Chapter 1 Amazonian narrative verbal arts and typological gems Bruna Franchetto MuseuNacional,FederalUniversityofRiodeJaneiro,Brazil Kristine Stenzel FederalUniversityofRiodeJaneiro,Brazil 1 Origins Thisvolumeowesitsdevelopmenttoaconfluenceofcircumstances,notleastof whichistheveritableexplosionofscholarshiponAmazonianlanguagesthathas takenplaceoverthelastseveraldecades.Thoughthedescriptionandanalysisof the300orsostill-existinglanguagesspokeninAmazonia1 isstillfarfromcom- prehensive, repositories of linguistic and anthropological academic references, such as the Etnolinguistica web site, clearly reflect exponential growth in the field since the 1990s.2This same period of expanding academic focus on Ama- zonian languages also saw the rise of new language documentation efforts and 1FollowingEpps&Salanova2013“Amazonia”isunderstoodhereascomprisingboththeAma- zonandOrinocobasins,coveringpartsofBrazil,Bolivia,Peru,Ecuador,Colombia,Venezuela, Suriname,andtheGuianas.FormoreonthedistributionandstateofendangermentofAma- zonianlanguages,seeMoore2008. 2http://www.etnolinguistica.org/. Ofthe358dissertationsorthesesonAmazonianlanguages onfileasofMay2017,just6werewrittenbefore1980,thenumberjumpingto19duringthenext decadeandthento41duringthe1990s(representingsome18percentofthetotalonrecord). Between2000and2010,contributionsincreasedmorethanfourfold,to170(47percentofthe archive),andanother123havebeenaddedinthelastsixyears.Weshouldnotethatresearchers maketheirownacademicworksavailableonthissite,sothenumbersciteddonotrepresent afullycomprehensiveviewofallscholarship. Bruna Franchetto & Kristine Stenzel. 2017. Amazonian narrative verbal arts and typological gems. In Kristine Stenzel & Bruna Franchetto (eds.), On this and other worlds: Voices from Amazonia, 1–19. Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI:10.5281/zenodo.1008775 BrunaFranchetto&KristineStenzel the establishment of archives of cultural and linguistic materials in which lan- guagesoftheregionarewellrepresented.3 Theinterdisciplinaryandhighlycol- laborativenatureofmostnewdocumentationprojectsinAmazonia4hasinturn strengthened dialog between anthropologists and field linguists who recognize thenarrativegenreasaprimesourceofbothculturalunderstandingandverbal artistry,especiallywhenofferedbyknowledgeableandeloquentoratorssuchas those whose voices are represented here. Thus, text analysis — a longstanding element of language documentation in classic Boasian terms — is itself making awelcomecomeback. Ourideatogatherasetofnarrativesfromrecentdocumentationprojectsinto an organized volume is a product of this renaissance.5 However, as word of ourinitiativebegantocirculate,theresponsefrominterestedcolleaguesquickly threatened to swell the project to near-Amazonian proportions, and we found ourselvesforcedtomakedifficultchoices.Fullyrecognizingthatourfinalselec- tionisbutasampleoftherichmaterialsavailable,wecanonlyhopetoseemore collectionsofthistypeorganizedinthefuture. The narratives themselves led us to organize the volume into three broad themesthatarehighlysignificantforAmazonianethnologyanditsrecentdevel- opments. Thefirsttheme—Life,death,andtheworldbeyond —referstocrucial cosmologicaldimensionsandforcesustorethinknotionssuchasdeath,thedead, life,embodiment,thesoul,thespirit,andpost-mortemdestiny,whichareoften notwelltranslatedorarecannibalizedbyWestern/non-indigenousconcepts.The secondtheme—Beginnings—includesfragmentsofAmerindianphilosophy,in whichreflectionontheoriginofbeingsdoesnotpassthroughex-nihilocreation, therebeingno“genesis”intheJudeo-Christianvein.Thethirdtheme—Ancestors andtricksters—introducesustoafewmembersoftheAmerindianrepertoireof comic and crafty characters, and leads us to memories of historical events and intorealmsofrelations,whetheramongrelativesorbetweenenemies,thatlieat theheartofsocietalliving,withallitsfluidfrontiersandrituals. 3TheDoBeSarchive(VolkswagenFoundation,Germany)hasmaterialsfrom14Amazonianlan- guages;ELAR(EndangeredLanguagesArchive,UniversityofLondon/SOAS)over40;AILLA (ArchiveoftheIndigenousLanguagesoftheAmericas,UniversityofTexasAustin)anaddi- tional60. Morethan80languagesareincludedinthedocumentationarchivemaintainedat theEmilioGoeldiMuseum(MPEG,inPará,Brazil)andanother18inIndigenousLanguages DocumentationProject(PRODOCLIN)archiveattheMuseumofIndigenousPeoples(Museu doÍndio/FUNAI,RiodeJaneiro,Brazil). 4The“participatory”or“collaborative”paradigmiswidelyadoptedincurrentdocumentation projectsinAmazonia,whichprioritizetrainingofindigenousresearchersandhighlevelsof communityinvolvement(seeFranchetto&Rice2014;Stenzel2014). 5As is the Texts in the Indigenous Languages of the Americas series, a recently re-established yearlysupplementtotheInternationalJournalofAmericanLinguistics. 2 1Amazoniannarrativeverbalartsandtypologicalgems 2 A contribution to Amazonian ethnology Eachchapterofthisbookpresentsasinglenarrative,anever-presentandmuch appreciatedgenreamongalmostallAmazonianpeoples.Eachembodiesaunique rendition offered by a specific narrator, in circumstances and settings that vary widely: some were offered in a village, town, or intimate home setting in re- sponse to a specific request, one was recorded during a community language workshop(Kotiria),othersinthecourseofeverydayactivitiesorwithinthecon- textofaritual.6 Aswecontemplatethesediversesettings,weareremindedthat the act of narration is never monologic: there is always an audience, there are always interlocutors and “what-sayers”. Narration is itself both a communica- tive and formative act. It not only transmits collective or individual memories, weaving the continuity of a people, clan, sib, or family, but also establishes the limitsofsocialandantisocialbehavior(andtheirconsequences),revealingtrans- formations,originalandpotential,creativeordestructive. At the same time, we can extract from these narratives mythical structures comparable to others in and beyond the Americas, following the paths of Levi Strauss’sesprithumain. Throughnarratives,thoughtismolded,instructionand knowledgearetransmittedandrefined.TheKa’aporandKuikuronarratives,for instance,exemplifydiffusedbitsandpiecesofpan-Amazonianmythology,cross- ing frontiers between genres, peoples, and regions. Scatological and obscene, the Ka’apor narrative finds parallels in the oral traditions of many Amazonian groups.TheKuikuronarrativeisnotonlyanelementoftheUpper-Xinguannet- work, in which peoples of distinct origins and languages share rituals, myths, discourses and each other, but is also a unique female rendition of a narrative heard before only in masculine voices. Feminine voices resound in the Trumai, Hup,Kwaza,andKotirianarrativesaswell. AclassicthemeinAmazonianmythology,theoriginsofcrucialculturalitems – such as songs, rituals, and cultivated plants — are often viewed as gifts or as bounty seized in encounters involving confrontation or alliance between ene- mies or occupants of “other” worlds. In the Sakurabiat narrative, for example, the origin of corn involves knowledge captured by great shamans from neigh- boringgroups. TheKalapaloandTrumailiveinthesameUpperXinguregionalmultilingual culturalsystem,occupyingdistinctnichesduetodifferentdegreesofadaptation and incorporation into the system. A comparison of the Kalapalo and Trumai narrativesisparticularlyinterestingbecausebothdescribefuneraryritualsand practices, recounting the origins of the Trumai chanted lamentations and some 6Linkstotheaudioorvideorenditionsareprovidedineachchapter. 3 BrunaFranchetto&KristineStenzel oftheKalapalosongsperformedduringtheXinguanmortuaryritual.AKalapalo man married to a Snake-Woman acquires the songs from his father-in-law; the TrumaipeoplereceivetheirchantedlamentationsfromtheSmooth-billedAni,a bird. Likewise, the origins of places, such as the Kotiria sacred cemeteries, and elements of the natural environment, such as the Deer’s TombConstellation of the Hup narrative, lie in similar transformational fluidity and transposition of boundariesbetweenthisandotherworlds. Metamorphosis is a pervasive and relevant theme in Amerindian shamanic thought and contemporary Lowland South American ethnology. It evidences communication and change of perspectives between humans and non-humans, between the living and the dead, between blood relatives and affines, us and “others”, a challenge to the irreducible and naturalized distinctions in Western thought.Translation,understoodinitsmostamplesense,isanecessarybutnot mechanical mediation, since translation itself moves, modifies, and creates. In “Thedeath-pathteachings”,twoMarubospirit-shamans,abletocrosstheworld of spirits and dead people, connect exoteric knowledge with instructive speech. Likewise, a Kuikuro woman travels, still alive, to the upside-down worldof the deadandthereconverseswiththemandhearstheir“twisted”words. Narrative events occur in what is for us a remote “past” or mythological illo tempore, or better yet, as one Kuikuro chief puts it, a time “when we were all hyper-beings” speaking the same “language” or making ourselves understood throughlanguages. Itwasorstillisatime,adimensionoutoftime,orbetween times,peopledbyancestorsand“monstrous”beings,suchastheclumsypeople- eaterKhátpyoftheKĩsêdjênarrative.Indeed,theterms“myth”or“mythological narratives”,and“history”or“historicalnarratives”arefrequentlyusedtodefine oratleastsuggestwhatmightbeconsiderednarrativesub-genres. However,as theKotirianarrativeshows,thisisamore-than-fluidfrontierwherethesuppos- edlyself-evidentoppositionbetweenregimesofmemorycrumbles. This fluidity is nowhere clearer than in comparative analysis of evidentials and/or epistemic markers used in narratives, markers that take more into ac- count than the mere qualification of source of information. Such elements may bemanipulatedbythenarrator,sensitivetotheoccasionandaudience,tomark voicesofauthority.Evidentialsorepistemicmarkers—crucialandoftenobliga- tory—firstofalldefinetheepistemologicalstatusofnarrativespeech,aswesee intheuseoftheKa’aporreportative,butaboveall,revealambiguitiesandporous boundaries.IstheKuikuronarrativea“myth”abouttheinvertedlifeofthedead or a “memory” of a live woman’s journey to another world and return to nar- ratewhatshesawtofellowmembersofthelivingworld?Thenarratortempers 4 1Amazoniannarrativeverbalartsandtypologicalgems herownassertionswithmarkerstypicalof“historical”factstransmittedthrough collectivememoryandwiththenon-certaintyofeventsnotdirectlyandvisually witnessed, marking that is impossible in “mythical” narratives, which speak of origins, indistinctions among species, andtransformations. The Suruí narrative vividlyevokesepisodesfromanot-too-distantpast—thoughstillpriortotimes knownbyadultstoday—repletewithbattlesbetweenneighboringpeoples,yet in this narrative we observe the “deletion of non-witnessed evidentiality” char- acteristicof“myths”. 3 Narrative verbal artistry Tonarrateisnotjusttoverballyexpressanaccountinprosaicform.Aswehave noted,theactofnarrationisaperformance,whetherpublicorprivate,offeredto interlocutors and audiences and open for evaluation, criticism, and praise. The narratorisoftena“master”intheartoforation,aspecialistof“goodandbeauti- fulspeech”,recognizedassuchandfullyawareofhisorherroleinthechainof transmission of abilities and content. The master’s artistic skills include manip- ulation of distinct protagonists’ perspectives, balancing of repetitions with nu- anced variation, control of the necessary detours from the advancing storyline, fullcommandofallthevariedmeansofcapturingandholdingthelisteners’at- tention.SuchmasteryisevidentintheMarubonarrativegenreyoãvana,distinct from the sung narrative genre saiti vana, but both highly poetic performances. Cesarino’sdivisionoflinesinthewrittentextattemptstoreproduce,ifonlypar- tially, the dramatic effect produced by the rhythm of the oral performance and bythoughts-utteranceswhoseunderstandingrequirescarefulexegesis. Similarly,the“masters”oftheKuikuroandKalapalonarrativessharelikeabil- itiesandthenarrativesthemselvesrevealsimilarstructures:formulaicopenings and closings, scenes, blocks, parallelisms; movement verbs and logophoric con- nectivesmarksequencesandthedevelopmentofeventsandactions.IntheHup and Kotiria narratives, skilled use of tail-head linking strategies guarantee se- quential cohesion. Even more impressive is the Kwaza narrator’s domination ofanticipatoryswitch-referencemarkingassheconstructsthenarrative,invan der Voort’s words, as “one long sentence, each chained clause being either in a subordinatemoodorinacosubordinatemood.” The rarity, or near absence, of indirect reported speech in Amazonian nar- ratives draws our attention to the preponderance of direct reported speech, ob- servedthroughoutthevolume.Ournarratorsaremastersinperformanceofsuch speech, leading us to wonder about other possibilities of embedding and recur- 5 BrunaFranchetto&KristineStenzel sivestructures.Infact,wearedealingnotonlywithciteddialogues,butalsothe expressionofinnerthoughts, whichtaketheformofimages, perceptions, emo- tions, plans. Forinstance, almosthalfoftheKuikuroandKalapalonarrativesis animated by dialogues between the characters, with a predominance of verbal formsinflectedbyperformativemodes(imperative,hortative,imminentfuture), aswellasepistemicmarkersthatmodulatetheattitudesandcommunicativein- tentions of the interacting characters. Cesarino mentions “the extensive use of reported speech, which allows the (Marubo) narrator to shift between voices.” Last but not least, we highlight the “embedded quotations of successive narra- torsoftheevents”intheSuruinarrative,asYvinecobserves. Thesearebutafewofthemanyandvariednarrativediscoursestructuresre- sourcespresentinthisvolume,callingourattentiontotherichnessanddiversity ofnarrativeverbalartistryinAmazonia. 4 A host of typological gems This volume not only introduces us to a rich panorama of narrative styles and culturalthemes,italsodemonstratestheastoundinggeneticandstructuraldiver- sity of Amazonian languages. Although not all recent research on Amazonian languageshasbeenfullyexploredandincorporatedintotypologicaldatabases,7 thepicturethatisemergingisoneofmuchgreaterstructuraldiversitywithinthe Amazonian basin than was previously supposed. Indeed, the impetus to define a set of recognizably distinct “Lowland Amazonian” linguistic features (Payne 1990;Dixon&Aikhenvald1999;Aikhenvald2012)wanesinlightofempiricalev- idenceunderscoringvastregionaldiversity(vanderVoort2000;Campbell2012; Epps&Salanova2013). Additionally,analysessuchasBirchall’s(2014)workon argument coding patterns in South American languages suggest that broader Western/EasternSouthAmericanperspectivesmayactuallybemoresignificant tounderstandingpatternsofstructuralsimilarityanddifferencethanearlieras- sumptionsofanAndean/LowlandAmazoniandichotomy(seealsoO’Connor& Muysken2014).8 This debate is far from concluded, and as research continues to pour in, it is certain to bring new insights into deep genetic relationships, pre-historical movements and patterns of contact, as well as contemporary areal phenomena, 7SuchassuchastheWorldAtlasofLinguisticStructures(WALS)http://wals.info/anditsmore recentlyorganizedcounterpart,(SAILS)SouthAmericanIndigenousLanguageStructureshttp: //sails.clld.org/. 8Other chapters in the same volume focus on specific typological features, including OV or- der,nominalizationasasubordinationstrategy,post-verbalnegation,anduseofdesiderative morphemes,thatappeartocharacterizeSouthAmericanlanguagesasawhole. 6 1Amazoniannarrativeverbalartsandtypologicalgems o Boa COVLaOupMéBsIA HKUOPTIRIA Negro Branc Vista Macapá Belém Putumayo Manaus Santarém Amazon Iquitos ós KA'APOR JavaMriARUBOJuruá P uru s M adeira Tapaj Xingu Porto BRAZIL Velho s n RBrioa nco SURUÍ KĨSEDJÊ anti c SAKUKRWABAIZAAT TRUMAI To AIKANÃ KALAPALO Cusco BOLIVIAGuaporé KUIKURO PERU Brasília La Paz Figure1:Peoplesandlanguagesrepresentedinthisvolume all of which serving to refine our typological profiles. For the moment, suffice ittosaythateventhesmallselectionoflanguagesinourvolumeclearlyshows thatthereisnoeasyanswertothequestion:“WhatdoesanAmazonianlanguage looklike?” The twelve languages in this volume come from a variety of geographic lo- cations within Amazonia, and include three linguistic isolates and members of the Carib, East Tukano, Nadahup, Jê, Tupi, and Pano families — only a frac- tion of the more than four dozen distinct genealogical units that compose the Amazonian linguistic landscape (Epps & Salanova 2013: 1). Three regions char- acterized by longstanding and systemic cultural and linguistic interaction are also represented by different subsets of these languages. Kotiria and Hup are spokenintheUpper RioNegroregionof northwesternAmazoniain theBrazil- Colombia borderlands (see Aikhenvald 2002, Aikhenvald 2012: 73–84, Epps & Stenzel2013),andtheGuaporé-MamoréregionofSouthernRondôniaandnorth- easternBoliviaisrepresentedbyKwaza,Aikanã,andSakurabiat(Crevels&van derVoort2008). Indeed,thechaptersbyEppsandvanderVoortinthisvolume discussfeaturesthatsupportcharacterizationofthesetworegionsas“linguistic areas” in which contact and multilingual practices have led to structural simi- larities among genetically unrelated languages. The third multilingual system, 7 BrunaFranchetto&KristineStenzel represented by Kuikuro, Kalapalo, and Trumai, is the Upper Xingu in central Brazil(Franchetto2011).ThechaptersbyFranchetto,Guerreiro,andGuirardello- Damian, point out that, in contrast to the Upper Negro and Guaporé-Mamoré regions, inthe UpperXingu context, multilingualism emergesandis evidenced primarilyasacomponentofXinguanritualarts. Kuikuro and Kalapalo are actually variants of a single language, baptized by Franchettoasthe“UpperXinguCaribLanguage”.Thoughviewedasdialects for the linguist, they are languages for their speakers for two substantive reasons. First,becausewithintheUpperXingumultilingualregionalsystem,theyaredi- acritics of local political identities. Secondly, because attributing the status of “language”tobothestablishestheirequalvalue,counterbalancingthetendency for indigenous languages labeled as “dialects” to be viewed as having an infe- rior or marginal existence. We have strategically opted to present the Kuikuro and Kalapalo narratives in sequence so that the reader can appreciate the obvi- ous similarities between the syntax of the two languages as well as the differ- ences — sometimes quite subtle — in morphology and lexicon. Unfortunately, thewrittenmediummasksacrucialdimensionofdialectaldifferenceoccurring ontheprosodiclevel,whereKuikuroandKalapaloclearlyexemplifythenotion ofwords“dancingtothebeatsofdifferentdrummers”.Equallystrategicisthese- quencingoftheKwazaandAikanãnarratives,versionsofthesamestoryoffered byspeakersoftwolanguageisolatesinthesamemultilingualregion. Abroadoverviewofthetwelvelanguagesrevealsahandfulofcommonstruc- tural features, including agglutinative and preferentially suffixing morphology, as well as predominantly head-final constituent order (the exception being the relatively free word order of Kwaza). However, a closer look shows interesting variations in clausal constituent ordering, including object-initial order, which first came to light in languages of the Carib family9 and which can be seen in numerouslinesoftheKuikuroandKalapalonarratives,suchas(1): (1) tütiilülehaiheke tüti i-lü leha i-heke refl.motherfight-pnctcompl3-erg ‘Hefoughtwithhisownmother’[kuikuro,line243] 9SeveralCariblanguagesareanalyzedashavingOVSasthedominantorder,andOVSisalso foundinsomeEastTukano,Tupi,Arawaklanguages(seeDerbyshire1999:155;Campbell2012: 273–275). 8 1Amazoniannarrativeverbalartsandtypologicalgems As a frequently occurring alternate order, OVS is found in many other Ama- zonian languages, including Kotiria, where known, non-focused subjects are sentence-final,asweseein(2). (2) “hiphitia’riphinitarenaitayʉ’ʉ”nia. híphiti a’rí ~phídi-ta-re ~dá-i-ta yʉ’ʉ́ everythingdem.proxright.here-emph-objget-m-intent1sg ~dí-a say-assert.pfv ‘“AllofthesethingshereI’mtakingaway,”(DianumiaYairo)said.’ [kotiria,line242] Another striking feature observed throughout the volume is the rampant use of derivational processes to create new lexical concepts, counterbalance parsi- monious lexical class distinctions, and define contexts of complementation and subordination(vanGijn,Haude&Muysken2011;Brunoetal.2011). Someinter- estingexamplesofverbalizationsarethederivedformsfor‘teaching’inKalapalo (3),‘bodypainting(withgenipapo)’inKuikuro(4),and‘marrying’inKotiria(5). (3) akihataiheke aki-ha-ta i-heke word-vblz-dur3-erg ‘Hewasteaching.’[kalapalo,line78] (4) engüisangatelüleha engüis-anga-te-lü leha then 3-jenipa-vblz-pnctcompl ‘Thenshewaspaintedwithgenipapo’[kuikuiro,line10] (5) phʉaronumia,phʉaronumiatiphapʉrenamotiatirehimarebʉ,tiaro numiapʉbʉhkʉthurupʉre. phʉá-ro~dúbí-á phʉá-ro~dúbí-á ti=phá-pʉ-re two-sg woman-pltwo-sg woman-planph=time-loc-obj ~dabó-tí-á tí-re hí-~bare-bʉ tiá-ro wife-vbz-assert.pfvanph-objcop-rem.ipfv-episthree-sg ~dúbí-á-pʉ́ bʉkʉ́-thúrú-pʉ́-ré woman-pl-locancestor-times-loc-obj ‘Inthoseoldentimes,thecustomwastomarrytwowives,twooreven three.’[kotiria,line23] 9 BrunaFranchetto&KristineStenzel Afarvastersetofmorphemesareemployedinnominalizations,asmallsample beingtheSakurabiat‘hammock’in(6),theKwaza‘oldentimes’in(7),andin(8), theKĩsêdjêautodenomination. (6) Pɨbotnẽãrãsetoabõ pɨbot nearase-top-ap=õ arriveagain 3cor-lying.down-nmlz=dat ‘Hearrivedagainathisownhammock.’[sakurabiat,line15] (7) a’ayawɨcwataunɨt̃ etawatatxarwahakahɨ̃awɨ a~a-ya-wɨ cwa-ta unɨt̃ eta-wa-ta txarwahaka-hɨ̃ exist~exist-iobj-timeisbj-csoconverse-isbj-csofirst old-nmlz a-wɨ exist-time ‘Speakingtodayaboutouroldentimes,’[kwaza,line55] (8) Kĩsêdjê kĩ sêt-∅ jê villageburn-nmlzpl ‘Theoneswhoburnvillages’[kĩsêdjê,line2] In Kuikuro and Kalapalo, there are locative, agent, non-agent, and instrument nominalizers,thelatterusedwiththeroothü(Kuikuro)/hüti(Kalapalo)‘tofeel shy/respect/shame’,inthederivationoftermsforone’sparents-in-law(9). (9) ihütisohokilü i-hüti-soho ki-lü 3-shame-inssay-pnct ‘Hisfather-in-lawsaid.’[kalapalo,line130] Aikanãhasanominalizerforactions(10),Kotiriaoneforreferencetoevents/lo- cations (11), and Sakurabiat one exclusively used for syntactic objects, seen in (12). (10) üre’apa’inexarükanapɨire’ẽkukaẽ üre-apa’i-ne xa-rüka-napa-ire-’ẽ kuka-ẽ hide-act.nmlz-loc1pl-dir:around-clf:forest-almost-imptell-decl ‘“Wewillsneakaroundthem,”saidFox.’[aikanã,line25] 10