Wanano

ETHNONYMS: Guanano, Kotitia, Ockotikana, Okodyiua, Panumapa, Uanano, Wanano

Orientation

Identification. The Wanano constitute one of the fifteen to twenty named, linguistically distinct, exogamous groups that form an integrated, intermarrying system in the Brazilian and Colombian northwest Amazon. The Wanano call themselves "Kotitia" and are called "Ockotikana" by the Tukano, "Okodyiua" by the Kobeua, and "Panumapa" by the Tariana. The population is known in the literature as the "Wanano," "Guanano" (a Spanish spelling), or "Uanano" (a Portuguese spelling). "Anana" may be an additional variant.

Location. The Wanano occupy a nearly contiguous stretch along the middle course of the Rio Uaupés, from Jandhu Cachoeira in Brazil to Uarucapury in Colombia. The Uaupés (Vaupés in Spanish) originates in Colombia and flows southeast into Brazil, where it enters the Rio Negro near Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira.

Demography. The Wanano population totals some 1,400 to 1,600 individuals, with approximately 700 located in Brazil and an estimated 900 reported for Colombia.

Linguistic Affiliation. The Wanano language belongs to the Eastern Tukanoan Language Family. Dialectal differences are found between upriver and downriver Wanano.

History and Cultural Relations

White entry into the Uaupés area began in the 1730s, when Portuguese troops were dispatched as far as its headwaters. Despite Portugal's official abolition of slavery in 1750, 20,000 Indians from the upper Rio Negro were enslaved between 1740 and 1750.

During the latter half of the eighteenth century, the Portuguese established a military outpost at the confluence of the Uaupés and Rio Negro and sent reconnaissance expeditions into the Uaupés Basin. The Portuguese resettled Indians at forts, where labor was needed to grow crops, manufacture goods, and demarcate borders. The Indians often resented and resisted such policies: in 1782 and 1783 Indians resisting resettlement deserted many settlements on the lower Uaupés.

In 1849 the Mission of the Uaupés and Içana was founded, with a missionary appointed to populations on the Rio Uaupés. In the 1880s the provincial government invited the Franciscans into the area, and in 1914 Pope Pius X conferred upon the Salesian order the administration of Rio Negro Prefecture. In 1929 the Salesians founded a mission station 60 kilometers south of the Wanano area.

Commercial rubber collection reached the periphery of the Wanano area between 1880 and 1912; it was briefly revived during World War II. Many Wanano emigrated when demand for rubber provided wages in Colombia and the lower Rio Negro. Opportunities for wage labor continue to draw indigenous peoples out of the region, despite the poor living conditions that generally accompany employment.

Settlements

Brazil's ten Wanano settlements are situated from 3 to 24 kilometers apart along the middle Uaupés. Settlements contain from 30 to 160 persons. All settlements are situated at the river's edge, where the inhabited areas are cleared of ground vegetation and paths lead through the surrounding forest to the gardens. Ideally, the village comprises one local patrilineal descent group, here called the sib. The location of each descent group is thought to have been established by the ancestral Anaconda canoe, which placed the first ancestor of each sib in the "proper" place of that sib. The ideal of complete patrilocality is not fully realized, however, and the degree of correspondence between the local group and the unilineal descent group varies. A settlement's residents frequently include in-laws and other nonsib members.

Local settlements often fragment. As groups grow in size, subgroups leave the original unit. The splinter group may establish its own settlement, or may utilize bilateral kinship ties to reside in villages of relatives.

Economy

Subsistence and Commercial Activities. The Wanano are fishermen and horticulturists: fish is the principal source of protein and manioc the principal source of carbohydrates. These items and the utensils used to gather or process them are essential to the sharing of resources, which occurs informally within a settlement on a daily basis and more intermittently and formally among settlements or sibs. Minimal exploitation of resources characterizes day-to-day life; intensive exploitation occurs prior to occasional, elaborate exchange ceremonies.

Industrial Arts. Wanano men manufacture the wahpanio, a palm-leaf strainer used in manioc processing. The Wanano monopolize the production of this basket and trade it to non-Wanano for other specialized crafts. The Wanano also prepare colorful bark-cloth mats for sale or trade to river merchants.

Trade. The Wanano trade with in-law groups for specialized crafts. In-law trading networks cover large territories. For example, the Wanano receive shaman stools from their Tukano in-laws who live on the lower Uaupés and Papurí rivers and grater boards from their Baniwa in-laws who live on the Rio Aiarí. In former times the Wanano also traded agricultural products for carrying baskets and game from Makú hunters.

Division of Labor. Women carry out all food preparation as well as daily gardening tasks, such as weeding and harvesting. Men fish and perform seasonal gardening tasks such as clearing and burning. Large construction projects, such as house building or weir installation, are accomplished by several men working together. Fishing with plant toxins (Tephrosia lonchocarpus ) is a community activity involving men, women, and children.

Land Tenure. Traditional resource use and distribution are ordered by the rights and obligations associated with descent groups. Brazilian laws provide collective usufruct rights to the Wanano and other indigenous Uaupés residents through a form of land tenure known as the colônia indígena, Colombia provides similar land rights to Wanano through its system of resguardos (territories officialy recognized by the Colombian government as communal lands).

Kinship

Kin Groups and Descent. The Wanano language group comprises twenty-five named patrilineal descent groups whose members view themselves as descendants of one of the language group's founding ancestral brothers. The descent groups are referred to as sibs in the literature and by the terms kurua or kuduri by the Wanano.

Kinship Terminology. The Wanano have a Dravidian kin terminology in accord with the structure of patrilineal descent and cross-cousin marriage. Terminologically, "own group" (agnates) are separated from "other group" (affines) . Degrees of collaterality are not distinguished in the terminology, but collateral relatives are differentiated according to seniority. The terminology is only three generations deep, that is, no special terms exist for relatives in either the fourth ascending or the fourth descending generation.

Marriage and Family

Marriage. Wanano incest regulation forbids marrying or having sexual relations with anyone who is Wanano and, conversely, requires that one marry into a different language and kin group. Each sib maintains ongoing marital alliances with several sibs of other language groups. The strongly stated preferences of sister exchange and marriage with a patrilateral cross cousin govern marriage practices.

Domestic Unit. The Wanano formerly occupied communal longhouses inhabited by men of a single sib with their wives and offspring. Today they inhabit smaller dwellings that house a single extended or nuclear family. The village mimics the longhouse, in which sleeping compartments housed separate nuclear families.

Inheritance. Inheritance is ordered through membership in a descent group. Each sib controls a limited set of names, which are its exclusive property and which mark the membership of individuals. Descent-group membership carries with it rights to certain linguistic and ritual properties, rights to manufacture and trade certain ceremonial and utilitarian objects, and rights of access to resources within the sphere of the local descent group.

Socialization. During the first year mothers carry infants close to their bodies in cotton or bark-cloth slings. Children continue to stay close to their mothers until they enter the village peer group. Once they are part of the village play group children are relatively independent, although girls are expected to accompany mothers in gardening and food preparation. Many Wanano villages now contain small bilingual schools; high-school facilities are available for Wanano who wish to leave home to study.

Sociopolitical Organization

Social Organization. Wanano social structure may be described as a system of hierarchically ordered, exogamous descent groups. The most inclusive category in the Wanano social universe is the mahsa, which encompasses the autonomous language groups of the Uaupés Basin. The constituent parts of the mahsa are the named, exogamous descent groups—referred to in the literature as "tribes" or "language groups"—whose villages ideally form a geographic unity. Membership in a language group is based on the sole criterion of patrilineal descent and is exclusive. Membership is ancestor oriented, although ancestors, called ancestral brothers, are designated rather than demonstrated. The Wanano are subdivided into sibs (kurua or kuduri).

Political Organization. The Wanano are united by common brotherhood, ancestry, and language with all other Wanano. Moreover, the twenty-five Wanano sibs comprise a coherent hierarchical and functional system. Although there are no paramount Wanano chiefs today, Koch-Grünberg, who visited the Wanano in 1904, mentions "a high chief of the whole Wanano tribe."

Social Control. Mechanisms for social control include shame, ridicule, fear of difference, and fear of sorcery. When faction-forming disputes arise, a faction may move from the settlement to avoid potential sorcery and to relieve tensions. Infidelity is frequently cited as a cause of discord. There are no coercive mechanisms for social control within Wanano society.

Conflict. Wanano report former raiding with many of their neighbors, including the Cubeo, the Desana, and the Arawakan Baniwa. Wanano settlement distribution may be seen as divided into an upriver and a downriver branch, the two branches separated by settlements of other language groups. This pattern may be attributable to intertribal warfare with Baniwa or Cubeo groups.

Religion and Expressive Culture

Religious Beliefs. In Wanano thought the animal world is organized into brotherhoods analogous to those in the human social world. Each animal brotherhood is guarded by a spirit, known as the "oldest brother," that will retaliate in order to protect his kin. The locations of these spirits are known as "houses" and are generally avoided by hunters and fishermen. Disease is thought to be the consequence of sorcery. Disease occurs when a sorcerer sends a foreign object into his victim. Treatment of disease involves removal of the object causing the malady. The Wanano in Brazil are practicing Catholics. Each major village houses a small chapel, and a trained Wanano catechist conducts worship services each week.

Religious Practitioners. Wanano healers are male practitioners who learn their skill through apprenticeship to a senior shaman. A village may have several practicing shamans of various levels of reputation and ability. A shaman is obliged to subscribe to strict rules of abstinence and self-discipline.

Ceremonies. The Wanano practice several rituals marking transitions in the life cycle. These include female puberty ceremonies and menstrual seclusion, as well as initiation rites for males. Such rites are performed with less frequency and less formality today than described by early-twentieth-century reporters. In addition, Wanano sibs participate in ongoing cycles of deferred reciprocal exchange. In such exchange ceremonials, items of food or craft are presented as gifts from one sib to another. In principal Wanano ceremonials the sacred substances tobacco, coca, and ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis caapi ) are imbibed or inhaled by specialists.

Arts. Wanano men specialize in the manufacture of wahpanios, shallow palm-fiber baskets of complex geometric design. The baskets are used by the women in the preparation of manioc products. Women make a strong rope from the fiber of the palm Astrocaryum tucumoides.

Medicine . The Wanano recognize a large number of medicinal plants. Chants passed from one shaman to another contain information regarding plant characteristics and application.

Death and Afterlife. The sib dead are buried near one another, not far from the village. When longhouses were in use, the dead are said to have been buried under the house floor.

Bibliography

Chernela, Janet M. (1983). "Why One Culture Stays Put: A Case of Resistance to Change in Authority and Economic Structure in an Indigenous Community in the Northwest Amazon." In Change in Amazonia, edited by John Hemming, 228-236. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Chernela, Janet M. (1988). "Gender, Language, and 'Placement' in Uanano Songs and Litanies." Journal of Latin American Lore 14(2): 193-206.

Chernela, Janet M. (1993). The Wanano Indians of the Brazilian Amazon: A Sense of Space, Austin: University of Texas Press.

Goldman, Irving (1948). "Tribes of the Uaupes-Caqueta Region." In Handbook of South American Indians, edited by Julian Steward. Vol. 3, The Tropical Forest Tribes, 763-798. Bureau of American Ethnogy Bulletin 143. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.

Koch-Grünberg, Theodore (1909). Zwei Jahre unter den Indianern: Reisen in Nordwest-Brasilien 1903/1905. 2 vols. Berlin: Strecker und Schröder Verlag.

Waltz, Carolyn (1980). The Guanano. Bogotá: Summer Institute of Linguistics.

JANET M. CHERNELA