male : female :: high : low, was evident in the
sexual division of labour associated with the longhouse setting, and
in the sleeping and sitting positions of the sexes within the house. The
set of relations, ancestors : forest spirits :: high : low, is demonstrated
in the frequent reference to ancestral figures in the sky (they are
often said to be both in the east and in the sky) and in the close like¬
ness of the cannibalistic forest spirits of the headwaters to the spirits
of the Underworld. Besides being the home of numerous cannibalistic
spirits, the watershed area from which Cano Colorado (the location
of fieldwork; see map 2) springs is called Ewura, a name which links
it directly to the Underworld. Ewu sita (sita, earth) is yellowish clay
which is said to form the walls of the grave and the banks of the
Underworld River, as well as being the preferred habitat of ground¬
living termites and ants. Thus, this major headwater area is related to
the vertical axes of each immovable system: the universe, longhouse
setting and house. One of the inhabitants of Ewura, Ingesting Tapir
(Sori Weku) is among the Taking-in People (p. 132). He is specifically
linked to the Underworld, since he came into being from the buried
placenta of Romi Kumu. He ingests new-born children, their mothers
and menstruating women through his anus, thus achieving a birth in
reverse. In metaphorical terms, ingestion by this creature is a return
to the rotten body liquid of the buried placenta, which occupies the
same underground position as the river that is composed of rotting
bodies.
The buried ancestral placenta illustrates further properties of the
universe-as-womb: from it there rises a huge white worm, who
pierces the layers of the universe until the Primal Sun bums his head
off. On account of the burning he is called Headless One {Rihoa
Mangu), a character who is portrayed in other contexts as a headless
man, the husband of Romi Kumu. The sexual relationship between
Romi Kumu and Headless One is therefore transposed onto a cosmic
scale: the lower hemisphere is like a womb containing the rotten pla¬
centa, and the vertical axis, the penis or child, is made by the vertical
passage of the worm. The worm is clearly related to the worms of the
grave: he is antithetical to the creative vertical rays of the Primal Sun
and moves in the opposite direction, as shown in fig. 45. However,
the sky is also the seat of Romi Kumu, who gave birth to all the
original Sky People. Indians say the rain is her menstrual blood; the
wind is her urine; the sky is her cassava griddle and she is the Pleiades
which govern the alternation of the main wet and dry seasons and the
267
 Concepts of space-time

A SINGLE-WOMB model of B DOUBLE - WOMB MODEL OF

VERTICAL PLANE VERTICAL PLANE

Fig. 45 Relationship between vertical and east-west horizontal axes of universe

268
Synthesis of horizontal and vertical space—time

timing of He wi (p. 142). Therefore, the sky is another manifestation

of Romi Kumu's ancestral womb, opposed to the sinister womb of
the Underworld and sexually associated with the life-giving Sun
instead of the deathly worm. This sky—womb is represented by the
beeswax gourd used during He wi, which, as we saw, makes sexual
contact with the He instruments or Sun’s bones. These opposed
sexual images can now be represented within the same model of the
universe in such a way that the Sun’s vertical rays and the headless
worm lie along the vertical axis, and the vertical plans (fig. 45B) may
be compared to the horizontal plane already set out in fig. 40B. The
correspondence between east—west and vertical axes of the universe
is brought out clearly and the ancestral anacondas, who are called
both children of the Primal Sun and intestinal worms, are directly
related to the Sun’s rays and the headless worm (fig. 45B, C).
Finally, the analogy between the anaconda body and the vertical
structure of the universe is suggested in the ideal five-layered model
(fig. 45D, E). It is supported by the location of Tapir shaman on
layer 2, and the macaws, who both provide ritual dance ornaments
and become the dancer/chanters among He, on layer 4. These layers
correspond to the position of shamans and dancer/chanters in the
vertical anaconda body. The circling of the Primal Sun between
layers 1 and 5, as well as the general opposition of both Underworld
and sky to the central layer, are indications of bilateral symmetry in
the vertical axis. As with the anaconda body, the symmetry co-exists
with an opposition between the ‘good’ sky and the ‘bad’ Underworld.

Vertical to horizontal

From the discussion so far, it is clear that the horizontal ground-plan

and the vertical axis of the universe system are not merely trans¬
formations of one another, they are related by changes in mythical
time and by movements in three-dimensional space, such as the
rotation of the sun. Although the account started with horizontal
space—time for convenience of exposition, we noted that, from the
Indian point of view, horizontal relations within the earth system are
derived from vertical ones within the universe as a whole. The general
precedence of the vertical order is expressed by the derivation of the
earth itself and its population from the sky (p. 258). Particular
examples may be drawn from the material above: the ancestral
anacondas follow the Primal Sun, since they are his children. Chrono-
269
Concepts of space—time
logically, the circling of the Primal Sun described in the myth of
Manioc-stick Anaconda comes before the beginning of creation and
the anaconda journeys from the east, and thus it achieves the trans¬
formation from the stationary Primal Sun in the sky to the ana¬
condas in the east.5 These in turn achieve the later transformation
from the ‘pre-descent’ era to the ‘descent’ era by their horizontal
east-west journey. Similarly, Ingesting Tapir, who is found in the
west, is derived from the Underworld placenta and provides a present-
day link with the sinister aspect of the Underworld.
Another aspect of the relationship between the east—west axis of
the earth and the vertical ordering of the universe exists in the con¬
nection between the layers, when the system is seen as a three-
dimensional whole. The Underworld River and the Milk River system
are united in a great circular flow, so that each is both a continuation
and a reversal of the other, and they represent alternate phases of a
cycle. According to whether we interpret the Underworld River
through the myth of Live Woman (pp. 1 lOf) or the myth of Manioc-
stick Anaconda and Macaw (pp. 26If), life on earth is opposed either
to physical death in the Underworld or to the Primal Sun’s power of
death and rebirth (initiation). Physical death and metaphorical death
were shown to be intimately related, but also diametrically opposed
— the one being associated with the ‘female’ mortal body and the
other being associated with the patrilineal soul. In horizontal space¬
time systems, the processes associated with these two aspects of
human existence were shown to be expressed as reversible, cyclical
space—time and cumulative, linear space—time respectively. We have
seen that, for the living, male ritual renewal could only be achieved
by an imitation of female physical renewal manifest in menstruation
and childbirth. Men only pretend to do what women really do, but,
by couching their activity in terms of female ancestral power and
emphasising the value of conscious shamanic control, they make
ritual renewal superior to the real thing. When we turn to the relations
within the vertical structure of the universe the case is different:
physical death is real in the same way as menstruation, but it is an
end and not a renewal. It is unambiguously bad, and ritual reincar¬
nation of souls is the only means of overcoming it.
The opposition between the mortal life of the body and the
immortal life of the soul is demonstrated by comparison of the myth
5 I deduce this transformational process from a varied but self-consistent body of Barasana
material. The same process is directly described by a Tatuyo shaman (Bidou 1976 : 72f).

270
Synthesis of horizontal and vertical space—time

of Live Woman with that of Manioc-stick Anaconda and Macaw. The

myths form a pair, since they are the principal sources of information
about the Underworld, and in both cases the main character succeeds
in returning from the Underworld and defying death. These characters
are differentiated by sex — a differentiation which we shall see
extends to the respective myth as complete entities. The Live Woman
myth is described as both the origin of death and the origin of
women’s superior powers of longevity and recovery from illness —
powers which are also attributed to menstruation. The myth of
Manioc-stick Anaconda is both the origin of men’s shamanic power
of renewal and the origin of He. Already, death of the physical body,
menstruation and women are collectively opposed to shamanic
power, He and men.
A further significant contrast lies in the nature of the journeys in
the Underworld. Manioc-stick Anaconda travels upstream along the
Sun’s River towards the east in a canoe, and Live Woman travels
downstream by swimming with the current. There is good reason to
suppose her journey was westwards: we know the Underground river
flows west, and that she returns to her own manioc garden on earth
by a forest path. From the layout of the longhouse setting (fig. 38B),
it follows that Agouti’s house lay at the extreme west in the forest.
This fits the structure of the myth, for the events in Agouti’s house
mediate between those in the House of the Dead and those on earth
(pp. 1110- During Live Woman’s downstream journey she was identi¬
fied with rotting corpses, whereas Manioc-stick Anaconda was
identified with the shamanic power of the Sun on his upstream jour¬
ney. Furthermore, although Live Woman completed a cycle, thus
temporarily avoiding death, the fate of her husband and the rotting
corpses demonstrates that ultimately death is final.
The contrast between upstream and downstream is one between
active travel, in which human energy is purposefully pitted against the
current, and passive travel, in which the natural flow is utilised. In the
myths this contrast is underlined, because Manioc-stick Anaconda
uses a canoe paddled by many animals, while Live Woman swims
alone, jostled by the drifting corpses. These rotting remains recall the
guts of the butchered animal which are carried downstream from the
port by the current, while the journey in the canoe paddled by ani¬
mals recalls the journey of the useful meat (which like Manioc-stick
Anaconda is rescued from decay) up to the house in its pot (pp. 192f).
The passivity of the female cycle corresponds to the uncontrollable
271
Concepts of space-time

nature of many natural processes associated with women. Amongst

these are menstruation, gestation, childbirth, natural decay and death.
The active control of upstream travel corresponds to the purposeful
(or contrived) male control of patrilineal continuity through naming,
initiation and other shamanic and ritual manipulation of ancestral
power. In addition, the active/passive opposition may be seen in the
process of exchange of women by men for the benefit of patrilineal
continuity. The male control of social and ritual processes is
achieved by observance of strict rules governing ritual procedure,
marriage, diet, sex, fire and a host of other things. In this way, social
control is directly related to self-control. It is said that the observance
of rules imparts hardness and energy to men both individually and
collectively (as descent groups), while default leads to exhaustion,
illness and death. The ‘weakness’ of women is similarly related to
their weak will: it is said that they could not control their physical
drives sufficiently to emulate the male life-style.
By their upstream direction, the ancestral journeys of both
Manioc-stick Anaconda and the Primal Sun are related to the later
upstream journeys of the ancestral anacondas to the centre of the
earth, as in fig. 46A. The journey of Live Woman is related to the
opposite encroachment of inhabited areas by evil forest spirits: this
is said to happen every night at dusk, and clearly corresponds to the
manioc-raiding activities of the Underworld Agouti in the myth
(agoutis typically raid at dusk). In these and similar ways, the relation¬
ship between mortality and immortality, which we have seen to exist
between the separate aspects of the Underworld, may be transposed
to life on earth. On earth, they can be acted out in such a way that
female downstream movements from the west are opposed to male,
upstream ones from the east. Cycles of natural and spiritual birth or
rebirth can thus be represented in the house or longhouse setting by
the living, and related either metaphorically or metonymically to the
appropriate aspects of the Underworld (see fig. 46B). In keeping with
the relations, water : land :: east : west, positions under water
represent the ancestral Underworld and positions under the ground
represent the Underworld of physical death. Thus, both the horizontal
and vertical structures of the longhouse setting are employed in the
burial of the placenta in the manioc garden and in the placing of the
He underwater at the port.
At death itself, the earthbound activity of the living within the
house is transferred to a vertical axis when the body is put into a
272
Synthesis of horizontal and vertical space-time

A CONTRASTED journeys of manioc-stick anaconda with SUN 6- LIVE WOMAN

[ASSOCIATED WITH PHYSICAL DEATH t ANCESTRAL STATE]

LONGHOUSE SETTING
FOREST , MANIOC GARDEN PORT, RIVER
LAND ¥ WATER
W UNDFR UNDER
GROUND WATER

_PLACENTA HE
f
b\ A/
\ /

/
A
Ar

&
/£
r

5/C^^A£>
D£+th

B TRANSPOSITION OF PHYSICAL DEATH £- ANCESTRAL STATE ONTO

LONGHOUSE - SETTING SYSTEM

Fig. 46 Incorporation of Underworld into longhouse setting

273
Concepts of space-time

deep grave and lost for good in the Underworld River. In the final
analysis, the closed, repetitive cycle of life and death of the physical
body, which is simulated in the burial of the placenta and return to
the grave, is a ‘false’ image of the life-cycle; in reality each birth is a
unique beginning and each death a unique end. It is only the intan¬
gible, socially invented aspects of the individual that can be renewed,
and in this sense men, with their control of He, soul-stuff and sham-
anic ability to cross layers, have the monopoly over immortality.

274
Conclusion

In the last chapter, material extracted from all the previous chapters
was used to elucidate the basic concepts of space—time. Two sets of
associations were made: cumulative horizontal space—time and up¬
stream cosmic cycles were associated with the development of patri¬
lineal descent groups; reversible horizontal space—time and down¬
stream cycles were associated with the passage of women’s repro¬
ductive powers between patrilineal descent groups. The relationship
between these conclusions and the discussion of the reproduction of
the local group (at the end of chapter 2) is clear, but in order to get
from the one to the other the reader has to go through the system of
specialist roles, certain aspects of kinship and marriage, the life-cycle
and the system of production and consumption. One function of this
detour was to provide the material from which the analogous systems
in the final chapter were built, but other points were made on the
way. In conclusion, I restate some of these points in a more general
form than that in which they appeared earlier, and also relate them to
a broader view of Pira-parana society, which I would like to develop
and state more clearly in the future.
To do this, let me briefly summarise Pira-parana social structure.
Descent is patrilineal, residence is patrilocal and marriage is virilocal.
Exogamy is a corollary of descent, for at all levels common descent
precludes marriage. The internal structure of descent groups is hier¬
archical. This hierarchy within descent units contrasts with the
equality between separate exogamous descent units manifest in direct
sister-exchange. At certain crucial levels, the internal hierarchical
order which is based on real or putative birth order is reinforced by
association with a set of hierarchically ordered specialist roles.
From first principles, these notions of hierarchy and specialis¬
ation might seem most appropriate for a concentrated and economic-
275
Conclusion
ally differentiated population, but in this case they apply to tropical
forest Indians living in small and extremely isolated communities.
Furthermore, each of these communities is virtually self-sufficient for
subsistence purposes, and is internally organised in such a way that
each adult member must pull his or her weight in food production.
There is a fundamental sameness and equality among longhouse com¬
munities, as well as between same-sex members within each com¬
munity. Nevertheless, the identity of wider exogamous groupings is
firmly maintained and the exogamy rule is carefully observed in prac¬
tice. Also, Indians attach great importance to the hierarchical internal
organisation of descent groups, in spite of the egalitarian principles
which govern most of their practical activity. An explanatory model
of Pira-parana social structure, or of Vaupes social structure, must
incorporate two outstanding sets of features: hierarchy and equality
on the one hand, and the simultaneous autonomy of the longhouse
group and its dependence on the operation of wider social categories
on the other. In addition, it must reproduce the ‘open-ended’,
boundary-less character of Vaupes society.
Chapters 3 and 4 developed a model in which it was possible to
adopt the perspective of a single Exogamous Group. From the point
of view of each Exogamous Group, the others are not equal — they
range from close groups with whom women are exchanged to very
distant groups whose members are totally unknown. Only when seen
from the point of view of comparable internal structure, or of an
artificial ‘Vaupes system’ seen from the outside, are Exogamous
Groups equivalent to one another. It is true to say, however, that
dyadic relations between these Exogamous Groups are based on the
principle of equality. The differentiation between outside groups
from a given point of view is not at all like the internal hierarchical
differentiation of the group of reference. There is no finite set of
units bound in a fixed order so that (relatively speaking) each has the
same total view of the situation. Instead, each Exogamous Group is
the centre of its own social world. Moreover, the relations with out¬
side groups may be altered by a variety of types of social interaction.
It was argued that the set of specialist roles provided a structure of a
higher order, which was concerned at one and the same time with
differentiation within an Exogamous Group and differentiation
among outside Exogamous Groups. Ideally, the two functions oper¬
ate simultaneously, for the specialist activities are directed both
within and without. Within, they maintain the status quo by pro-
276
Conclusion

moting interdependence between the sibs and, without, they act as

avenues of change, for they provoke reaction from the recipients.
An analogous situation can be perceived at the level of the local
descent group, which, being derived from the Exogamous Group
according to segmentary principles, is structured in the same way as
the more inclusive Exogamous Group. The local descent group is
regulated by the wider Exogamous Group structure, particularly in
the observance of exogamy, but the structure of the wider Exogamous
Group is also dependent on the processes of reproduction which occur
within the local descent group for the maintenance of its physical
population. There is thus a sense in which these outer and inner
descent-group structures are dependent on one another. The same
distinction between internal structure and external relations that
exists for the outer structure can be seen in the inner one, because
the internal structure of the local descent group contrasts with this
group’s relations with outside local descent groups upon whom it
depends for wives. However, these internal and external relations are
both represented in the longhouse community, for this is made up of
the local descent group and the inmarried wives. It is inside this com¬
munity, a miniature replica of the total society but nevertheless
dependent on its wider structure, that children are born and reared,
and that the productive processes that maintain their physical exist¬
ence are carried out.
In chapter 5, we saw that the dual nature of the individual and the
separation of the sexes through the life-cycle ritual reflect the dual
nature of the longhouse community as a unit based on both relations
of descent and relations of marriage. Just as the life-cycle is a process
of development and change, the dual nature of the community can
also be expressed in terms of two processes — the cumulative growth
of the local descent group and the movements of women between
longhouse communities. I argued that these processes are incorporated
into the concepts of the dual individual (enduring soul and ephemeral
body) and into the ideology and ritual associated with He wi and
menstruation respectively. Thus, the processes of development of the
community are made to control changes in the physical life-cycle,
but it is precisely through these changes that the community grows
and has a turnover in membership. Ultimately, it is also through these
processes that Exogamous Groups continue and grow through time.
Reference to this wider Exogamous Group structure is also made in
the life-cycle ritual and ideology.
277
Conclusion
There is a sense in which the social units and the social institutions,
which appear to contain and control the individual, only exist because
individuals think they exist, say they exist and are constrained to
behave in such a way as to maintain their existence. Throughout life,
an individual is busy maintaining the existence of many different
institutions as well as experiencing natural physical change, going
through the regular life processes of eating, sleeping etc., and the
economic processes of obtaining necessary foods, artifacts and so on.
Pira-parana culture is such that an individual may act in all these dif¬
ferent social and natural capacities at once: the principle aim of this
book has been to demonstrate that this is possible because Indians
conceive of and organise all the processes governing the development
and maintenance of both the physical body and social groups as if
they had a fundamental similarity.
The material on production and consumption of foods and other
substances was part of this general demonstration, but I think it is
also important because the conceptual significance of production and
consumption among Amazonian peoples has been largely ignored.
This is more true of cultivation than of hunting or fishing, and it is
particularly true of manioc production. Considering that manioc is
the staple crop of so many Amazonian groups and that it requires
such elaborate processing, and that so many different artifacts are used
and so many different products result, the minimal attention it has
received is most surprising. Authors have been ready to consider the
bearing of manioc cultivation on population distribution and pol¬
itical relations between groups, but, although they have recognised
its importance as the source of life of the people they describe, they
have assumed that these people themselves are content to ignore it in
their ideological systems. Thus, Goldman says of the Cubeo, ‘Manioc
is a strictly secular crop for which there are no rites, despite its over¬
whelming nutritive importance and the usual hazards of cultivation’
(1963 : 30); and Reichel-Dolmatoff, in his account of Desana sym¬
bolism, says, ‘The Desana emphatically insist they are hunters . . .
Horticulture has even less prestige [than fishing] in the scale of values
of the Desana, who declare that the life of the hunter is the only fit
one for a man’ (1971 : 11). After his introduction, of which manioc
receives a page, he ignores it completely.
I am sure that the general lack of interest in the place of manioc in
Indian ideology is related to the lack of overt ritualisation of its pro¬
duction and the allocation of most of the work to women: doubtless,
278
Conclusion

if men in feather head-dresses did the digging, grating, sieving etc.,

manioc would have received the attention it deserves. Of course, in
the general analysis of any society, the question of which activities do
receive ritual treatment, and why, is of great significance. It would be
foolish to ignore the strong hints as to ideological concerns that ritual
provides, but this is no excuse for ignoring other activities. This is
particularly true of societies which, like many Amazonian ones, have
sacred knowledge in the form of elaborate mythologies encompassing
all kinds of activities and elements not included in ritual life. In this
context, it is interesting to note that Levi-Strauss, in his formal
analysis of Amerindian myth, has found it necessary to discuss the
conceptual content of everyday domestic affairs such as cooking,
whereas many authors of monographs based on field research have
not.
In fact, my research shows that manioc is extremely important in
Pira-parana ritual life, not only in the form of beer and starch served
during ritual itself, but also in the re-establishment of secular life as
I have described. Furthermore, it is admitted to be important by men
and is mentioned a great deal in chants. However, it many respects,
the manioc products used for daily consumption are important
because they are absent in ritual — in this they are like other food¬
stuffs. One of my principal concerns in the discussion of production
and consumption was to demonstrate that ritual is not meaningful in
itself; instead, its special character derives from its relationship with
secular life. Thus, certain activities are suspended, certain people
excluded and certain products, qualities and types of behaviour are
prohibited; at the same time these are replaced by obligatory ‘ritual’
substitutes.
These observations are commonplace, but perhaps this is the prob¬
lem. They are so much taken for granted that the precise nature of
the relationship between the secular, domestic round and ritual
activity has often not been properly explored. Frequently, the entire
complex is seen from the point of view of the ritual; the result is that
the ritual activity is rightly regarded as an ordered process, but the
various prohibitions and restrictions are incorporated into the analysis
as if they were isolated elements (e.g. ‘women’, ‘fire’, ‘meat’) instead
of representatives of other, ordered processes belonging to the secu¬
lar domain. I have tried to alter the balance by devoting special atten¬
tion to the domestic routine.
Finally, the material on space-time concepts brings together the
279
Conclusion
processes governing the maintenance of the physical body and the
various social groups mentioned above. A set of analogous space¬
time systems is recognised in Indian ideology and, in order to contact
the ancestral past described in myth, people must transpose the sys¬
tem of the universe onto the systems which they are able to change
through concrete action. This is what they do during ritual and thus,
although it refers to all kinds of metaphysical powers and ‘imposs¬
ible’ processes, such as death and rebirth, resuscitation of the ances¬
tors, transfer of souls and so on, ritual is essentially the art of the
possible. The data presented here suggest that in the Pira-parana case,
the special character of ritual derives from the congruence of these
different space—time systems and hence the congruence of their
underlying processes. In fact, Indians say that it is specifically during
ritual that the house is the universe, the yage in the human body be¬
comes an anaconda and so on.
The point made above, that the various social groups only exist
because individuals think, talk and behave as though they did, may
be extended to the metaphysical powers inherent in the structure of
the ancestral universe. In the introduction, I argued that they are a
projection of this everyday experience; in the same way, I have argued
here that the wider social structure is a product of individual activity.
However, it is also true that just as the rule of exogamy is the widest
power controlling individual activity in the reproduction of descent
groups, so the ancestral world is the most comprehensive and outer¬
most power of all those which control and contain the individual and
the world of his everyday experience. Thus, the ancestral power
summoned during ritual supplies the supreme control necessary to
bring unity into the existence of the individual or, put another way,
to make the individual create unity in his own existence. The control¬
ling power of this outer world is shown when failure to comply with
the ritual rules brings disorder, also a manifestation of ancestral
power, into the body of the individual so that he sickens and dies. It
is shown in a positive way in the reliance of individuals upon ances¬
tral power to promote the ‘impossible’ changes mentioned above.
Throughout ritual, the emphasis is on conscious and purposeful con¬
trol of the body, on the relations with other participants (through
use of the body in dancing, chanting etc.) and also on the relations
pertaining to the wider social structure and the ancestral world. The
different ancestral anacondas are mentioned in chant and the differ¬
ent specialist roles are represented amongst the He instruments. In
280
Conclusion

these and other ways, the wider social structure which, apart from
its exercise of negative control in the rule of exogamy, is largely in¬
accessible to the individual, is elicited during ritual and bound up
with the structure of the ancestral universe.
This leads to a question of fundamental importance which has not
even been asked, let alone answered, here. We have seen how people
fit into patrilineal groups at different structural levels, and the
relationships between these structures and other domains of life have
been explored in some detail. The analysis culminated in the outline
of a comprehensive set of concepts about space and time: these con¬
cepts set the Pira-parana individual with his or her internal bodily
processes on the one hand, and the socially imposed descent-group
identity on the other, at the centre of a system which expands out¬
wards to embrace the whole universe, past and present. This dis¬
covery accords perfectly with the character of Pira-parana social
organisation with its isolated and highly autonomous longhouse
units bound into a comprehensive system of exogamous descent
groups. However, it does not explain why such a type of organisation
should exist in the first place. There are many other types of organ¬
isation to be found among small-scale tropical forest societies, but it
appears that in none of them is there so strong an emphasis on mem¬
bership of widely dispersed and non-corporate groups. The funda¬
mental question to ask is why the rule of exogamy exists in such a
form in this particular historical and geographical context? This is a
question that must be answered in a different way.

281
APPENDIX 1

Named groups
The following account covers nearly all the people living on the Pira-
parana and its tributaries. However, it also covers some regions out¬
side the Pira-parana and leaves out isolated individuals living inside
the Pira-parana area but belonging to groups mainly located outside
it. There is no such thing as a correct account of the grouping of sibs
into larger units. The names of the sibs, their seniority ordering and
their membership in larger descent units are all open to dispute
among Indians. There are only relatively high and relatively low
degrees of consensus over certain aspects of the descent-group struc¬
ture. I cannot possibly represent the many conflicting accounts I
heard, and so I have combined them into a single one as best as I can.
The order of my lists represents the seniority order of sibs as far as
possible; among the Barasana group, the first is the most senior and
the last, the most junior. Even the least well-known sibs I include
were mentioned on several separate occasions. Whenever I have con¬
sistent information on the specialist role of a sib, I include it; from
the distribution of specialist roles it will be clear that some of my
major exogamous units include more than one ‘Simple Exogamous
Group’ structure. Starred groups are those often referred to, but said
to be extinct. Names bracketed together are ones which often appear
to refer to the same group of actual people, but, here again, some
informants consider these to refer to distinct groups of people. My
account can be usefully compared with those of Bidou (1976 :
135-87), Bruzzi (1962 : 78-136), Jackson (1972 : 296-7), Lang-
don (1975 : 46), Torres (1969 : 18) and Smith (1974 : 110, 111).
The information contained in Fulop (1955) is too misleading to be
useful, because the separate exogamous units of the Pira-parana
282
Appendix 1

are all presented as sub-divisions of a single exogamous unit — the

Tukano.
The sib names are in the Barasana language: they are not always
the same as self-names, but, where different, they are often a direct
translation of the self-name. Thus, the Bara sib Munganyara call
themselves Wamutanyara, but both names can be glossed as Sela-
ginella People.

Barasana

Sometimes collectively referred to as Hanera or Yeba Masa.

Generally regarded as descendants of Yeba, Roe Masa and Emoa
Masa, being ‘finger children’ (see p. 39).
Group 1: South Pira-parana and Cano Komeyaka with a few groups extending
on to Apaporis and Tiquie. Makuna-speakers.
Roe Masa dancer/chanters
( Emoa Masa
shamans
1 Wiyoa
Yeba Masa chiefs
Munowariana shamans
Buhoa shamans
Seara servants
*Yawiboara servants
Group 2: Central Pira-parana and Cano Tatu. Barasana-speakers.
( Kome Masa
chiefs
\ Gudanira
Okotokoroa warriors
Umanyara
( Riatuna
chiefs
\ Mitoya Riatuna
Yaia Masa
Buai Masa dancer/chanters
( Hehemona
shamans
\ Buhu Daria
Wahekonyara servants
*Rike Hanera
*Wahttara
*Auroa
*Roka Masa
&
( Kayaroa isolated affinal group known as ‘side of the house cross¬
1 Umua Masa cousins’ (see p. 43 n. 5)

283
Appendix 1
Group 3: North and central Pira-parana, especially eastern affluents. Barasana-
speakers.
{ Koamona
Bosetutu Koamona (sub-group) chiefs
Yukututu Koamona (sub-group)
( Rasegana
dancer/chanters
\Nyake Hino Ria
Meni Masa
( Yuku Komia (sub-group) warriors
v. Yebau Komia (sub-group)
f Daria
shamans
( Kanea Daria
Wabea servants

Bara

Collectively referred to as Wai Masa. Generally regarded as descend¬

ants of Wai Hino, Fish Anaconda. Junior siblings of Tukano and senior
siblings of Kawiyeri and Yuruti. Makuku-parana, Cano Japu, Cano
Inambu (Boa Hamoa only) and headwaters of Cano Colorado. Bara-
speakers.
Boa Hamoa —
Barayuera chiefs
(Kawayaria —
\ Biadairoa
Wainyakdroa —
Munganyara —
*Garoa shamans
*Wamunyara servants

Tatuyo

Collectively referred to as Suna (although two groups on the Cananari,

Kata Suna and Koa Suna, composed of Tatuyo-speakers, are considered
to be junior siblings of Bara). Generally regarded as descendants of
Umua Hino, Sky Anaconda. Central and north Pira-parana, Cano
Japu, isolated groups on Vaupes. Tatuyo-speakers.
Hamoa Suna chiefs
(Hetari Suna
Turiho Suna dancer/chanters
Waiya Suna

284
Appendix 1

( Pahana
l Yohoa
Hinoa Suna warriors
Oa Suna shamans
Yuka Suna —

Suna Bumri —

Komia Suna —

( Rihotohdroa
servants
\ Suna Ria
*Saroa —

*Nyama servants

Taiwano

Collectively referred to as Eduria. Generally regarded as descendants

of Uko Hino, Medicine Anaconda. Eastern-central Pira-parana extend¬
ing on to Cananari, isolated group on upper Tiquie. The groups Gawa
Bukttra and Ngoneara are not always recognised as Eduria by descent
criteria. Barasana-speakers.
( Gawa Bukura , . f
1 Kohanyara Eduria c ie s
Uko Hino Ria dancer/chanters
Kawianyara —
Wetayoa shamans
Ngoneara warriors

Karapana

Collectively referred to as Mutea. Generally regarded as descendants

of Uko Hino, Medicine Anaconda, thus forming a single descent unit
with Eduria. Scattered on Pira-parana, Cano Ti, Papuri. Karapana-
speakers.
( Mutea Hakara —
\ Koakdroa
Hotanyara Mutea -
Duma warriors
Momia —
Hiasea —

285
Appendix 1

Makuna

Collectively referred to as Oko Masa, Water People. Generally regarded

as descendants of Oko Hino, Water Anaconda. Lower Pira-parana, es¬
pecially Cano Komeyaka, extending on to Apaporis. Makuna-speakers.
Tabotihehea chiefs
C Buhagana —

l Osoa
( Suroa
X Hogoroa Suroa
( Saira
warriors
\ Oko Hino Ria
Umua Masa
( Bu Utia
1 Utia Masa

286
APPENDIX 2

Kinship terminology

The kinship terms in current use among the Barasana of Cano Colorado
are listed below. I give the genealogically closest relatives denoted by
each term in conventional symbols, followed by a description in terms
of group membership (‘own exogamous descent unit’ or ‘other
exogamous descent unit’) and generation. In a few cases of termino¬
logical usage this second description is not true: this happens when
members of +1 or —1 generations belonging to outside exogamous
units are classed as terminological agnates following marriage to
another member of an outside exogamous unit. Thus, to take an
example, my MBW will be classed as mekaho even if she is not from
my own exogamous unit. I have not included all the composite terms
which may be used in descriptive references (for instance, mekaho
manahu).
A: used in address
R: used in reference
Terms used by a male ego.
(The terms in bold italic are ones which are also used by a female ego.)
niku A+ R FF, MF, male of second, or more distant, ascending
generation.
niko A+ R FM, MM, female of second, or more distant, ascend¬
ing generation.
haku R own father.
kaku A+ R own father.
buamu A+ R FB, MZH, male of first ascending generation, belong¬
ing to ego’s exogamous group.
bm A affectionate form for closely related buamu.

287
Appendix 2

mekaho A+ R FZ, MBW, female of first ascending generation,

belonging to ego’s exogamous group.
umaniko R own spouse’s mother.
hakoarumu A+ R MB, FZH, male of first ascending generation,
belonging to an affinal group.
umaniku R own spouse’s father.
hako R own mother.
kako A+ R own mother.
buamo A+R MZ, FBW, female of first ascending generation,
belonging to an affinal group.
gagu A+ R eB, male of ego’s generation, belonging to ego’s
exogamous group, who is ego’s elder agnatic sib¬
ling, or whose father stood in the relationship of
elder brother to ego’s father.
gago A+R eZ, female of ego’s own generation, belonging to
ego’s exogamous group, who is ego’s elder agnatic
sibling or whose father stood in the relationship of
elder brother to ego’s father.
bedi A+ R yB, male of ego’s generation, belonging to ego’s
exogamous group, who is ego’s younger agnatic
sibling or whose father stood in the relationship of
younger brother to ego’s father.
bedeo A+ R yZ, female of ego’s generation, belonging to ego’s
exogamous group, who is ego’s younger agnatic sib
ling or whose father stood in the relationship of
younger brother to ego’s father.
bede A shortened form of bedi or bedeo.
tenyu A+R FZS, MBS, WB, ZH, male of ego’s generation,
belonging to an affinal group, who is son of hako¬
arumu and mekaho.
tenyo R FZD, MBD, female of ego’s generation, belonging
to an affinal group, who is daughter of hakoarumu
and mekaho.
mekaho mako A FZD, female of ego’s generation, belonging to an
affinal group, who is daughter of mekaho.
hakoarumu mako A MBD, female of ego’s generation, belonging to an
affinal group, who is not daughter of mekaho but
who is daughter of hakoarumu.
manaho R own wife.
maku hako R own wife, mother of own son.
mako hako R own wife, mother of own daughter.
ria hako R own wife, mother of own children.

288
Appendix 2

buhibako A+R WZ, BW, female who is own wife’s gago or bedeo
or who is wife of ego’s gagu or bedi.
hako maktt A+ R MS, MZS, male of ego’s generation, belonging to
an affinal group, who is son of buamo, husband of
tenyo or who is tenyu to own spouse.
hako mako A+ R MD, MZD, female of ego’s generation, belonging to
affinal group, who is daughter of buamo, wife of
tenyu or who is tenyo to own spouse.
heyuu R co-husband, WZH, male of ego’s generation who is
married to own wife or to own wife’s true or close
classificatory sister.
maku A+ R S, male of first descending generation, belonging to
ego’s exogamous group, whose genealogical link to
ego is close.
mako A+R D, female of first descending generation, belonging
to ego’s exogamous group, whose genealogical
link to ego is close.
gahe A+R BS, BD, male or female of first descending gener¬
ation, belonging to ego’s exogamous group, whose
genealogical link to ego is at least more distant than
that of own child.
haroagu A+ R ZS, DH, male of first descending generation,
belonging to an affinal group.
haroago A+R ZD, SW, female of first descending generation,
belonging to an affinal group.
buhi R own daughter’s husband.
heho R own son’s wife.
hanami A+ R SS, DS, male of second, or more distant, descend¬
ing generation.
hanenyo A+ R SD, DD, female of second, or more distant, descend¬
ing generation.
Terms used by a female ego.
A term is in bold italic in the list above if the description given applies
equally to its use by either sex. Thus one reason why maku is not in
bold is because a female uses it for members of affinal groups. Such
terms which require separate description, and also those used exclus¬
ively by females, are given below.
hakoana A+R MB, FZH, male of first ascending generation,
belonging to an affinal group.
manahu R own husband.
maku haku R own husband, father of own son.

289
Appendix 2

mako haku R own husband, father of own daughter.

ria haku R own husband, father of own children.
osimo A+R BW, HZ, female who is own husband’s gago or
bedeo or who is wife of ego’s gagu or bedi.
tenyu R FZS, MBS, male of ego’s generation, belonging to
an affinal group, who is son of hakoana and
mekaho.
mekaho maku A FZS, male of ego’s generation, belonging to an
affinal group, who is son of mekaho.
hakoana maku A MBS, male of ego’s generation, belonging to an
affinal group, who is not son of mekaho but is
son of hakoana.
hakoana mako A MBD, female of ego’s generation belonging to an
affinal group, who is not daughter of mekaho but
is daughter of hakoana.
buhibaku A+ R HB, ZH, male who is own husband’s gagu or bedi
or who is husband of ego’s gago or bedeo.
heyo R Co-wife, HBW, female of ego’s generation who is
married to own husband or to own husband’s true
or close classificatory brother.
maku A+R S, ZS, HBS, male of first descending generation,
belonging to an affinal group.
mako A+ R D, ZD, HBD, female of first descending generation
belonging to an affinal group.
hamoku A+R BS, DH, male of first descending generation,
belonging to ego’s exogamous group.
hamoko A+ R BD, SW, female of first descending generation,
belonging to ego’s exogamous group.

290
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Dostal, W. (ed.) (1972) The Situation of the Indian in South America: Contri¬
butions to the Study of Inter-Ethnic Conflict in the Non-Andean Regions
of South America. Geneva.
Dumont, L. (1953) The Dravidian kinship terminology as an expression of mar¬
riage. Man, vol. 53, pp. 34—9.
Fulop, M. (1954) Aspectos de la cultura Tukana: cosmogonia. Revista Colom-
biana de Antropologia, vol. 3, pp. 99—137.
(1955) Notas sobre los terminos y el sistema de parentesco de los Tukano.
Revista Colombiana de Antropologia, vol. 4, pp. 123—64.
Goldman, I. (1963) The Cubeo: Indians of the Northwest Amazon. Illinois
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Hugh-Jones, S.P. (1979) The Palm and the Pleiades: Initiation and cosmology in
Northwest Amazonia. Cambridge.
Instituto Geografico Agustin Codazzi. (\969) Atlas de Colombia. Bogota.
Jackson, J.E. (1972) Marriage and linguistic identity among the Bara Indians of
the Vaupds, Colombia. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Stanford University.
(1973a) Vaupes marriage practices. Paper presented to Symposium on Mar¬
riage Practices in lowland South America. American Anthropological
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(1974) Language identity of the Colombian Vaupes Indians, in R. Bauman
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(1976) Vaupes marriage: a network system in the Northwest Amazon, in
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(1977) Bara zero generation terminology and marriage. Ethnology, vol. XVI,
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Koch-Griinberg, T. (1909/10) ZweiJahre unter den Indianern. 2 vols. Berlin.
Langdon, T. (1975) Food restrictions in the medical system of the Barasana and
Taiwano Indians of the Colombian Northwest Amazon. Unpublished Ph.D.
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Levi-Strauss, C. (1970) The Raw and the Cooked, tr. J. and D. Weightman.
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McGovern, W.M. (1927) Jungle Paths and Inca Ruins. London.
Reichel-Dolmatoff, G. (1971) Amazonian Cosmos: The Sexual and Religious
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Riviere, P.G. (1969) Marriage among the Trio. Oxford.
Rodriguez Bermudez, J. (1962) Informe de la division de Asuntos indigenas, in
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Silverwood-Cope, P. (1972) A contribution to the ethnography of the Colombian
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Smith, R. (n.d.) Southern Barasano Grammar. Summer Institute of Linguistics
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Torres Laborde, A. (1969) Mito y cultura entre los Barasana: un grupo indigena
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Turner, T. (n.d.) The social structure of the northern Kayapo. Unpublished ms.

292
INDEX

Italic page numbers refer to footnotes

affines importance of 280

definition of 79-80 at initiation 143, 146, 148, 149, 154
women living with 94 and life-cycle 109
as ‘brothers’ 100, 101 myths about 60, 137-8
affinal ties v. descent ties 41,52, 92 and natural world 264
see also agnatic ties; family; Exogamous and rituals 109, 143, 148, 207, 209, 257
Group; marriage and shamanism 62, 112
age and seniority 80 and specialist-role system 60
aggression and yage 230
degree of, and wife-getting 96; and and Yurupary instruments 137—8, 143,
specialist roles 71,72—3 148
forms of 63-4, 71 see also anaconda, as mythical ancestor;
at initiation ritual 143, 147 myths
in myth 88-90, 98, 101 ancestral house (masa yuhiri wi) 34, 112,
and pepper 222 114,126
agnatic relations 21 ancestral past 69, 235, 241
and marriage 73, 96 ancestral power 30, 45, 167, 184
agnatic ties animals
importance of 39, 77 in descent ideology 36, 37
v. affinal ties 100-2 as food 123, 243; origin of 198
see also kinship, agnatic; descent groups and ritual 61, 120
agouti, in myth 111, 157 Arhem, Kaj 208
Agouti Woman 111, 271
Amazon, in descent ideology 33 Bard see Indian groups
anaconda, as mythical ancestor 33ff, 60, 88ff, Barasana see Indian groups
165, 235, 236,241,280 beer
and land/river relationship 123 nature of 206, 208-9
journey of 20,33,60,112,126,237,241, preparation of 179-80; and ritual 206 —
272 7, 226
anaconda body, symbolic significance of 34, ritual use of 62, 146, 206, 226
253 beeswax
Anaconda in myth 137, 154, 156, 220
Fish 89, 98, 185, 187, 188, 239 ritual use of 62, 110, 123, 135, 143, 174,
Manioc-stick 88ff, 182, 183-4, 215, 148 220
see also myth beeswax gourd 137,138,143,154, 269
Poison 137, 138 Bidou, Patrice 25, 37, 105,241
Yurupary 184 black paint 143, 145, 149-50,190
ancestors 33-8 blood
food of 114 birth 125, 132, 140

293
Index

menstrual 136, 137, 139f, 157, 190, 220; children

theories of 116, 136, 224 and descent group 69
body and food 118, 120
after death 110, 113—14, 129, 157, 160 — growth of 117-18, 120, 159, 224
division within 110, 116, 117 illegitimate 95, 128
food for 222 ~=_and initiation 142, 221
symbolic significance of 235 integration of 120—22, 123, 159
theory of 119, 224-5 and language 120
boys and marriage 94
creation of 115-16 in myth 88-9, 197-8
development of 1227^ position of 43, 65, 66, 72, 120-2, 172
and initiation 129'^ —role of 50
breast-feeding 159—60 and seniority 80
and sexual intercourse 125, 140 flheories of development of 115ff, 159,
breath, nature of 112-13 L_ 221,224
brothers weaning of 123
v. affines 100 coca
competition between 86, 88 and manioc 211-13
Briizzi, Alves da Silva, A. 6, 24, 95 myth regarding 129, 212, 228
bumble bee processing of 48, 200, 201—3, 206, 239;
in myth 137 for ritual 207
as spirit of dead 110, 113, 138 ritual use of 143, 145, 154
burial social use of 204
rituals of 108, 109 as soul food 1 70, 203, 204, 226, 228
significance of 128-9, 273-4 symbolic significance of 229 — 30
conception
cannibalism, incidence of 11 and model of universe 254-5
cassava (manioc bread) social control of 114
after childbirth 125 starting point of 159
and coca 211 — 13 theories of 115 — 16, 163, 221
at communal meals 172 consumption and production 9-10, 51,
daily use of 222—3 169ff
in myth 182, 184, 185, 188-9 of coca 203, 204
preparation of 178-9, 185 of food 51, 203; and ritual 222, 278-9
ritual use of 110, 144, 145, 185, 208, cousins, cross¬
226 definition of 77, 81-3
symbolic significance of 184, 185, 188, status of 101
228 see also kinship terminology
see also manioc creation
Chagnon, N.A. 64 concepts of 34, 35; and dancing 61
chanting theory of 258
description of 60 Cubeo see Indian groups
as male activity 207, 248 cultivation
mythical significance of 61,67 conceptual significance of 278
at rituals 143, 144, 145 method of 45
women and 67 and political dominance 239
and yage 209 culture, Indian
chanter see dancer and dancer/chanter 62
chief 20, 28, 54, 55, 65, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, effects of whites on 6, 8, 9, 24
101 curare, mythical origin of 138
and servant 54, 55, 57, 58, 69
marriage of 57 dance houses 42
see also polygamy dance-path 46, 69
childbirth 123-9, 130, 140-2, 249, 270 dancer/chanter 19, 20, 28, 46, 54, 60-1,
seclusion following 125, 131, 132 62-3, 65, 67, 68-9, 70-1, 73-5
symbolic significance of 128, 132, 216, and initiation 142
249 women as 67

294
Index
dancing
at communal ritual 110, 144-5, 208
and descent ideology 33, 35, 67
mythical significance of 61,67, 89, 90-1
as specialist activity 28, 60
and yage 209
death
attitudes towards 108, 112, 113, 117,
128-9, 160, 270-1,272-4
rituals of 109-10
deculturation, effects of 5, 24
descent
ideology of 33—40; and marriage rules
91-2
importance of 16, 105, 163-4, 275
ties of: and marriage ties 92, 100-1; and
naming rituals 164—5; nature of 30,
39—40, 86; and ritual property 30-1
descent groups
creation of 67; in myth 132, 212, 249
importance of 222, 228, 254
and language 17-18, 31, 248
ordering of 80, 105, 275, 276
nature of 11, 30, 52, 97, 107, 117, 134,
161-2, 164, 168, 195
relations between 71, 87—8, 91-2; and
wife-getting 97
structure of 30, 68, 117, 219, 220, 235;
and coca 228
territory of 25
descent groups, local 22, 40, 66, 134, 277
v. family 52, 66, 100, 161
and intergroup communication 73, 100
and longhouse community 43, 48, 49,
51,246
and marriage 50, 94, 95
nature of 41, 51
and ritual 134
specialist-role system in 28, 51
digestion, theory of 119, 186
and longhouse organisation 248
and socialisation 195
divination 110
Dostal, W. 19
dreams, attitudes towards 112
Dumont, L. 76
elders
and ancestors 148—9
and coca production 201
food prohibitions for 144-5, 218
ritual role of 142, 143, 147
endogamy
incidence of 12, 33
significance of 58, 69, 71, 101
Exogamous Groups 18ff, 41,64, 73
definition of 19
295
and affinal relations 80
functions of 30
and marriage rules 77, 81,83, 84, 85,
89,99
mythical origin of 33, 36, 89, 165, 235,
241-3, 249
names of 26
organisation within 26
relationships between 21, 67, 69, 106,
162,276
and specialist-role system 19-20, 29-30
see also descent groups
Exogamous Groups, Compound 15, 16, 19
definition of 17, 19—20, 21
marriage in 92
and ritual property rights 30
and specialist roles 27
Exogamous Groups, Simple 15
definition of 19-20, 21
and hierarchy of 32
and ritual property rights 30
and specialist roles 29
exogamy
importance of 16, 21, 30, 37, 69, 71,
73,219,221,223, 275, 280, 281
and language 17,18
mythical origin of 89, 99
see also Exogamous Groups, Compound;
Exogamous Groups, Simple
family
and communal meals 210, 248
v. descent group 52, 66, 67, 161, 221
and longhouse 42-3, 48, 49, 51, 169,
192,196
nature of 131, 161
role of 49ff, 94
father
and childbirth 125, 129, 131, 133
and conception 115-16, 117
and language 120
and child 131-2, 160, 221, 251
seclusion of 125, 131, 132, 160, 221
fire 58
and food shamanism 215
and initiation 144
and menstruation 135, 136, 137, 194
in myth 88, 137, 194, 215
symbolism of 257
fish
as food 171,200,239
as ritual food 145
fishing
and rituals 206
sex differences in 171, 200, 216 —
17
flutes see He instruments
Index

food at rituals 73
consumption of, and structure of day 204 house see longhouse
as dangerous 118ff, 144, 172, 173 Hugh-Jones, S. 27, 68, 195
hierarchy of 173, 255 on communal rituals 146
preparation of see fish; manioc; meat on food shamanism 122
production of 51, 118-19; and division on initiation rituals 68, 119, 144, 146,
of labour 170-2, 216, 226 147,188,215
and ritual 206—7, 222, 248-9 on myths: Manioc-stick Anaconda 88 —
and shamanism 118-20, 122, 125, 144, 90, 215, 261; menstruation and
145 initiation 137; Origin of Manioc 184;
see also seclusion, diet during Sun and Moon 156
Fulop, M.27,99 hunting
attitude towards 194
garden changes in 10
ownership of 49—50 as male activity 217
significance of 229 and ritual 206
use of 43 husband, status of 94
see also cultivation; manioc gardens;
plants illegitimacy 95, 161
genealogies illness
nature of 39-40 attitudes towards 108, 109, 111
significance of 164 and menstruation 140, 271
girls 129-30 and shamanism 61, 120, 231
creation of 115 — 16 theory of 119—20
development of 122 incest 83, 219
menstruation of 134ff, 159 attitudes towards 94, 161
see also children Indian groups 282—6
Goldman, I. 14, 15, 24, 27, 95, 105, 110, Baniwa 27
117, 156,239,248, 278 Bard, Fish Anaconda People 21, 36, 239
kinship system among 93
hallucinations, attitudes towards 112 kinship terminology of 76—7
He instruments 31, 40, 142-3, 144, 145, social structure of 16
207,215, 280 Barasana, Yeba People 36
and ancestors 143, 148, 149, 184, 262 kinship terminology of 76, 77, 80,
creation of 184, 188 81,85-6,93
v. menstruation 138, 152 Cubeo 15,16,18,25,27,105,110,
in myth 89, 90, 137 156,239,248, 278
and rebirth 149 Desana 11, 27, 278
and rites 113, 122-3, 182 Kuripako 170
significance of 147, 154 Letuama 12
and starch 218, 220 Makd 14, 15,27,93
health, attitudes towards 109 and marriage 58, 241
hierarchy and Tukanoans 59, 170, 241-3
in descent ideology 34, 36, 67 and servant role 54, 59, 241
v. equality 104-5, 275 Makuna, Water Anaconda People 36,
in food 122, 135, 173, 255 219
and marriage partners 85 Matapi 12
as principle 57 Taiwano 12
and ritual 55 Tanimuka 12
and social structure 19-20, 24, 26, 30, Tariana 239
32, 54-5, 100, 266 Tatuyo, Sky Anaconda People 11, 25,
and specialist roles 27, 55, 56, 65, 67, 36,37,241
72, 73-5, 100-2
Tukano, Fish-Eagle Anaconda People
homosexuality, incidence of 160-1
14, 19,21,37,99,239
hostility Tuyuka 239
intrafamilial 51 Yukuna 12
inter-Indian 10, 63-4 infanticide 95, 128, 161

296
Index
initiates
enclosure for 144, 145
and He wi 142, 143, 144, 218
learning by 144, 216 — 17
pepper shamanism for 144, 145
seclusion of 144, 145, 146, 155, 218
and shaman 68
status of 66, 145, 147, 155
initiation, male (He wi) 65, 142-5, 147—8,
159,167,269,271,277
and food shamanism 213-17, 145
and male/female polarity 129, 147,''
210-11 —;
and manioc cultivation 184
v. menstruation 153—4, 155—9$*
in myth 261—3
as rebirth 149, 156, 217, 221, 270
restrictions during 144, 158
ritual food at 122-3, 144, 208, 233
v. secular world 217
symbolism during 116, 143, 145, 146,
147, 148-52,154, 220, 233
insects (termites, ants)
as food 172
as ritual food 63-4, 98, 144, 215, 218
symbolic significance of 264
see also seclusion
insemination
attitudes towards 118, 129, 234, 266
mythical representation of 90, 91, 182 —
3, 249
symbolic, at rituals 208, 220
Jackson, J.E. 6, 15, 18, 76, 93, 184
jaguars
human similarity to 84
mythical 88, 98, 210\see Pouncing
Jaguar
as predators 120
Jaguar Woman 89, 90, 263
kinship, agnatic 41, 43, 49
and aggressive behaviour 73
v. affinal 100-2
definition of 77
see also affines; agnatic ties
kinship and marriage 100
kinship terminology 76ff, 287-90
and marriage 81
see also descent groups; endogamy;
Exogamous Groups; exogamy
landmarks, in myth 33, 43, 209
Langdon, T. 118, 152
language 6,11
and children 120
importance of 43; in social structure
297
16,17,31,120,248
as ritual property 31
life-cycle
female 49, 119, 139-42, 165-8, 254,
271—2; and manioc production 180,
182, 189-92, 196; and meat pro¬
duction 193-6
and food preparation 119
ideology of 107-9, 162, 254
Indian view of 126-8
and initiation ritual 147-8
and male/female polarity 49, 52—3,
129-31,162,277
and marriage 160
and specialist-role system 65—9, 100, 256
summary of 159—61
longhouse 6
description of 43-5, 46—9, 237, 246—7
languages spoken within 17
population of 40—1
setting of 45, 236—7; significance of
239, 243ff, 263-4
and social structure 14, 22, 31,40ff
symbolic nature of 218, 235, 236, 248—
9, 251,252, 265-6
longhouse community 31,45—6, 51
and children 114, 120-2,123
economics of 42, 49-51, 169, 276
and food production 51, 200, 276
growth of 196
and initiation 142
myths regarding 43, 236, 244
organisation of 46, 49, 51,68, 147,
165,169,237, 277
relations among 32—3, 41, 73, 98, 100,
169,206,239
structure of 40-3, 48, 52, 161, 277
Makii see Indian groups
male/female polarity
within body 110, 112, 115-17, 118,
129,133,134,138,158,162,182,
221,231,249
with natural world 90, 182, 183, 185-6,
212-13, 219, 222-3, 227, 228, 230,
231, 232,253
between social and natural world 59, 118,
120-2, 126, 128-9, 150, 152-3,
157,171,189,190, 232-3,272
and high/low polarity 65, 126-8, 129,
171,185,189
in longhouse 46, 48, 58, 169
in myth 137, 157, 182-4, 185
origin of 271—2
in social organisation 189, 208, 233, 246,
248,249,254,267
in universe 129
Index
see also sexes, division of labour between
manioc
cultivation of 45, 171, 174, 183, 184
importance of 14, 58, 172—3, 223, 239,
278
in myth 110-11, 180, 182-8
preparation of 48, 94, 111, 174—80,
189,200,210,228,278
and ritual 119, 123, 180-1, 216, 278-9
manioc gardens 115, 174, 228, 249
and childbirth 123, 125, 128, 129, 132,
182,249
in myth 182-4, 197, 212
manioc juice 145, 178, 218, 225, 226
as beer 226
and pepper pot (bia sotu) 224, 230
and pepper shamanism 227
symbolic significance of 230
manioc starch
preparation of 178, 185, 189
symbolic significance of 186, 187
see also cassava; seclusion, diet during
marriage
and descent group 50—1, 52, 69, 92
endogamous 57-8
and hierarchical principle 57, 69-70,
160
and language 17
mythical origin of 36, 88—90, 99
nature of 8, 50, 94, 196, 210
purpose of 3, 52, 93-4, 161, 196
social importance of 3, 8-9, 43, 48, 50,
52, 57-8, 72, 75, 63, 66, 93-6, 99,
107,160, 161, 222
rules of: and external relations 3, 31,64,
87—8, 223; and kinship system 3,
21-2, 30, 36-7, 75, 76-7, 81-7;
sister-exchange 50, 51,77, 85, 99,
162, 197, 223, 275; and specialist
roles 72, 85, 87-8, 89, 99-100
meals
communal 48, 51, 210, 248; food at
192, 216, 217; and division of labour
172-5,217
ideal 222—3
minimal 224
meat, as food 171, 172, 192-6
and sexual reproduction 192
symbolic significance of 223
and women 196, 216-17, 223
men
aggression among 63—4
attitudes towards 117, 272
daily cycle of 210
daily obligations of 49, 94, 129, 170,
200-1, 203, 207-8, 226
dominance of 155, 161-2, 273-4
298
and childbirth 123, 128
life of 49, 52, 246, 203-4
and ritual 142, 147, 155, 109—10, 207,
231, 273-4
unmarried, status of 48, 49, 66
and women 52
see also specialist roles
menarche 65, 221
and initiation 155, 160
rituals at 134-6. 140
menstruation 136, 221
attitudes towards 136, 138, 140, 157—8,
160,190,197, 270, 271,277
rffev. initiation 115, 152—4, 155, 160
and fire 194
myths regarding 137, 140, 156, 157,
166,194
and pepper 231
milk
in child’s diet 118, 120,740
and blood 224—5
ancestral 231
Milk River (Ohekoa Riaga) 33, 166, 239
ideological significance of 108, 231,239—
41,244,249
missionaries, effects of 6, 8-9
see also whites
Moon, in myth 156, 157
mother
and childbirth 123, 125, 126, 131, 132-3
and conception 115-16, 117, 159
y. seclusion of 125, 131, 132
-«-role of 251
myths
see list of myths, p. xii
Dragonfly’s daughters 220
Frog Wife 166, 195, 221
Ingesting Tapir 255, 267, 270
Live Woman in the Underworld 129,
187.260.270.271.272
Manioc-stick Anaconda 62, 98, 102,
125.182.183.231.260.270.272
Manioc-stick Anaconda and Macaw 88 —
90,270,271
Origin of coca 129, 182-3, 228
RomiKumu 63-4, 98, 137, 152, 154-5,
156,157,185, 188, 258, 267
Sun and Moon 156,157
Yeba's marriage 36, 38, 88, 89, 90, 98
Yeba’s penis 220, 39
myths, elements of
aggression 63-4, 88-90, 98
creation 258
death 108-9, 129, 271
descent 33-40, 239-43
food 63,118,122,215,239
group origins: and houses 248; and land-
Index

marks 33, 43 raids

initiation 148, 152, 220 effects of 24
male/female polarity 182-4, 185, 267 incidence of 10—11, 32
manioc 182-9, 219 purposes of 63, 64
marriage 36, 88ff, 98, 99 wife-getting 96, 99, 103, 194, 223
menstruation 137, 156, 166 see also aggression; men; warfare
shamanism 2, 61—2, 102, 125 rain, nature of 156
specialist roles 60, 67-8 red paint 63
tobacco 231 and menstruation 136, 137
at rituals 116, 125, 133,143, 145, 147,
names, naming 26, 39 148
rules of 133 symbolic significance of 150, 222
significance of 110, 113, 118, 133, 162, Reichel-Dalmatoff, G. 27, 278
164-5 Reid, H. 15, 27, 5<?
reproduction
ornaments, ritual dance 60, 109, 111, 145, descent group 51,67, 69
146,168,207,236,264 individual 107
materials for 59, 170, 197, 261, 263 sexual: and external relations 69; as fam¬
ily role 67; and initiation 147;
paths, conceptual significance of 43, 125, mythical origin of 38-9; and patri¬
126,136,182, 244 lineal groups 52; symbolic significance
pepper 222,144 of 67, 235; and theories of growth 115
cultivation of 227-8 social: and food 222—3, 226, 233; and
symbolic meaning of 195, 212, 217, 219, life-cycle 162; and manioc 180; and
220,221,222,223,227, 231 socio-economic processes 169; and
pepper pot (hiari) 224, 226 specialist roles 68
phratry 15, 16, 30, 31 rituals 31, 63, 204, 206-7, 239
and marriage rules 30 aggression in 63, 73
names of 26 bathing during 63, 125, 128, 131, 132,
Pird-parand 6, 12, 13, 14, 19, 27, 41-3, 135,136,143,144,145, 152
169-70,239, 275 for birth 122, 125, 131-2
placenta 116, 126 dancing at 89, 90, 98
burial of 128, 225; in myth 276; signifi¬ for death 108, 109
cance of 272 food 89, 123, 146, 156
plants food-exchange 73, 89, 90, 98, 146, 170,
as food 118, 122 208, 248-9
in myth 89, 166, 182 importance of 42, 107, 279, 280
plants, ritual for initiation see initiation
assai-palm fruit 144 and manioc 180-2, 208, 278-9
bid fruit 89, 90 and marriage 89, 160
in fruit ritual 146 at menarche 134—6
kana fruit 122, 125, 128, 143, 149, 244 rebirth 122, 133, 156, 167, 221
myths regarding 60, 89, 90 and specialist roles 28, 58, 59-63, 66,
umari fruit 89, 90, 135, 144, 166 67,105
polygamy 56, 57-8, 69, 101 symbolism of 67, 107, 219
port 43, 115, 137 vomiting at 136, 143-4, 145; mythical
ritual bathing at 125 origin of 34, 188
significance of 195, 244, 272 ritual time 66, 206, 222
Pouncing Jaguar 64, 98 and food-stuffs 226
pregnancy rivers
attitudes towards 194 and descent ideology 33, 35, 108, 125,
frequency of 125, 140 132, 241-3, 244
property, ritual and land 35
definition of 31 and longhouse sites 43-5, 237
origin of 33,J>0 and rituals 132, 142, 148
rights to 30— 1 and manioc 178
significance of 45, 125, 126, 132, 230,

299
 Index
235,239,241,244,248
Rodriguez, Bermudez J. 19
roles see specialist-role system
rubber, trade in 6, 8
salt, symbolic nature of 195, 223
seclusion
at childbirth 125, 128, 131, 132, 160,
218
at initiation 144, 145, 146, 155, 217
at menstruation 134, 136, 155, 195,
220-1
diet during 125, 131, 135, 189, 213-15,
216,217, 218, 220-1,226
semen 115-16, 117, 132, 154
and manioc 186, 187, 189, 218, 221, 234
and salt 223
seniority
•o as hierarchical principle 19, 20, 22, 26,
28,32,51,55,56,65,164,241,243,
256; in descent ideology 34; in gen¬
ealogies 39; in longhouse community
41,46,48
system of: among siblings 80, 86; and
language 18; in location 25
servant 20, 28, 54, 55, 58-9, 65
and chief 54, 55, 57, 58, 69
marriage of 58, 66
and ritual 66
status of 65-6, 70, 101
see also Makd
sexes
differences between 107, 117, 118, 122,
123,129,137,147,160,207,210
division of labour between 45, 48—9,
58, 123, 147, 170-3, 200-1, 267
role differences between 48—9, 52, 58,
67, 129, 216, 226-7
spatial differences between 46-8, 49,
52-3
see also male/female polarity
sexual intercourse 115, 160-1
attitudes towards 154
and childbirth 125, 140
! shaman 20, 28, 46, 54, 61-3, 65, 66, 68-
9,71,73-4,231
attitudes towards 55
as leader 32, 55—6.
and marriage 69
in myth 261
powers of 55, 61, 62, 66, 68, 70, 112,
119,120,231,260
) ritual duties of 61.109-10,118,142-5 7
and women 56, 62, 66
t shamanism 61-2, 63, 67, 159
and aggression 63, 71, 72-3, 88, 101
and ancestral past 62, 66, 109, 235
300
^ and birth 118, 122, 128, 131, 200; origin
of 62,261
and breath 113
and dancing 90—1
and food 62, 118,120,121, 122-3,125,
131,135,144, 213
and kinship 89, 90, 102
mythical origin of 89-90, 137, 138,
263,271
— and naming ritual 133
of pepper 135-6,144,149,213,214,
218,227
and political relations 32, 72
pre-ritual 207
in social organisation 120, 122, 123
and structure of universe 239, 259, 262
and tobacco 231
sib 15-16, 22, 25, 26, 105
mythical origin of 33-40, 43, 212, 236,
241-3
organisation of 20, 22, 26-7, 41, 243,
256
size of 19, 22
and specialist roles 19, 20, 27-30, 32,
34,54,73,105,277
sibling groups
dispersal of 51, 52, 161-2
and local descent group 51
siblings
definition of 77ff
as economic unit 50
and hierarchical structure 21, 29, 65, 80,
105
and marriage rules 86, 92, 161; in myth
88-90, 102
relations between 100, 101
and social structure 21—2
Silverwood-Cope, P. 15, 58
sleep, attitudes towards 156, 206, 210
snakes
in myth 262
as threat to people 120, 138
see also anaconda, as mythical ancestor
snuff
social use of 204
shamanised 110, 113, 143, 148; in myth
88, 182, 261
see also tobacco
social relations
intergroup, changes in 10; development
of 104; nature of 23-4, 31 ;see also
specialist-role system
intrafamilial 50; see also family; father;
mother
with outsiders 93
social structure 15-16, 17, 18-22, 31
and cosmology 1—2, 235—6; with rivers 20
Index
and language 17 and whites 259
and life-cycle 107 trade
nature of 2-3, 13ff, 163-4, 275, 281 between Indian groups 15, 59, 169
and specialist roles 29, 54ff with whites 9 — 10
whites and 24, 55 Tukano, as linguistic category 14-15
soul (usu) see also Indian groups
v. body 112-13, 117, 222, 270-1, 277
and coca 203, 204, 226 umbilicus, umbilical cord 116, 126
concept of 117 —18 rivers as 126, 230, 244, 248
and illness 119-20 Underworld 110-12, 114, 156, 157, 258,
and initiation 148, 159, 221 260,264,267, 272
in myth 137, 138 Underworld River 108, 111, 260, 261, 270
and naming 133—4, 160, 164, 221 Underworld goods 109
and tobacco 231 universe, Indian concept of 235, 236, 244,
Sorenson, A.P. 18 248, 249, 250, 258-61,262,264,
space-time systems 237-8, 257, 279-80 266,280
horizontal 63, 238—57
vertical 63, 257—66 Vaupes 11,13,14, 17, 19,45, 98, 108, 117,
specialist-role system 13, 27-30, 54-64, 133,231,239
70-1, 73-5, 243 kinship system 21,27
attitude towards 55, 56 marriage system 37, 51 ff, 76ff, 93
and hierarchical principle 54, 55, 56, 57, social relations 41
65, 67, 72, 73, 102, 105-6, 256, social structure 18ff, 32, 93, 105
269-71 visitors
ideal organisation of 54, 56-64, 102, food for 173
106 and ritual 206
and intergroup relations 71—3, 100—1 status of 41—2, 48, 49, 71
and kinship system 3, 19, 20, 24, 27-30,
32,54,73,105,277 warfare 66—7, 71, 73
and life-cycle 64—9 learning 144, 147
and marriage rules 85, 87—8, 89, 99 nature of 223—4
and ritual 28, 68 and marriage 99
spirit of the dead (wati) 110, 112, 113 between siblings 101
spirits, forest 113, 241, 266 see also raids
Spirit Woman 111 warrior 20, 28, 54, 55, 57, 63-4, 65, 66,
Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) 6, 9, 70, 71,73-4, 256
12 water v. land 35, 123, 260, 272
Sun see also ritual bathing; rivers
in myth 38, 88, 182, 258, 261,269 Water Door (Oko Sohe) 33, 34, 40, 123,
passage of 239 235,239
weaning 123, 140
Taiwano see Indian groups weather 5, 264
Tapir, in myth 261 and initiation 142
Tatuyo see Indian groups in myth 267
time and shamanism 62
concepts of: and plant reproduction whipping, as ritual act 143, 146, 147; j j
212—13; and yage 209, 230 mythical origin of 198
organisation of: and production 178, whites
180, 200-4, 210-12, 236; in myth effects of 6, 8-9, 9-10, 24, 32, 45, 55
258, 261; and ritual 206-7, 210 Indian attitudes towards 241
tobacco widows, status of 43, 94
cultivation of 227-8 wife
daily use of 202-3 choice of 84
mythical origin of 231 function of 94
ritual use of 62, 110, 113, 208 integration of 195
as soul food 170, 226 obligations of 94, 196
symbolic significance of 231, 233 status of 93, 94

301
Index

wife-getting 64, 77, 91, 95—6, 97, 100

women
attitudes towards 117, 194, 256, 271,272
and childbearing 116, 123
daily cycle of 210-11, 174
as dancers 60, 61,67
exchange of 9, 11, 50, 72, 77, 84-5, 91,
104,162,167, 168
life of 49, 52, 204, 246
and manioc 173, 174, 196, 216,226
and marriage 77, 87, 89, 91, 165
and menstruation 156
in myth 111, 129, 184-5
obligations of 49—50, 52, 58, 129, 136,
170,200, 210
ritual obligations of 109, 143, 144, 145
and rituals 142, 144, 146, 148,150, 155,
246
status of 22, 161, 207, 221
see also girl; wife
Wood Ibises 63, 98
world, Indian concept of 238—41, 244, 269
worms, in death myths 108, 111, 114

yage
effects of 209-10, 228, 230, 248
nature of 149, 170, 208, 213
as ritual gift 89
ritual use of 63, 143, 145, 208, 226,
228,230,248
symbolic significance of 228, 230, 236,
280
youths, initiated
and coca 201
at He wi 142, 143, 147
and homosexuality 100-1
role of 50, 66
status of 68, 256
see also men
Yurupary instruments see He instruments

302
CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY

General Editor: Jack Goody

1 The Political Organisation of Unyamwezi

R. G. Abrahams
2 Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in North-East Thailand
S. J. Tambiah
3 Kalahari Village Politics: An African Democracy
Adam Kuper
4 The Rope of Moka: Big-Men and Ceremonial Exchange in Mount Hagen, New Guinea
Andrew Strathern
5 The Majangir: Ecology and Society of a Southwest Ethiopian People
Jack Stauder
6 Buddhist Monk, Buddhist Layman: A Study of Urban Monastic Organisation in
Central Thailand
Jane Bunnag
7 Contexts of Kinship: An Essay in the Family Sociology of the Gonga of Northern
Ghana
Esther N. Goody
8 Marriage among a Matrilineal Elite: A Family Study of Ghanaian Senior Civil Servants
Christine Oppong
9 Elite Politics in Rural India: Political Stratification and Political Alliances in Western
Maharashtra
Anthony T. Carter
10 Women and Property in Morocco: Their Changing Relation to the Process of Social
Stratification in the Middle Atlas
Vanessa Maher
11 Rethinking Symbolism
Dan Sperber
12 Resources and Population: A Study of the Gurungs of Nepal
Alan Macfarlane
13 Mediterranean Family Structures
J.G. Peristiany (ed.)
14 Spirits of Protest: Spirit-Mediums and the Articulation of Consensus among the Zezuru
of Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe)
Peter Fry
15 World Conqueror and World Renouncer: A Study of Buddhism and Polity in Thailand
against a Historical Background
S.J. Tambiah
16 Outline of a Theory of Practice
Pierre Bourdieu
17 Production and Reproduction: A Comparative Study of the Domestic Domain
Jack Goody
18 Perspectives in Marxist Anthropology
Maurice Godelier
19 The Fate of Shechem, or the Politics of Sex: Essays in the Anthropology of the
Mediterranean
Julian Pitt-Rivers
20 People of the Zongo: The Transformation of Ethnic Identities in Ghana
Enid Schildkrout
21 Casting out Anger: Religion among the Taita of Kenya
Grace Harris
22 Rituals of the Kandyan State
H.L. Seneviratne
23 Australian Kin Classification
Harold W. Scheffler
24 The Palm and the Pleiades: Initiation and cosmology in Northwest Amazonia
Stephen Hugh-Jones
25 Nomads of South Siberia: The Pastoral Economies of Tuva
Sevyan Vainshtein
 F 2520.1 T9 H83
Hugh-Jones. Christine, 19 010101 000
From the Milk River : spatial

;CO
163 0 80
TRENT UNIVERSITY

F2520.1 .T9H83
Hugh-Jones, Christine.
From the Milk River :

T ISSUED TO ^\ T l T 1