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Stephen Hugh-Jones
Clear Descent or Ambiguous Houses ? A Re-Examination of
Tukanoan Social OrganisationIn: L'Homme, 1993, tome 33 n126-128. La remonte de l'Amazone. pp. 95-120.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Hugh-Jones Stephen. Clear Descent or Ambiguous Houses ? A Re-Examination of Tukanoan Social Organisation. In:L'Homme, 1993, tome 33 n126-128. La remonte de l'Amazone. pp. 95-120.
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Stephen
Hugh-Jones
Clear Descent or Ambiguous Houses?
A Re-Examination of Tukanoan
Social
Organisation
Stephen Hugh- Jones,
Clear Descent or
Ambiguous houses? A
re-examination of
ukanoan social organisation.
The Tukanoans of NW Amazonia are
usually character
ised
s being divided into intermarrying patrilineal
groups
each subdivided into
a set
of ranked clans or sibs.
This
essay argues that
the
concept of house societies
pro
vides a more accurate rendering
of
local idioms than descent . Social relations are
conceptualised in
two
different,
complementary
ways. One conceptualisation, emphasis
ing
ierarchy
and exclusiveness, is more pertinent to
mythological
and ritual contexts.
The
other more egalitarian,
inclusive
conceptualisation, emphasises consanguinity and
is
more
pertinent
to
daily
life.
Each
corresponds
to
a
different
gendered
projection
of
the house as
a physical
structure. Viewed in this light, structural parallels
with
the Guianas and Central Brazil become more
apparent.
By putting, so
to
speak,
two
in one , the house
accomplishes a sort of inside-out topological reversa
l
t replaces an internal duality with an
external
unity.
(C. Lvi-Strauss, The Way of the
Masks: 184-185).
Differentiation does not change the global setting,
given
once and for
all;
in a hierarchical schema
the
parts
that nest
one
inside
the
other may
increase
in number
without
changing
the
law.
(L. Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus: 243)
Descent Groups
or Houses?
Broadly speaking,
the kinship systems of
lowland
South
American can
be divided into two basic
types.
In Central Brazil, we find Crow/
Omaha-like relationship terminologies associated with systems
of name
transmission
and an
emphasis
on moieties.
But here we typically
find neither
unilineal descent
groups nor
clearly structured marriage systems,
the
convent
ionally
anticipated concomitants
of
Crow/Omaha
terminologies
and
moiety
systems.
In
Amazonia proper,
we
find
variations on
a
Dravidian
model
with
L'Homme 126-128,
avr.-dc
1993, XXXIII (2-4), pp. 95-120.
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96
STEPHEN HUGH-JONES
symmetrical alliance and a two-section terminology. But here
we
typically find
cognatic forms of
social
organisation and
a tendency towards
various forms
of
oblique
marriage,
features which
make analysis
in
terms
of
conventional
alliance theory difficult, at least if this
is taken to imply
exchange between groups
defined
in
lineal terms.
Even when
we do
find
groups with apparently unilineal
features
the
notion
of
descent
has
proved
problematic.
Ideological
emphasis
on
descent-like principles
is rarely
matched by
the presence of socially significant
corporate
groups,
common substance is rarely a significant attribute of clans
or
lineages, and interest in genealogies
rarely
extends much beyond
the
realm
of
the
living.1
In this
recalcitrant
analytic
sea,
Northwest Amazonia has sometimes
seemed
like a haven of calm for, here at
last, in
Shapiro's words (1987: 303), patri-
liny
[.
.
.]
presents
enough of
the
classic
and familiar
features of
descent,
in
cluding a segmentary and
hierarchical
ordering
of
descent
units,
for
the
use
of these concepts
to
be relatively unproblematic This secure view of North
west mazonian social structure, though not without some foundation, also
has
its problems. The
notion
of descent
fits
uneasily with native
idioms
and
it comes complete with implications of corporateness and segmentation which
make little
sense
in this
context. Furthermore, notions
of
descent
are
relevant
largely
in
ritual
and mythological contexts and are
not
to
be
confused with
an ethos of consanguinity which is
more
pertinent
to
everyday
life.
This essay2 is offered as
both
an experiment and a
document.
In it I want
to
examine
whether
some
of
Lvi-Strauss'
ideas
concerning
socits
mai
son can provide fresh insight into certain
features
of
the
social
organisation
of the
eastern
Tukanoan-speaking
societies
of Northwest Amazonia.
At
the
same
time I
want
to
explore
the
ramifications
of
wii
or
house as an indigenous
category
and to
provide
some
account
of the rich
sociological
and
symbolic
imagery that
surrounds
Tukanoan architecture.
Some
40,000
Tukanoan Indians inhabit a large
area of
NW
Amazonia, an
area
comprising
the
basin
of
the
Rio
Vaups
or Uaups which straddles
the
Colombia-Brazil frontier. The
Tukanoans
are
divided into some twenty named
exogamic
patrilineal
groups each
having ties to
a specific
territory and
each speak
ing
different
but related
language.
They
have
a Dravidian
prescriptive
two-line
relationship
terminology associated with
a
system of
symmetric
alliance.
Langu
geunctions as a badge of
identity
and is often
referred to in the
specification
of marriage
rules:
a person should normally marry someone who speaks different
ly
rom themselves. Children speak their father's language but
also
know
and
understand that of
their mother
Repeated
marriages between
af finally
related
groups,
the outcome of a preference for
marriage with
a cross-cousin and spe
cifically with
the
FZD, result in individuals typically marrying people who speak
their
mother's
languages,
the
basis
of
a system
of
widespread multilingualism.
Marriages
between
affinally-related groups
go hand-in-hand
with
exchanges
of
food
and
goods
during
ceremonial
beer-feasts.
Each
group
is
traditionally
associated
with the manufacture of
specific
artefacts and ecological variations
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Tukanoan
Social Organisation
97
mean that
not
everyone has
equal access
to the
same resources.
These
material
and marital
exchanges
integrate
the
different Tukanoan
groups
into an open-
ended
regional
system.
Horizontal affinal exchanges between
different groups
have
their
complement
in the vertical or
hierarchical ordering of agnatic
relations
within each one. Each
group, descended from
an anaconda
ancestor,
is
divided
into
a number
of clans
or sibs3
ranked
according
to the
birth
order of
their founding ancestors,
the
anaconda's sons.
Members
of a given
sib
refer to other
sibs
as
their
elder
or younger brothers. In
theory,
each sib should live
in
a single communal
long-house
or
maloca;
in
practice
the
residence group typically consists
of
a
sib-segment
or minimal
lineage,
a
group of brothers living with
their parents
and
their
in-married wives. The maloca community is
the
minimal
exogamic
unit
and
residence
is
virilocal: on marriage,
wives
move
in
whilst
sisters
move
out.
Tukanoan
life is
river
oriented;
in theory,
and
to
some extent
in
practice,
sib rank
is reflected in
spatial organisation. Senior
sibs
live downstream relative
to junior sibs who live towards the headwaters. Finally there are restrictions
on
marriage between some groups; those who
do
not intermarry are
related
as brothers
and belong
to
vaguely-defined, un-named and dispersed phratries.
In this brief sketch, I have tried to outline the
way
in
which
Tukanoan
social
organisation
is typically
characterised
in the
ethnographic
literature,
a character
isation
hich
relies
heavily
on the concept of
descent.4
After a brief descrip
tionf
the
maloca,
I shall present an alternative
to
this
male-centred,
lineal
view;
I
shall
argue
that
Tukanoans
conceptualise
social
relationships
in
two
differing, complementary
ways.
One, corresponding to the anthropologists'
descent,
emphasises
hierarchy and
a general
masculine
ethos
and is most salient
in the
context of male
initiation
rites. The other conceptualisation is
more
egalitarian,
is
associated with a more feminine ethos and emphasises notions
of kinship and
consanguinity.
Though
especially pertinent
to
daily life, it too
is given
ritual
expression during
inter-community
exchange feasts. These two
conceptualisations correspond to two different,
gendered readings
of the house
as a physical
structure.
One
reading
finds echoes
in
the Guianas,
the
other
in
Central Brazil.
When compared
with most
Amazonian
architecture,
Tukanoan
malocas
stand
out
both for their
size,
careful construction
and
elaborate
decoration and for
their
importance as models of category
systems
and dynamic processes in the
human and natural worlds. In his discussion of socits
maison
Lvi-
Strauss
is
concerned more with
the
House
as
form
of
social grouping than with
houses as buildings.5 However, though there is no
necessary correlation
be
tween
the
two,
the salience of the
House
as
a social
institution is frequently
reflected
in
architectural elaboration. The physical and
intellectual
elaboration
of their architecture
is
only of several
reasons
why it
might
be profitable
to
apply
the
House concept
to the Tukanoans.
The
ownership
and lineal
transmission
of
names,
titles
and
other
ritual
prero
gatives
an
important
aspect of the notion of House (see Lvi-Strauss 1991)
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98 STEPHEN
HUGH-JONES
are
also integral
to the Tukanoan idioms
usually glossed
as
descent. Indeed,
it could be said that Tukanoan groups
are constituted
much more by
such
proper
ty
han
they
are
by
any
notions
of
common substance
or
unbroken
lines
of
kinship through men. For Lvi-Strauss, the
House
is characteristic of societies
in
which
the
principle of lineage
continuity is in
constant interplay with
that
of
temporary
or more
permanent alliance
which binds two or
more
lineages
together.
This produces a new
type of
social unit
in
which
la
faon dont
les lignes
s'entrecroisent
et se
nouent compte
autant
sinon plus
que leur conti
nuit
{ibid.: 435). Christine Hugh-Jones (1979:
161 ff.) has
already drawn
attention to the
crucial importance
of
names, matrilateral
ties
and
the
inter
linking
of
allied
lineages for an
understanding
of
group
continuity in
Tukanoan
society. Lvi-Strauss also suggests that the
House
represents a form of
social
organisation
which
might
be
described
as
standing halfway between
lineal
and
cognatic principles of social organisation, conflating and transcending principles
which
are
normally taken
to be mutually
exclusive. This
is
clearly consistent
with
the two
different
Tukanoan conceptualisations of
social relationships,
one
lineal,
the other cognatic,
projected
in
androgynous representations of the house.
House and Community
Up
to
thirty metres
long
and ten metres high, Tukanoan
malocas
have a
palmthatch gabled
roof
supported
on
a row of
paired
wooden columns
run
ning
down
the
middle
and
on
two rows
of
short
pillars
one
at
each
side.
At
the sides, the
roof comes
down nearly to the ground; the rear, women's
end
forms
a
semi-circular apse whilst the front,
men's
end is
square
(fig. 1).
On
either side of
the
front door,
the
external
walls
are often painted with human
figures
and striking geometrical designs; inside, suspended above
the
centre,
hangs a
large
box containing
feather ornaments.
The significance
of
these
human
and
architectural ornaments
will
become clear
later.
The
wooden house-frame is
constructed
by
a group
of
men who
are physically
identified with
the
main columns. Their wives
help
them
with
the
thatching,
a lengthy process which
has
affinal
connotations
and often involves visiting
neighbours.
The
man
who
organises
the
construction
of
a
maloca
becomes
the
leader
and representative of the community who lives within;
building
a
maloca together implies
recognition
of his leadership and acceptance of a
particular social arrangement. The visual impact of
the
building
ts
size,
decoration,
and
cleanliness
s
a
sign of the leader's
standing and
of the prestige
and cohesion of his group. On the
leader's
death, he is
buried
in the centre
of
the
floor,
the
maloca is abandoned, and the community reforms or
divides.
The community or people of one
house (koho
wiida) is made up of
a group of
brothers,
their wives and children and their unmarried
sisters.
Their
parents, if still
alive, act as an important unifying
focus. Malocas
rarely contain
more
than
thirty
individuals
and
residential
groups
of
half
that
number
are
more usual. The community
is
a compromise between unity and division,
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Tukanoan
Social Organisation 99
[ \
F
Family compartment
TO&
House
post
H
>-
Women s door
Permanent
wall
Hot plate
Doors
Dance
path
RIGHT
Men s
door LEFT
/g. 1. Ground-plan
of Tukanoan
maloca.
between
centrifugal and centripetal
forces. The men
belong to the
same descent
group but rules of
exogamy
and
virilocality
mean that
they
are divided
by ties
to
wives
belonging
to
other groups; each family occupies a separate compart
ment
owards
the rear
end
of the
house. The men
are
also divided by
differences
in age
which
are reflected in behaviour and spatial organisation.
The headman
and
owner
of the
house
is normally the eldest
brother. He
is treated
with a certain
amount of deference and has his compartment on
the
right
hand side furthest
to the
rear;
the
compartments of married younger brothers
are
further towards
the front whilst
both unmarried
youths and guests sleep near the front door.
Each
family represents
a
potential
household
and,
in
the
end, tensions
between
them
(typically over food, sex and authority) lead
to the break-up
of
the
group.
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100 STEPHEN HUGH-JONES
In
everyday
life differences of seniority, affinity, and familial self-interest
are carefully downplayed
in
favour of an emphasis on unity expressed
in
the idioms
of
family,
kinship
and
nurturance.
Food
production
is
organised
by
family
and
wives cook meat and fish brought by their husbands
on the
hearth
inside their
compartment.
Though
food
is
produced by
individual
men
and
women, much
of
it
is consumed communally
by
the
household
as
a whole
and the
staple
manioc
bread is baked
on
a communal hot-plate situated
in the
open part at
the
rear
of the
house, a place
where
people sit and
warm
themselves, a focus
of
gossip
and casual intimacy where outsiders do not normally go.
Meals
are eaten near
the
centre
of the
house, a
public space reserved
for
unifying rituals
which contrasts
with the compartmentalised
periphery.
Food
sharing
is
crucial
to the
maintenance of group cohesion
;
non-sharing
is
a sure
sign
of
tensions
and
divisions.
A
full
and
proper
meal,
the
essence
of
contented
sociality,
is made up of
female-produced manioc products and male-produced
fish or
meat
spiced
with
chilli-pepper,
a substance
which has marked
sexual
connot
ations.6
At
formal meals, man
eat
before women, a further marking of gender
complementarity. The meal
thus
presents an image of
the
household
as
a single
family
with
the
men as husband ,
the
women as wife and
the
children shared
in common.
The
ideal maloca
community,
identified with the house it
builds,
is thus one that
acts
and thinks like
a single family
and
outside
the context of
ritual,
social
relations are
informal
and egalitarian and an ideology of kinship
prevails.7
Amongst predominantly
uxorilocal
groups
elsewhere
in
Amazonia,
ideas
of community are
often constructed
through female kinship relations (Seymour-
Smith
1991).
The
Tukanoans' patrilineal and patrilocal
emphasis precludes
this possibility. Instead, as will be seen below,
we
find
the
notion
of community
transposed onto the
representation
of
a womb-like, female house.
Food-Giving
House
Though
each
maloca forms
an autonomous
and
largely
indpendant
community, clusters of
neighbouring
houses,
belonging
to
two
or
more
different
exogamous
groups,
make
up a territorial group
with
fluid
and shifting
boundaries defined by
density of kinship
ties,
the
frequency
of
visiting, reciprocal
feasting and intermarriage, and by influence of shamans and other important
men.
Symmetrical alliance and a preference for
close marriage means
that,
although
the maloca
community
is
exogamous,
the territorial
group
is relatively
endogamous. Brothers
and sisters
tend to
live in
neighbouring
houses linked
by long-standing
ties of
alliance
so
that their children marry each
other.
If
the maloca
community
is like
a single
family, de facto the territorial group
is
an
extended
endogamous
kindred, an
arrangement
not
dissimilar
to
that
found in the Guianas (Rivire
1984).
Of course, the difference is that
in
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Tukanoan Social
Organisation 101
the Guiana area such
endogamous
territorial
groups
have
a
lower-level counter
part
n the
(ideally) endogamous settlement group itself (ideally) a single house
hold;
despite
its
familial
ethos,
the
exogamous
Tukanoan
settlement
group
is
structured
according
to
quite different principles.
However,
during beer
feasts,
endogamous Tukanoan territorial
groups do
come together on a
temporary
basis
and,
on
such
occasions,
they too present
themselves
as if they formed a single
household. Such
feasts
are called
houses , the house
standing metonymically
for
the
people inside.
At
Food-giving House (bare ekaria wii),
men from a
visiting maloca present
their hosts
and affines with smoked meat or fish and act as principle dancers
in the
dance
that
follows.8
In return the
host community
provides
vast
amounts of manioc beer which
the
guest must consume
before
leaving, if
necessary
vomiting
to
make
more
room.
At
a
later
date
the
hosts go
to
dance
in the house of
their
erstwhile guests,
presenting
them in
turn
with
a
comple
mentary gift fish for meat, one
localised
product for another.
These exchanges reflect
the
opposed complementary and egalitarian relation
shipetween
af
finally-related
groups
represented, in
the
context of
the
ritual,
primarily
by
the
men. The
ritual and
its associated mythology
serve to
underline
the fact that
affinal
relations
between
communities are represented in
terms
of gender:
the
host-recipients
are
female
in
relation
to
their male donor-
guests. The guests provide
male-produced
food
and
remain
in the
front men's
end
of the
house. Their hosts provide them with
female-produced
manioc beer
and remain towards
the
women's
end
where
they
receive
fish
or
meat
like
women
receiving their
husband's catch. As
the
food is brought in,
the
donors shout
obscene jokes which leave
no
doubt about
the implied relationship
between
the two
parties.
At
the start of the rite the visitors are treated
very formally
and
keep separate
from their hosts.
By the end, such differences have been obliterated:
hosts
and guests sit together,
dance
together
and
replace
formal chanting
with
informal
banter and raucous laughter. This effacement
of
affinal formality parallels
the
transition from wife
to
mother
as
in-married
women
are incorporated
into
their husband's group. The ritual ends with a
communal meal
at which
the
smoked
meat
or
fish,
boiled
in
a
pot,
is
served
with
home-baked manioc
bread
to
everyone present. Here then, it is
the
territorial group which presents
itself
as
a single commensal family,
the
guests acting
as the meat-providing
husband
and the
hosts
as the bread-baking,
meat-cooking
wife.
The
image of
a food-exchanging, commensal couple
living
their children
in
a single
residential
space
generates
a nested series which extends from
family
compartment through
maloca
community
to the territorial
group, a
series
whose
connecting
thread is
marriage
and
reproduction. Marriage between a man
and
a woman
creates
a family in a compartment.
The
marriages of
their sons
create
a maloca community which
celebrates
its affinal relations with
neighbouring
communities
through
food-exchange
rituals.
These
rituals
provide
the
context
for further liaisons and marriages. As
the
sons
have
children
in
their turn,
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102 STEPHEN HUGH-JONES
the maloca
community
dissolves
and replicates
itself
anew. Like daughters of
women
who
become mothers
in their turn,
each compartment
represents
a
future
house. Not
surprisingly,
the
maloca
itself
is
sometimes
spoken about
as
a
woman:
the
rounded
rear
of
the
house
is
her head,
the
front
entrance
is
her vagina, and
the
cavernous interior
is her womb.
The House as Cosmos
In myth
and
shamanic discourse,
the
nested
imagery of womb and child,
compartment
and family, maloca and
community,
territory and neighbourhood
group extends outwards
to
embrace
the
cosmos
and humanity. The maloca itself
replicates
and models
the structure
of
the
cosmos:
its
floor
is
the earth
and
its
posts are
the mountains
supporting
the
roof
or
sky above. Like
the
mountains
which delineate
the territories of the
different
Tukanoan
groups,
the
posts define
the
interior space of
the
house
and,
in
the
right context, each may represent a
different group. Down
the centre
of
the
maloca,
from
rear to
front,
west to
east,
runs an invisible
river
on
whose banks and tributaries
the
people live.
During rituals,
for those who understand
such things,
human
time
merges with
timeless myth and the maloca and
its contents assume cosmic proportions
and
significance.
According
to the
Desana creation myth9,
the
universe was created by a f
emale
deity
who
covered
her
body
with feather
ornaments
to
form
a
protective
house.
Inside
this
house or
universe-womb ,
the
deity created five Thunders,
each
in his
own compartment
four
at
the
cardinal points and a fifth suspended
above
the centre
space (fig. 2a, 2b, 2c). Like its
analogue
the
feather
box,
this
fifth
compartment contained
feather
ornaments, semen-like generative principles
in male/female
pairs and associated with
the
light of
the sun
(see also Reichel-
Dolmatoff 1971:
48).
The Thunder vomited
the feathers
from
his body:
they
became proto-men
and women
who travelled
upriver from the East inside an
anaconda-canoe.
A
further transformation of
the
Thunder's body, its
name
fermentation-anaconda or
fermentation-canoe
evokes
the canoe-like
trough
used
for
brewing
manioc
beer.
As they travelled,
the
feather-people
periodically stopped, went up onto
the
banks and danced. The anaconda's journey gave rise
to the
river
up which it
swam; its
stopping
places, rapids and rock outcrops along
the
river,
are
trans
formation-houses , ancestral
dwellings
created
by
the
dances
of the feather-people
(fig.
3). Their
journey and dancing are compared
to
a gestation
but
note however
that,
in
this mythical process,
it
was
the
things contained (anaconda-canoe, people)
which
gave rise
to
the containers (river, houses), an inversion of the normal process
in
which
the
containing
womb
gives rise
to
a
contained
child.
When the
anaconda-canoe
had reached the
Vaups
region, the centre of the
world,
the
feather-people
were
now
fully
human.
They disembarked
at
the
great
rapid
of Ipanor; as
ancestors
of the
different
Tukanoan
groups they
emerged
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Tukanoan
Social Organisation 103
Fig. 2a.
Luis
Lana's Drawing
of
the
Universe House
(from
Umsin Panln Kumu and
Tolamn
Kenhir
1980: 194).
Fig.
2b.
The
Universe House
interpreted
according
to the
text
in Umsin
Panln
Kumu
and
Tolamn Kenhir 1980: 51-54.
1. Universe Tower-home of Bar
Eagle.
2. Sky
House-home
of the 3rd Thunder.
3. Milk River
House-home
of
1st Thunder.
4.
Apaporis
River
House-home
of
4th Thunder.
5.
Night
House-home
of 5th
Thunder.
6.
Parica
River (Iana) Rapid House-home of 2nd Thunder.
7.
White
Rock Layer-compartiment of
deity.
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104
STEPHEN
HUGH-JONES
Fig. 2c. Our World by Gabriel Santos (Tukano). From
Bksta 1988:
47.
1. Our house in the
centre
where
we
hold the
ceremony.
2. House of Sky Thunder; the
main
refuge of the shaman.
3. Milk
River
House
on the River Amazon.
4. Protective sphere made by the ceremonial official.
5. Night House. Home of the Thunder of the headwaters.
6.
Subterranean House. Minor
refuge of
the
shaman.
I di. u/dvusmum. au.
Ci yZtX
jui
da
/x/aJu**n. paalu, ati
Fig.
3.
Luis
Lana' Drawing
of Ancestral
Houses
along
the River Uaups
(from Umsin
Panln Kumu
and Tolamn Kenhir 1980: 207):
Continuing its voyage,
the
transformation canoe ascended
the River Uaups,
leaving houses
on
the
right bank
up
as
far
as [.
.
.]
the
Tiqui.
At
he
30th
house,
River
House
of
the
Ancient
Master of Dancing, the creator decided to separate the tribes
giving each
on
its own language
(my translation, S. H.-J.)
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Tukanoan
Social Organisation 105
carrying
the
ornaments from which they
had been
born, each
through
their
own
hole
in the
rocks
of the
rapid. They
then
dispersed
to
ancestral
houses
in
their
respective
territories whilst
the
anaconda-canoe
returned
to its
original
form,
the
Thunder in his house
in the
sky.
Though
an
order
of
emergence
may be specified,
the
myth plays down hier
archy
between
different Tukanoan
groups
in
favour
of an equality of
difference
marked by
different
emblematic languages
and items of
material culture. As
we
shall see, this is in marked contrast to the emphasis on
rank
and hierarchy
which applies when
this
myth relates
the origins
of one specific group.
This myth clearly
confirms the
suggestion
of the nesting
series
womb-child
< compartment-family < maloca-community < territory-neighbourhood