Bruna Franchetto

Pre-Columbian Urbanism, Anthropogenic Landscapes, and the Future of the Amazon

The archaeology of pre-Columbian polities in the Amazon River basin forces a reconsideration of early urbanism and long-term change in tropical forest landscapes. We describe settlement and land-use patterns of complex societies on the eve of European contact (after 1492) in the Upper Xingu region of the Brazilian Amazon. These societies were organized in articulated clusters, representing small independent polities, within a regional peer polity. These patterns constitute a “galactic” form of prehistoric urbanism, sharing features with small-scale urban polities in other areas. Understanding long-term change in coupled human-environment systems relating to these societies has implications for conservation and sustainable development, notably to control ecological degradation and maintain regional biodiversity.

The southern Cariban languages and the Cariban family

In all existing classifications of the Cariban language family, the southernmost languages—Kuikuro, Arara‐Ikpeng, and Bakairi—have always been assumed to form a single sub‐branch, usually called the “southern branch.” In this paper, we examine this assumption using the comparative method. From eight Cariban languages (the three southern languages plus five others, maximally distant in the family), we compiled 146 cognate sets which were used to find sound correspondences and to propose reconstructions of Proto‐Cariban phonemes on the basis of which shared innovations could be found. The final result is that Bakairi and Arara‐Ikpeng do seem to belong together, but not Kuikuro, which is apparently an independent sub‐branch by itself. When a Swadesh list was used to examine vocabulary retention, we again found that Kuikuro does not seem to be closer to Bakairi and Arara‐Ikpeng than to any other Cariban sub‐branch. In our conclusion, we discuss some consequences for current theories concerning the original homeland of Cariban‐speaking peoples.

A guerra dos alfabetos: os povos indígenas na fronteira entre o oral e o escrito

Based on ethnographic fragments from linguistic res earch among the Taurepang, Macuxi, Wapichana and Kuikuro, conducted in distinct times, regions and situations, this article analyzes the conflict occurring betwee n orality and writing when the orthographization of an indigenous language transfo rms and crystallizes sounds and speech on sheets of paper. This is an open arena wh ere different representations and agents of writing emerge, interact and clash: missi onaries, researchers, agents of the state, indigenous teachers, indigenous preachers, t he indigenous community itself and so on. Here I approach writing more as a metaphor o r emblem than a simple technology of correspondences between codes. The article provi des, then, an interpretation of the meaning of writing that may help us to understand, among other things, the reasons behind the successes and failures of bilingual educ ation, literacy projects and the

“When Women Lost Kagutu Flutes, To Sing Tolo Was All They Had Left!”

This paper concerns the relations between men’s sacred music played on kagutu flutes and women’s tolo songs among the Carib-speaking Kuikuro of Central Brazil. The research for this paper is part of a multi-year documentation of the Upper Xingu Carib language being done by the Kuikuro themselves, with non-indigenous researchers serving as consultants. The men’s kagutu flutes and their music are regarded as highly powerful and potentially dangerous, and women are strictly forbidden from seeing these musical instruments. Women’s tolo songs are said to “imitate” the melodies of the men’s flute music, yet this process of “imitation” is full of irony and tricksterish deceit, especially when women are singing of their lovers. Women say that they are “lying” when they are singing tolo. Building on Ellen Basso and Bruna Franchetto’s works on the indigenous concept of auN (deceitful speech), the paper explores asymmetries and complementarity between genders through analysis of the musical and poetic dimensions of relations between the music of men’s sacred kagutu flute and women’s tolo singing. Sound is a crucial link not only between humans and spirit-beings but also between male and female social domains. Kagutu and tolo form a trans-ritual system in which a relation between spirits and men and women is established. While kagutu music is conceived as a faithful and subordinate reproduction of itseke (spirit-being) songs by men, tolo songs, by means of their creative poetics and musical power, bring women into a kind of competitive relation with itseke.

A estrutura da oração em línguas indígenas brasileiras

Compara-se neste artigo um conjunto de fatos relacionados a interface sintaxe/morfologia em quatro linguas indigenas brasileiras, a saber, Kuikuro, Guarani, Karaja e Tikuna. Investiga-se o papel das categorias funcionais na derivacao da estrutura basica da oracao nessas linguas. Discutem-se os problemas que se colocam para a linearizacao da ordem SOV, propondo-se analises alternativas.

Comparação de aspectos da gramática em línguas indígenas brasileiras

This paper compares a set of interrelated phenomena concerning the syntax/morphology interface in four brazilian indigenous languages: Kuikuro, Guarani, Karaja and Tikuna. The linearization of the SOV word order is discussed following Chomsky (1993) and Kayne (1993). Clitics, auxiliaries and functional categories are also examined, allowing a preliminary comparative overview on the structure of the clause in the languages.

Traduzindo tolo: “eu canto o que ela cantou que ele disse que...” ou “quando cantamos somos todas hipermulheres”

Among the Carib people of the Upper Xingu, a regional multilingual system of the southern periphery of the Amazon, tolo is a ritual, dance and singing performed exclusively by women. The tolo songs form a ritual and musical complex in contrast/complementarity with the kagutu flutes, a masculine domain that is forbidden to women. The tolos are short sung poems that evoke the name of a human lover/beloved as a substitute for an itseke (“hyper-being”), called or named by the kagutu flute. Tolo are, thus, profane musical versions of the kagutu pieces. In this article, previous studies are summarized. At the same time, the present article focuses on the parallel and recursive structure of these songs, whose “texts” in Upper Xingu Carib are narratives of events, feelings and passions that permeate the everyday life of women (and men) in a village of the southern Amazon. Examples taken from a vast and internally complex repertoire of almost 400 songs, collected among the Kuikuro people, illustrate the work of transcription and possible, though arduous, translation of this Amerindian vocal and verbal art.