1

Third International Workshop, LCRC and the University of Cologne

The secret and the secret: working on such knowledge — 16.11.17

ALL IN THE FAMILY: MY TARIANA LIFE AND KNOWLEDGE

Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, LCRC

1 Preamble

Linguistic fieldwork is key to understanding of how the language — and languages in general

— work. Fieldwork is the basis for comprehensive analytic grammars, dictionaries, text

collections, websites, and many more. To achieve the best result, the fieldworker needs to

observe the language as it is used in as many environments as possible. This is the essence of

immersion fieldwork (in contrast to other, limited ways of doing field research via interview,

elicitation, translation, and so on: see Dixon 2010: 316-18, Aikhenvald 2015: 21-4, and

references there). One strives to become a member of the community, and a participant, as

well as a non-intrusive observer. One learns to speak and to use the language, and strives to

gain acceptance, and get access to knowledge not directly available to an outsider. A

fieldworker will feel at home in the community — at least in some ways, becoming its

member rather than a foreign intruder. What better way to get there than to be adopted into a

family, becoming part of a complex web of relationships, and acquiring a defined place

within the community? This happened to me several times — in at least three language

groups in different parts of the world. My experience as an adopted Tariana of northwest

Amazonia, and the glimpses into the knowledge revealed to me, is what I will focus on here.

2 The Tariana of the Vaupés River Basin

In 1991, I started fieldwork with Tariana, a previously undescribed and endangered language

of north-west Amazonia. Tariana is mainly spoken in two villages, Santa Rosa and Periquitos,
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and the neighbouring mission centre Iauaretê, in a remote area of the state of Amazonas in

Brazil on the banks of the Vaupés river (across from Colombia). This is one of the major

black water tributaries of the Upper Rio Negro, which flows into the River Amazon. The

ethnic group called Tariana is numerically large — at least two- or three thousand people. But

only about 100 people still speak Tariana.

Tariana used to be a continuum of dialects belonging to different subclans (in the

Portuguese naming system, each shares a surname). Those were organized in a hierarchical

order in agreement with the emergence of the ancestor of each sib from a hole around the

Uapuí rapids (see Aikhenvald 2013a). The speakers of Tariana with whom I have been

working for more than 25 years belong to one of the lowest rankling sibs, the Wamiarikune.

The name reflects the origin myth. The high-ranking Tariana are said to have emerged out of

the smoke of the Creator's cigar. Those who came late, and are ranked lower, appeared

floating on the surface of the rapids; the name Wamiarikune translates, literally, as 'the people

of (the place) where we float(ed)' (wa-amia-riku-ne (1plural-float-LOCATIVE-plural)). In the

earlier sources, this group was known as iñemi 'spirit, 'devil'' (Coudreau 1886/7, Koch-

Grünberg 1911). Higher-ranking groups — such as the Kumandene of Santa Terezinha on the

Iauarí River, the only group other than the Wamiarikune who still speak the language in some

form — still refer to them as iñe 'spirit' or 'diabos', the word for 'devil' in Portuguese. More on

this later.

The Wamiarikune Tariana (hence W-Tariana) dislike the name iñemi, calling it 'a

joking name' (na-pekaru-nipe i-pitana 3pl-joke/play.around-NOM INDEF-name). I suspect that

this way of referring to them and their lower status in the tribal hierarchy may have to do with

the fact that until quite recently (little more than 100 years ago) the W-Tariana used to live

away from the main river (the Vaupés) on the banks of small rivulets — unlike the higher-

ranking Tariana who have 'always' lived on the banks of the Vaupés river. Judging by the
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tales about the ancestral stories which I recorded, the W-Tariana arrived in their current

location from the Japurá/Caquetá river basin (their presence there was documented by von

Martius 1967, as a nomadic 'horde' neighbouring the Boran-speaking groups — the region on

which Kasia Wojtylak will focus in her paper). And in addition, other Tariana told me that the

W-Tariana are in fact former speakers of a Makú language (this was also mentioned by Koch-

Grünberg 1911). Changing languages is not uncommon in the Vaupés region. Some kind of

'Makú' connection transpires in one of the auto-denomination of the W-Tariana of Periquitos

who call themselves enu-makine (thunder-'makú'+PL) 'the Makú (i.e. servants) of Thunder',

the name used in the denomination of the currently active Tariana school in that location (see

Map).

3 The context: the Vaupés River Basin

The Vaupés River Basin is known for its language-based exogamy — one can only marry

someone who speaks a different language and who belongs to a different tribe (this is called

exogamy). People usually say: 'My brothers are those who share a language with me' and 'We

don't marry our sisters'. Those who marry people who speak the same language are referred to

as tsinu kayu-peni (dog like-animate.plural) 'those who are like dogs'. (Maria Sanchez Brito,

my classificatory mother, offered a variation on this, Americanu kayu-peni (American like-

animate.plural) 'those who are like Americans'.) In the Vaupés area one’s ethnic identity is

inextricably linked to one’s linguistic identity inherited through one's father. Incidentally, in

this context it makes no sense to talk about 'mother tongue' — one identifies with the 'father's

tongue'. As a consequence, the loss of one’s language is a pitiful and, ultimately, a shameful

thing. People who have lost their language run the risk of losing their group affiliation. They

are pitied as those who ‘speak a borrowed language’ (na-sawãya na-sape lit. ‘they borrow
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they speak’). Hence the desire on the part of all the Tariana not to lose their language — or,

nowadays, to ‘learn it back’.

The Tariana have a a classificatory kinship system which spans the marriageable

indigenous groups throughout the Vaupés and the Içana rivers basins (see Keesing 1975 for a

general discussion, and Hugh-Jones 1979, for a snapshot of an East Tucanoan group in the

Colombian Vaupés).

The kinship system of the Tariana (similar to that of other indigenous groups of the

Vaupés linguistic area) makes a distinction between cross-cousins and parallel cousins (it is

categorised as Iroquoian type). Parallel cousins (children of parents' same sex siblings, e.g.

father's brothers) are regarded as one's siblings, and cannot marry each other. Cross-cousins

(children of parents' different sex siblings, e.g. mother's sisters) are preferential marriage

partners. Just like in many indigenous societies, calculating the varied ways in which people

are related is an intricate task, and a topic of many conversations.

Establishing relationships and marrying the 'right' person has interesting repercussions

for language — the main badge of identity in the Vaupés River Basin context. Only if your

father belongs to a language group do you have the right to refer to that language as 'my

language', or 'our language' (Tariana nu-yaku (1sg-talk), or simply nu-yarupe (1sg-thing)).

One father's language is the one that one would really speak; not matter how well one would

speak one's mother's of wife's language, one would describe this ability as nu-wika nu-sape

(1sg-imitate 1sg-speak) 'I imitate speaking'.

Preferential marriage is to one's mother's kin — which is why one's wife's mother may

also be addressed as 'maternal aunt', or 'father's sister' and her father as 'maternal uncle'.

Wife's father's language is, ideally, the same as that of one's wife. For instance, the

preferential choice of wives for the Tariana of Santa Rosa are the Piratapuya, and for the

Tariana of Periquitos are the Wanano. Other principles involve sister exchange; as my
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younger uncle Leonardo Brito explained to me, if the wife dies, and the man is liked by the

mother-in-law, she will try and give him another daughter as a wife. Traditional polygamy is

only remembered (there appears to have been a preference to marry sisters).

The other languages in this area belong to the Tucanoan family. Some are still spoken

by a fair number of people. What is special about Tariana is that it is the only language from

the Arawak language family in the Vaupés region. The marriage network (discussed in

numerous anthropological publications) involves the Tariana and the East Tucanoan speakers,

and marginally, speakers of Baniwa of Içana (a North Arawak language, closely related to

Tariana). It is, however, not fully straightforward: for instance, the Tariana are not allowed to

marry the East Tucanoan-speaking Desano, who are considered their 'younger siblings' —

perhaps as a memory of distant historical relations now forgotten. The Tariana and the East

Tucanoan peoples of the Vaupés do not marry the Hup and the Yuhup, known as the Makú

people (who traditionally live away from the main rivers, do not plant manioc, hunt rather

than fish, and are in a symbiotic relationship with the Tariana and the East Tucanoans as their

'underlings').

The Vaupés Basin is perhaps the most multilingual area in the world. In traditional

times, each person knew several languages: their father's (which is the language they identify

with), their mother's, their wife's, and languages of other relatives and other members of the

community. 'Mixing' languages and borrowing forms from other languages is not an

acceptable practice. But the rampant multilingualism has resulted in the spread of

grammatical structures which are more difficult to control. Many cultural practices are also

shared; many are being lost.

Box 1 summarises the principles of marriage network and diffusion in the area.
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Box 1 'We don't marry our sisters': marriage network and areal diffusion in the Vaupés
River Basin linguistic area
Languages spoken: East Tucanoan and Tariana (Arawak)
Traditional principles of social organization: members of the exogamous network marry
someone whose father belongs to a different language group. So, a Tariana cannot marry a
Tariana, but can marry a Tucano, a Wanano, a Piratapuya etc. A Tucano cannot marry a
Tucano, but can marry a Tariana, a Wanano, a Piratapuya etc. Shared kinship system is of
Iroquoian type (cross-cousin marriage).
Subsistence and settlement: banks of the Vaupés River; slash-and-burn agriculture; fishing,
some hunting, and limited gathering.
Multilingualism: one's father's language is a badge of one's identity and determines who one
marries. One also speaks (and speaks well!) the language of one's mother and of one's mates
in the longhouse whose mothers speak other languages in the area.
Language etiquette:
(a) Keep your languages strictly apart: inserting forms from another language into one's own
is seen as a mark of incompetence.
(b) Speak your father's language to your father and your siblings. If you want to be polite to
other people, speak their father's language to them.
Outcomes: hardly any borrowed forms, numerous similar categories and functions.
What makes Tariana crucial: comparing Tariana with its Arawak-speaking relatives outside
Vaupés shows what categories are due to East Tucanoan impact.

Nowadays, what used to be a situation of stable multilingualism without dominance of

one language group over another is rapidly changing: Tucano is the dominant language

spoken by most indigenous people. 1 And Portuguese, the national language, is gradually

gaining ground not 'just' as a lingua franca but also as a main means of communication in

environments associated with 'white people' — including schools and local government.

There are hardly any children who acquire Tariana as their father's language (see Aikhenvald

2013b, for an up-to-date study).

4 Becoming a Tariana

Back in the 1990s (and even more so now) language loss was a worry to many of the speakers

— and this must have been the reason why the late Graciliano Sanchez Brito welcomed me to

1 See, for instance, Aikhenvald (2002, 2013a,b, 2014); the pioneering work on the
Colombian Vaupés, by Arthur Sorensen, is only partly relevant since the situation in
Colombia — where only East Tucanoan languages are spoken — is different from that in
Brazil.
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his family and his community when we first met in 1991. When I went back to continue

working with him in 1994, my status changed. Graciliano was almost three years older than

me. He immediately adopted me as his younger sister, stating it as a fact (hence the visual

evidential).

(1) nu-we-doa-ka-naka phia

1sg-younger.sibling-FEM-DECL-PRES.VIS you
'You are my younger sister'

From then onward, I was no longer a yalana isado (non-Indian.person woman), a white

woman. I was recategorised as a wa-kesi-do(a) (1pl-relative-fem.sg) 'our female relative' and

immediately acquired a huge family. 2 This included a plethora of Graciliano's brothers and

sisters, and also his natural father and mother together with his father's elder brothers (his

classificatory fathers) and his mother's sisters (his classificatory mothers).

My elder sister Olívia made it her task to teach me what my relationships to other

people are, using simple imperatives as in (2) or the future form which has the deontic

meaning of 'must'. For instance, the W-Tariana of Periquitos are 'elder brothers' to the W-

Tariana of Santa Rosa, and so they have to be addressed as such:

(2) Kerekere-pani-sawa wa-phe-ri-ne-sawa-ka-naka

sparrow-CL.RAPID-CL.GROUP 1pl-elder.sibling-masc.sg-CL:GROUP-DECL-PRES.VIS
na-na nu-phe pi-a
3pl-OBJECT 1sg elder.sibling:VOC 2sg-say
'The group of Periquitos (lit. the rapid of the sparrow) are our elder brothers, say to
them 'Older brother!''

2And perhaps the Tariana acquired a new set of marrigeable relatives. During one of the
Tariana official gatherings (assembleias) in Iauaretê, Adão Oliveira, a Tariana from a higher
ranking sib than the Wamiarikune, gave a speech partly in Tucano partly in Portuguese (for
my sake), and remarked that now that I am a Tariana and my partner is an Englishman, the
Tariana can now marry English girls. This was met with appreciative laughter.
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I also became someone who had to be told what to say and be taught things that a

Tariana ought to know. The frequency of imperatives directed at me increased exponentially.

So did the future in its deontic meaning, particularly with second person (a revelation to me,

since this had not been described for any of the neighbouring or related languages).

5 The tenets of kinship

The kinship system and the kinship network is key to people's relationships in the Vaupés

area — as it is in many, if not all, traditional indigenous societies. The 'specific quality' of

kinship links has been a matter of discussion for many anthropologists — in Sahlins' (2011: 2)

words, kinship involves 'the mutuality of being: persons who are members of one another,

who participate intrinsically in each other's existence'. Kinship relationships as part of the

social structure can perhaps be viewed as something only tangentially linked to biological

links (this transpires from Sahlins 2015: 62 heading 'What kinship is not — biology'). In

some societies, including the Korowai of Papua, kinship relationships are 'demonstrated and

re-evaluated from one day to the next' (Stasch 2009: 135). Kinship links define the person's

place in the community and the society; 'the mysterious effectiveness of relationality' (in

Viveiros de Castro's 2009 words) established by kinship connections define reciprocal

obligations in terms of gifts and bonds, and being 'in' rather than out. As Peter Gow (1991:

119) put it, in reference to the Piro, or Yine, who speak an Arawak language distantly related

to Tariana, 'to live with kin is life itself'', and 'life for native people is created and sustained by

kinship'.

Similarly to many other indigenous languages, Tariana does not have a word for

'friend'. There is a term for companion (or a co-worker), di-nisaka (3sgnf-companion), and a

term for an acquaintance in general (di-yeka-nite 3sgnf-know-PASS+NCL.ANIM, lit. someone

known). There are also terms for traditional underlings or servants (di-kholena, di-asese
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(3sgnf-servant) and surara 'soldier, underling' (a loan from Língua Geral, a former lingua

franca of the region)), and two terms for 'leader', or 'chief' of a group (eni, di-piwari). The

words for di-phu-ni (3sgnf-accompany-AFF) and di-phu-ni-seri (3sgnf-accompany-AFF-

SINGL) can mean 'companion' or 'enemy' depending on the context. The term for 'boss' is the

same as that for white person and any non-Indian, yala-nata (one of the very few loans,

coming from the former lingua franca Língua Geral iara 'owner'). All the terms for social

relationships are obligatorily possessed — except for the term for 'boss'.

Relations between the Tariana and indigenous people other than the Makú (who are

'underlings') are defined in terms of kinship and marriageability. The general term for

'consanguine relative' is masculine singular -kesi-ni, feminine singular -kesi-do(a),

plural -kesi-pe. Affinal kin are referred to as nu-dalipa-ki (1sg-close-AFF). These forms are

obligatorily possessed (they have to occur with personal prefixes, as all other kinship terms).

(Incidentally, both native and introduced animals in stories address each other as naí 'mother's

brother's child and marriageable relative' and use the term nu-dalipa-ki 'affinal kin' to refer to

each other'. I have no evidence in favour of inclusion of spirits of trees and objects in the

kinship system as 'kindred', unlike the Greenland Inuit or Maori, as per Marshall 2011: 15).

Every Tariana is in consanguine kinship relationship to every other Tariana: all the

Tariana are our wa-kesi-pe (1pl-consanguineal.kin-PL) (so are the Desano). All the East

Tucanoans, and the Baniwa of Içana, are referred to as wa-daliki-pe (1pl.affinal.kin-PL). But

since many of them are related to the Tariana through matrilineal links, they can also be

referred to as wa-kesi-pe. To differentiate one's nuclear family (or close family) from the

relationships within the whole group, one uses the augmentative-emphatic enclitic =pu. The

family of Graciliano Brito will be nu-kesi-pe=pu (1sg-consanguine.relative-PL-EMPH) 'real

relatives', he will nu-phe-ri=pu (1sg-elder.sibling-masc.sg=EMPH) 'real elder brother', his

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father Cândido nu-haniri-pu 'real father', and so on. My obligations, including monetary ones,

will be to them, and their children.

The correct use of kinship terms is a mark of one's stature in the society. People who

do this are said to 'have respect' (a lexicalized serial verb construction consisting of 'respond'

and 'have/grab'). When my younger uncle Leo spontaneously said (3) referring to me, it was

quite a compliment.

(3) wa-na nuerí nuphe du-a-ka

1pl-OBJ younger.brother! elder.brother! 3sgnf-say-REC.P.VIS
dhupa du-de-ka
3sgf+respond 3sgf-have-REC.P.VIS
'She has been saying to us younger brother!, elder brother!, she has respect'

It took some time for Américo Brito to agree to tell us his memories of the Offering Festival

and to let us record this (for everyone, including his children — who no longer speak the

language — to know). That I correctly addressed him as 'father's older brother' surprised him

at first; but did appear to break the ice. He consistently addressed me as nu-itõ 'my daughter',

occasionally slipping into Tucano and saying mako 'daughter' — which was the exact way he

talked to his own children with whom he only spoke Tucano.

6 On our joint work

When I first started working with the Tariana, I had come from Santa Catarina, the south of

Brazil, and was classified as a uni yedite (water-downstream+NCL:ANIMATE), someone who

came from downriver, or down south. That someone like that came all the way to the region

to learn the Tariana language, write it down, help do the dictionary and a teaching manual,

and thus preserve the language for the children was immediately appreciated — especially by

the late Cândido, my classificatory father and perhaps the most knowledgeable and traditional
 11

speaker of Tariana alive in 1990s (he passed away in 2008). Together we created a passable

orthography (now in use in the Tariana school in Iauaretê). That our language, 'our thing', is

now written down was a matter of general content. The dictionary, the manual, and the story

collections were the product of team work — the names of the most assiduous participants

appear on the front page, in the order of kinship seniority (I figure as 'assessora linguista', a

linguistic assistant). And when Jovino Brito, my younger brother, received a copy of the

Tariana grammar (in English, under my name), he said to me over the phone, 'Our language

has all that!'. I also did my best to conform in other ways.

` The Tariana are staunch Catholics (thanks to the domination of the region by Salesian

missionaries, firmly established since 1925). I accompanied my family to the services at the

local Catholic church assuring them that I was also Catholic (not exactly a lie, since I have

always admired the Catholic church), established close relations with the Catholic nuns (who

helped us a lot in exchange), and even wrote down a Tariana translation of the Sunday

Service (used now and again in the church in Santa Rosa). I ate the same food as my family

— manioc bread, pepperpot, and fish stew (lihmetanipe, one of the few words in the language

with the initial l).

That was unlike other white people — there were, and still are, a few Brazilian priests

who speak Tucano fluently, but no white person had ever spoken Tariana. Most white people

— including padres, monks, and nuns — used to eat their own food rather than that of

Indians, and never drank from the same cuya cup during festivities, ate from the same

pepperpot, or washed their hands in the communal bowl. The importance of eating the local

food was highlighted by Peter Gow (1991: 119) in his study of the Piro who, as he put it,

'define themselves as people who eat plaintains and manioc, game from the forest and the

river, and manioc beer, and oppose themselves to rich white people who do not'.
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Being adopted into the kinship system was a pathway for learning, and getting access

to knowledge. We also had a clear purpose — to ensure the language and the knowledge

associated with it are there for the children and the grandchildren to learn. This is why

important stories, facts and rituals had to be recorded and written down — unless they could

not be.

7 Revealing knowledge

The firm establishment of Salesian missionaries in the Vaupés region in the early 1920s —

and especially Iauaretê and its surrounds where most Tariana subgroups live — has resulted

in the destruction of the traditional pattern of language transmission, and loss of many

customs. The Dom Bosco (sic!) missionaries imposed the Western-style schooling on the

Indians, forcing children into boarding schools where they were made to speak just one

language, Tucano. Salesians practised forceful relocation of Indian settlements closer to

mission centres such as Iauaretê itself where the Indians could be more easily controlled - and

amalgamation of different settlements, eliminating the traditional longhouse system and

introducing European-style nuclear family houses. Men were forced to work for Padres, and

for white employers. Male initiation, the festivities associated with the Yurupary cults and

magic flutes not to be seen by women, and the Offering festivals (na-walita-nipe, or pudali,

known as Dabukuri in the local Portuguese) are the matter of the past. The last person who, as

a little boy, had seen the Offering festival performed in its entirety was the late Américo Brito

(?1915-2006; obituary published in the SSILA Bulletin). Female ritual seclusion at the time

of the first menstruation is no longer performed. There are no shamans with full powers

among the Tariana; no songs with magic powers are known to anyone. The knowledge about

the traditions and the past had to be reconstructed bit by bit.

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The details of the Offering festival and the cautionary tales about those who violated

the rules of female ritual seclusion were something I had to know (pi-yeka-karu-pena 2sg-

know-PURPOSIVE-NOM.FUTURE, for you to know) and write down, for the children to know

(wenipe na-yeka-karu-pena 1pl+children 3pl-know-PURPOSIVE-BENEFACTIVE, for our

children to know). And I did learn quite a lot this way. Some of the experience was frustrating.

Once, at the end of a drinking party, my younger uncle, the late Batista Brito

(somewhat drunk), came up to me with accompanied by Maria, a Piratapuya woman, and

said, look, nu-itõ (my daughter:vocative), this is how old people used to sing when a man

liked a woman, we will show it to you, pi-yeka-karu-pena (2sg-know-PURPOSIVE-

BENEFACTIVE, for you to know). They then performed a chanted dialogue which, according

to Batista, was in Tariana, with Bati singing a stanza and Maria singing another one. I

recorded it and tried transcribe it and get it translated the following day. But no-one could

understand it (including the singer himself — as if they were chanting something they'd learnt

by heart). Such chanted dialogues were in fact documented for the Baniwa of Içana and

Kurripako, a closely related group, by Journet (2000) (also mentioned by Hill 2009: 174, who

describes them as ceremonial songs in the form of dialogues between men and women, hosts

and guests during the late night period of pudali, or Offering, ceremonies). Their existence

among the Tariana was unexpected. Now even the memory of them is lost.

And then there were things I knew existed, and were in need of documentation. I

plucked up my courage and started cautiously asking for details on those adding nu-yeka-

karu-pena (2sg-know-PURPOSIVE-BENEFACTIVE, for me to know). Each time, before I went

on fieldwork, I used to assemble some information on the rituals and beliefs of the

neighbouring groups from a rather large body of anthropological literature (including

Chernela 1993, S. Hugh-Jones 1979, C. Hugh-Jones 1979, Jackson 1983, and Reichel-

Dolmatoff 1996). The richest source was an anthropological compendium by Brüzzi (1977)
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— written in Portuguese, which I always had with me, so everyone could see it. This

remarkable (albeit somewhat racist) book has impressive pictures, including the actual picture

of the magic flute which women are not allowed to see. Now everyone can see it — the secret

is gone. My other source was Father Casímiro Beks&ta (1923-2015), a highly knowledgeable

Salesian missionary, sent away from the Vaupés by his bosses for excessive interest in

indigenous stories and rituals. Father Casímiro was the one who first alerted me that Tariana

was spoken in Periquitos; Marino Muniz, one of the Periquitos elders, remembered him

fondly as his teacher.

What I learnt from books, and from Father Casímiro, I used as prompts of sort, nu-

yeka-karu-pena. For instance, once I asked about kumû (the Tucano word for shaman) — do

we, the Tariana, also have them as Father Brüzzi said the Tucano do? Saying pi-yeka-karu-

pena me)da (2sg-know-PURP-BENEFACTIVE REALLY) 'for you to know, really', my adopted

father Cândido Brito, described six different kinds of shamans. These differ in terms of their

powers, depending on the type of snuff (generic terms wheru, hipatu ‘snuff’they are trained to

sniff during their formative years, their ability to inflict illness (kai-peri di-a hurt-COLL 3sgnf-

give) and to cure illness by sucking it out of the body (kai-peri di-susu hurt-COLL 3sgnf-suck).

I was allowed to write this down — this is reproduced in Table 1, but not record on tape.

Shamans of a ‘higher’ category can do anything the lower category can do; however, each has

their specialisation — for instance, the ‘beginner’, sakaka (number 6 in Table 1) specializes

in ‘attracting women’ using the aphrodisiac wiri. Shamans of types 1 and 2 are sometimes

also called yawi ‘jaguar’ because of their ability of ‘turning into jaguars and eating people’.

These shamans also have the power of opening ‘the pot of fever’ — adaki-aphi (fever-

CL:POT) — so as to make their enemies fall ill and die.

Other people with some magic powers (outside the hierarchy of shamans) are ka-ñapa

(REL-bless) ‘blesser’ (i.e. a person with the power to bless the tar of certain trees, and to bless
 15

people so that some illnesses go away), yaku-si mina-ri (INDF-talk-NPOSS master-MASC)

‘master of speech; a magician who does not sniff snuff but can foresee the future’, and di-

tape-kani (3sgnf-cure-AGENTIVE.NOM) ‘curer; someone who can cure diseases’. It turned

later on that Cândido, his younger brother Leo, and our elder brother Jorge Muniz (from

Periquitos) have the powers of sakaka.

Table 1 Shamans and their powers

type type of snuff sniffed powers

1. wahiwa marie)ri keri hi-ni-na (moon can cure and inflict illnesses and
INDF+swive-TOP.ADV- undo the effect of any ‘evil breath’;
CL:VERT) lit. ‘moon’s penis’ can transform into a jaguar (yawi-
maka-pe nhe (jaguar- CL:CLOTH-PL
3pl+enter))
2. adaki yawikiri (lit. kerawiki ‘enter jaguar skins’ and ‘eat’ people
fever Yawikiri) (yawi ka-hña: ‘be.jaguar REL-eat’);
have the power to ‘open the pot of
fever’ (adakiaphi).
3. yawikiri (or kerawi kerawiki can cure and inflict illnesses, do the
yawikiri) ‘blessing’; undo the effect of the
‘evil breath’ inflicted by shamans of
lower
4. marawa yawikiri marawati or equivalent status

5. yatu mina-ri (snuff yatu can bless ‘tar’, cure and inflict some
master-MASC) or yatu illnesses
yawikiri
6. sakaka — knows the language of ‘snake
people’, can cure some illnesses;
knows the secret of wiri ‘puçanga
(aphrodisiac)’

Later, in 2012, after Cândido's death, his younger brother Leo (my younger uncle), told me

about shamanic journes into 'the sky' by powerful Wahiwa marie)ri, who have the capacity of

'entering the jaguar's clothing' (yawi-maka-pe nhe jaguar-CL:CLOTH 3pl+enter) and

transforming themselves into jaguars at night (depi yawi nhe night jaguar 3pl+enter). He told

me not to write these down, as this was just for me to know (pi-yeka-karu-pena=mia 2sg-

know-PURP-BENEFACTIVE=ONLY).
 16

These revelations were priceless, and unique within the context of the literature on the

peoples of the Vaupés. In one respect, they matched perfectly what other linguists and

anthropologists have discovered: the idea of 'entering the clothes' of an animal as a means of

transforming oneself into that animal, changing the outlook and the perspective, in line with

the popular idea of Amazonian perspectivism by Viveiros de Castro (1998) and the ideas

about bodily transformations by Vilaça (2005). As Carlin (2017: 315-16) put it,

'the Amazonian animism sets out from the basic ontological principle of a spiritual
unity (of humans and animals) and a corporeal diversity, so that what one sees in
physical terms is not necessarily that which it is in essence: a spirit or soul can be
wearing ‘clothes’ that mask the underlying essence. Clothes or clothing is a common
metaphor in Amazonia to describe not only outward appearances but also attributes
and competences associated with beings of that outer appearance. Thus, in the
transformative world of Amazonians, where focus is on states of being and changes of
state, changing one’s ‘clothes’ entails that appearances may be deceptive, or, as put so
succinctly in the title of an article by leading British anthropologist Peter Rivière
(1994) ‘WYSINWYG (What you see is not what you get) in Amazonia’.

Not every transformation involves 'entering the clothing of' someone. When Leonardo

was telling me about the shamanic journeys of jaguar-shamans at night, he used the

collocation yawi nhe (jaguar 3pl+enter) 'they become jaguars'. He then explained that those

shamans who travel at night are real jaguars, which is why they are called Yawi-ne 'jaguars'.

As we were chatting about mutual acquaintances, I asked Olívia Brito, my elder sister, about

Father Jesús Arbella, an itinerant Salesian priest of Basque origin, one of the few who spoke

fluent Tucano and ate Indian food (the pepper pot). She replied with visible disgust:
 17

(4) Iñe dhe-na pai-i-sa-do ka-saniri

devil 3sgnf+enter-REM.P.VIS priest-INDEF-woman REL-marry

Manause di-yã-na diha ma:tsite

Manaus+LOC 3sgnf-live-REM.P.VIS he bad+NCL:ANIM
'He became devil (lit. entered (into) devilhood), married a nun (lit. priest woman), he
lives (or has been living) in Manaus, the bad one'

Father Jesús' transformation into 'devil' did not involve entering any superficial

'clothes'. He changes his very essence, just like those shamans who 'are' jaguars when they

journey at night.

The word yawi-maka (jaguar-CL:CLOTH) 'jaguar skin (as an object of transformation)

is an extended argument (E) of the intransitive verb 'enter the state of/become' (also used to

'entering, e.g., a house). Its second argument cannot be considered an O because it cannot take

the object case marker. If I hadn't been privy to discussing shamanic transformations, and

engaging in casual gossip, it would have taken me longer to pinpoint the existence of this verb

class.

Then came numerous stories about shamans attacking people who had offended them,

and unfortunate men being attacked by the evil spirits of the jungle who appeared to them in

the shape of handsome white man or a beautiful white woman. Those were the snake-people,

or the fish-people whose luxurious houses were under the river bed. All the men had to do to

get there was to firmly close their eyes and quickly open them again, to get carried into

'another village'. These stories carried with them special grammatical constructions and forms

— such as the enclitic =sa 'close something tightly, grab firmly'.

In 2012, I brought with me a copy of Ermanno Stradelli's 1890's booklet on the

Vaupés people. The Tariana could partly understand written Italian. I pointed out Stradelli's

description of the Wanano and Piratapuya funerary rites which involved consuming burnt

bones of the deceased mixed with banana mash, and asked if our ancestors had anything like

that. Leonardo Brito replied at length — with a description of how the Tariana consumed the
 18

bones of their dead, strikingly similar to Stradelli's. He didn't want to have it recorded, but

was happy for all the Tariana who were present to sit and listen.

Lengthy boat trips cramped on a wooden canoe with a motor 25 horse powers helped

tighten the bonds. A trip from São Gabriel da Cachoeira, the capital of the Federal Territory

of the Upper Rio Negro, used to take from three to four days, depending on how high the

Vaupés river would be (they now take a day, due to strong motors available). I never travel on

a military plane since the military people will hardly ever take even one Indian with them, and

we travel in large groups.

During one of these trips my Tariana family and I decided to document the Tariana

names for places and landmarks which we passed on the way. Less than half way to Iauaretê,

just before a Piratapuya settlement known as Uriri, the late Cândido Brito revealed the

existence of alternative names which women are not supposed to hear. He pointed at the hill

Piri-na (Yurupary.flute-CL:VERTICAL) 'hill of the Yurupary flute'. And then he added: 'Its

other name is 'Hill of a Mucura rat, hiding from women' (Pa-ita di-pitana Inari-na-nuka, ina:

na-pia-ka other-CL:ANIM 3masc.sg-name marsupial.rat-CL:VERTICAL-PRES.VIS woman:PL

3pl-hide-SEQ). When I looked at him askance, he explained that women were not supposed to

hear the word piri 'Yurupary flute' or any word than contains this form, and so a special secret

form was used when women were around. This is how I was made privy to a special set of

words which women are not supposed to know, ina: na-pia-nipe (the topic of my presentation

last year). No such register has ever been documented for any of the other Vaupés groups.

Becoming a member of the family involves being given a name —perhaps the biggest

gain associated with becoming a family member. All the Tariana have a set of traditional

personal sacred names called ‘names of blessing’ (Tariana pa-ñapa-nipe i-pitana (IMP-bless-

NOM INDEF-name) ‘blessing name’, Tucano basé'ke wame ‘spirit name’). I knew of their

existence among the peoples of the Vaupés from Father Brüzzi's anthropological study (1977:
 19

378-80), and then from Father Casímiro Bekšta. I asked Graciliano, his father Cândido and

his brothers about the 'blessing names'. They proudly confirmed that Brüzzi was right, and

that the W-Tariana — both men and women — still have blessing names different from all

other Tariana groups.

The blessing names are not secret — though people tend not to reveal them to

outsiders (this was noticed by Brüzzi 1977: 379). I was given the full list of Tariana names

with a comment by Graciliano: 'you are a Tariana woman, you must know'. The list covers

four generations — Cândido, his grandfather, father and father's brothers (there were no

sisters), and all his biological children and grandchildren. (Children of Tariana women are not

‘named’ in Tariana, because they belong to a different language group and do not count as

Tariana). This was as far as they could remember (no-one could tell me the name of their

great-grandfather, referring to generation beyond grandfather as payape-seni (old.time-

HUMAN.PLURAL, 'old-timers'). And Graciliano and others encouraged me to publish the list —

which I did, in Aikhenvald (1999: 36-7), 'so that our children should know' (na-yeka-karu-

pena). They were dismissive of those Indians who didn't know their blessing names.

As befits a Tariana woman (Taria-i-sado), I was given a blessing name, Kumatharo

'female duck'. Jovino said that it was a good name for me — since I fly so much (it is indeed a

long flight from Australia to Amazonia). And then something strange happened: Graciliano,

Jovino and Cândido decided to bestow blessing names on my son (who cannot be a Tariana)

and on my partner, Bob Dixon. My son Michael was given the name of Tuiri 'pied crested

oropendola', and Bob was named Serewhari 'lilac-tailed parrotlet'. These names will protect

you all, you all fly a lot, said Graciliano.

Blessing names are given to children when they reach the age of about three. They are

not used to address people, nor to talk about them. Their main function is for spells and

blessings, especially when a person is sick. I experienced this myself. In 1999, I developed an
 20

ugly boil (due to exposure to the merciless Amazonian sun on our lengthy boat trips to the

village of Santa Rosa), and Cândido, who had some shamanic powers as a sakaka (or ka-

ñapa, blesser), decided to 'bless' it. An alternative term for 'blessing name' is na-phya-nipe i-

pitana (3PL-breath-NOM INDF-name) 'name of breathing'. This reflects the way in which

blessing is done — by breathing onto the person, or the wound. As Cândido was breathing

onto my wound, he was whispering some words — the only one I could make out was my

blessing name, Kumatharo. The blessing must have worked (aided by a generous doze of

antibiotic powder) — the wound faded leaving a hard-to-notice scar. I was warned not to take

pictures of this blessing session (when I was 'blessed' by a Hup shaman Adão, I also wasn't

allowed to record anything nor to take pictures, for fear that things go the wrong way).

Blessing names are a separate subclass of nouns, and in many ways are similar to

personal names: they have vocative forms, they cannot be modified, and do not form plurals

(see the relevant section of my Tariana grammar: Aikhenvald 2003: 70-1). Their vocative

forms are typically derived by omitting the last syllable of the full name and shifting the stress

to new last syllable, e.g. referential masculine name Túiri - vocative Tuí!, referential female

name Bálida - vocative Balí!, Anasado - Anasá! This technique is similar to the most

productive way of forming vocatives on kinship terms, and on Portuguese personal names.

Blessing names differ from Portuguese personal names and from male nicknames in

that they can occur in just one kind of possessive construction. Spouses address each other, as

'father or mother of X', X being the blessing name of the couple's first-born son (but

apparently, not daughter). (This practice is known as 'tecnonymy'). The first-born son's

blessing name would then appear without the last syllable but with no stress shift. The late

Ismael Brito was Cândido's and Maria's first-born. His blessing name was Túiri. Cândido

would address Maria as Túi hado! (mother of Tui(ri)). She would address him as Tui haniri

'father of Tui(ri)'. Note that the vocative address form for 'father' is paí! and for mother na!
 21

(Aikhenvald 2003: 71) so these tecnonymic combinations are indeed unusual. I am still not

sure as to how spouses would address each other if there had been only daughters in the

family, or if they were childless — when I asked, Graciliano curtly remarked that 'we do not

have such people in our village'.

No-one, including the late Américo Brito, the oldest speaker of the language who

remembers eye witnessing the Offering Rituals before the advent of the Salesians, knew

anything of the name-giving rites (described in some detail for all the Vaupés peoples by

Brüzzi 1977: 378-9, and partly based on the remarkable work by Ermanno Stradelli's 1929:

537). I was just told that blessing names were given by the father or by a shaman. But on what

principles? Graciliano and with him Cândido repeatedly said that it was just what the father

would have chosen. On my way back to Australia, passing through Manaus, I asked the same

question of Father Casimíro Bekšta. He said, 'no, they don't know, the names are given by the

order of birth'. It was not until 2012 — after both Graciliano and Cândido had passed away —

that Cândido's younger brother Leonardo, now one of the three remaining elders among the

Tariana, said to me, as a matter of fact, that many blessing names were indeed given by the

order of birth. For instance, Tuiri refers to a first-born male, Balida to a first-born female, and

so on. However, a number of unexplained exceptions remain.

Most of my brothers' children do not know their blessing names. None of them speak

the language, nor understand it. But they did show interest in looking up their own blessing

name in the list in my book Tariana texts and cultural context (Aikhenvald 1999). And they

are happy to learn them. Graciliano's eldest son, Rosimar, exclaimed (in Portuguese): 'Oh, my

name is Tuiri! I went to see a shaman (pajé) when I was sick, and he used another name, so

this is why what the shaman did to me didn't work (não pegou)'. The power of names is still

there, even if the language is on its way out. And we have indeed documented this knowledge

now appreciated by the Tariana children as a healing tool.

 22

8 The pitfalls of a rare bird

In Kate Burridge's (2007) words, 'as speakers become friends (in my case, family) not just

sources of information, it is increasingly difficult to remain the impartial observer'. There is

an eternal question — just how close do you get? How close is too close? Being integrated

into the Tariana community of Santa Rosa and having adopted family ties imposes moral and

financial obligations — multiple requests for money, nowadays laptop computers, teaching

materials, clothing, paying for a tombstone— you name it. This is what I have been through

with the three communities I am close to — the Tariana, and also the Manambu and the

Yalaku of the East Sepik. One tries as best one can.

The 'adopted family' ties may be difficult to navigate in terms of research. In the late

1990s and 2000s, the Tariana of Santa Rosa were very critical of me insisting on working

with the Tariana of Periquitos who speak a somewhat different variety: in their opinion, the

Periquitos people speak 'differently' (puaya) and mix languages (na-ñamura na-sape). In

Tariana, both have very negative overtones. Things changed drastically since the passing of

many old and middle-aged people, speakers of the Santa Rosa variety. Now that there are

only three Tariana elders are still around, everyone recognises the necessity of trying to teach

and rescue the language, and the puristic attitudes are dwindling. Ediwaldo, speaker of the

Periquitos variety, is teaching Tariana at the Tariana school in Iauaretê, something

unthinkable back in the early 2000s. Most comprehensive stories about shamanic blessings

come from Jorge Muniz, a Periquitos Tariana (I discussed the changing language situation

among the Tariana and the decline of purism in Aikhenvald 2013b).

A real challenge came when I visited the village of Santa Terezinha — the location of

several score Kumandene Tariana, speakers of a different variety of the language, currently

blended with Hohôdene Baniwa, from the same language family (see Aikhenvald 2014). I

arrived in the village together with my Tariana younger brother Jovino Brito and his wife's
 23

brother (a Tucano man). We had a younger brother among the Kumandene, and immediately

established, and reiterated our relations with the Kumandene Tariana speakers. The problem

was that Kumandene are higher than the W-Tariana — whom they call iñemi 'spirits, devils'

— on the tribal hierarchy and despise them for 'speaking only Tucano'. As soon as Jovino

turned away, I was informed, by my older brother Guire, that I should not be learning the

language of the iñemi. I then replied that I would love to learn the Kumandene language

spoken by my older brothers — a pretext for getting people to tell stories and settle down to

do a new ABC in the Kumandene language. I was speaking the W- Tariana, adjusting it to his

Kumandene Tariana, and putting in as much Hohôdene Baniwa as I could manage — people

laughed but communication worked. I was forgiven for being in with the wrong crowd —

maybe I was too much of a curiosity? Jovino appeared not to have noticed. He was in fact

instrumental in explaining to everyone, in every language he could — mostly Tariana and

Tucano which everyone spoke — that this big elder sister of his, Kumatharo from down

south, is there to make sure the Tariana language does not die out.

Paraphrasing Arcand (1995: 232), a good ethnographer takes it upon themselves to

become, at least in some way, one of the people they study — never fully, but as much as one

can. Of course, I will never become a full Tariana — with my skin colour and Australian

address this is hardly possible. And then there is a further issue.

Being a woman in the Vaupés region is not an advantage. Menstruating women are

considered dangerous (the late Graciliano Brito explained to me that the dangerous evil spirit

Ñamu likes menstrual blood, and so menstruating women are an easy target). A menstruating

woman can be referred to as inaru puaya alia-ka (woman different/adverse EXIST-SUB) 'when

a woman is in a different, adverse state'. In most Tariana traditional stories women appear to

be strange and dangerous beings who spoil everything (and are referred to as manihta-kadite

(NEG+think/reason-NEG+NCL:ANIM) 'the one who does not think'). For instance, one
 24

traditional story relates, how because of women's misbehaving, people have to suffer and

work to get food. If a man dreams of a woman before going hunting or some other important

event, this is a bad sign. According to Jorge Muniz (p.c., 2012), the only able-bodied elder

and healer from the community of Periquitos, women suffer birth-pains as a punishment for

them trying to hold on to the Sacred Flutes. Women are to blame for the fact that manioc has

a hard skin which is difficult to peel. Human sweat has a bad smell because women

'misbehaved' with a smelly mucura rat. Until the establishment of a Tariana indigenous school

in 2004, women — wives and mothers — used to be blamed for not 'transmitting' language to

the Tariana children (now the school is to blame). An anthropologist might want to link this to

the fact that women have to come from pa:-sawa, another group of Indians (who speak a

different language), and are thus representatives of the dangerous side of 'alterity' as a pan-

Amazonian concept.

So, if I am adopted into the Tariana family and I am a woman, why should I be privy

to the words women are not supposed to hear and the stories of shamanic journeys and

transformations? Leonardo Brito asked this question once, as we were sitting and chatting in

what can be considered his back yard in Iauaretê. And then answered it himself — maybe you

are not a real woman, maybe you are a wa:su, a bird which speaks all the languages? I am still

trying to identify what kind of rare bird — the disguise for a linguist turned Tariana — he had

in mind.

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