C r e a t i n g a C o n t i n u i t y b e t w e e n S e lf

a n d O t h e r : F i r s t - P e r s o n N a r r a t i o n
i n a n A m a z o n i a n R i t u a l C o n t e x t
S UZA N N E O A KDA UE
ABSTRACT This article argues that culturally specific genres o f
first-perso n narratio n as they are fo und within so cial life o ffer a
privileged windo w o n a dimensio n o f the self: the extent to which
in certain circumstances self and o ther have fixed bo undaries o r
can beco me merged. My fo cus is a ritual genre o f first-perso n
narratio n sung by the Kayabi, a Tupi-Guarani-speaking peo ple
o f central Brazil. In this genre, the experiences o f past genera-
tio ns beco me inco rpo rated into the lives o f co ntempo rary nar-
rato rs. Ho w this inco rpo ratio n is facilitated as well as its
impo rtance in the co ntext o f Kayabi views o n human develo p-
ment are discussed.
F
irst-person narratives have long been used in anthropological
research for illuminating a variety of issues with respect to the
self such as the adjustments individuals make to limitations
(Simmons 1942), the relationship between personality and
culture (DuBois 1944), and subjective consciousness (Watson
and Watson-Franke 1985), among others. Frequently these sorts of narra-
tives are elicited, edited, or rearranged according to a chronological se-
quence in order to form a "life history." Several have pointed out that these
sorts of procedures artificially project a Western consciousness on other
cultural forms. Clyde Kluckhohn (1949), Arnold Krupat (1985,1992,1994),
and David Brumble (1988) have all made this point when they call attention
to the influence of anthropological interviewing techniques and Western lit-
erary genres in the production of Native American "life histories." Pierre
Bourdieu sees the life history as based on the same philosophy of identity
underlying official presentations of the "official model of the self' in the
West such as the identity card, the civil record, the curriculum vitae, and
f l / r a s 3 0 ( 1 / 2 ) 1 5 8 - 1 7 5 . C o p y f i Q h l < 5 > 2 0 0 2 , A m e r ic a n A n th r o p o lo g ic a l A s s o c ia tio n .
C r e a t i n g a C o n tin u ity b e t w e e n S e l f a n d O t h e r 1 5 9
the biography (1987:4). According to him, this is a model that implicitly as-
sumes the integration and unification of the self (rather than the fragmenta-
tion of the self) and that life is a coherent linear development, an expression
of a subjective intention of a project.
As well as distorting accounts through the projection of Western lit-
erary or "official" forms, the life history format has also been criticized as
leaving out the way these accounts are socially situated. As Vincent Gra-
panzano pointed out, when he called for understanding the life history
within the context of the relationship between interviewer and interviewee,
many "anthropological life histories read as though the narrator is ad-
dressing the cosmos" (1984:958).
A growing body of linguistically oriented research that takes a prag-
matic and semiotic approach to first-person narrative (Basso 1995; Graham
1995; Miller and Moore 1989; Miller et al. 1990; Silverstein 1996; Urban
1989; Wortham 1994) overcomes these shortcomings by explicitly focus-
ing on culturally distinctive genres of first-person accounts as they are
situated in social life. Following this approach, I focus on a genre of first-
person narration embedded in the ritual practice of a Tupi-Guarani-speak-
ing, Brazilian Amazonian people called the Kayabi. This focus provides a
window on a dimension of the self that is salient in Kayabi social life, at
least at certain moments: the permeability of the boundaries between
what is self and not self.
Grace Harris (1989) has distinguished two understandings of the con-
cept of "self." The term refers to (1) the human being as a locus of experi-
ence and (2) "the experience of that human's own someoneness" (Harris
1989:601). Here, the self is understood in Harris's second sense to refer to
a subject's consciousness of him or herself, in other words, "self-aware-
ness," that is, the subject apprehended as object in a world of objects other
than himself (Hallowell 1955:75) or "the unfolding reflective awareness of
being-in-the-world" (Ochs and Gapps 1996:20). The dimension of self-
awareness that I am interested in here is the subject's reflection on his or
her own continuity over time. While several have explored the extent to
which selves are fragmentary rather than coherent, in various cultural
traditions as well as universally (Ewing 1990; Kondo 1990; Murray 1993,
among others), this material explores an aspect of the continuity of self
that has received less attention, the implicit notion that this continuity
involves only the experiences of one subject. In his discussion of the de-
velopment of autobiography, Karl Weintraub has pointed out that only
since the time of the Renaissance has the West "formed a particular at-
tachment to the ideal of personality we call an individuality," by which he
means the notion that individual specificity is a "treasured thing" and,
more importantly for my argument here, that every existence is "marked
by its singular locus in space and its moment in time" (1975:838, 846). A
1 60 ETHO S
focus on culturally specific forms of autobiographical narration as they are
socially situated suggests that rather than showing how the speaker comes
to organize a unique series of experiences, first-person accounts in other
traditions may show how the experiences of what are considered to be two
discrete subjects become merged in certain situations.
The genre of first-person narration I am concerned with is only one
of several found within Kayabi ritual as well as everyday practice. It is sung
during an event called "Jowosi." Jowosi are rituals that end a period of
mourning. They take place several months after a death and are done ex-
plicitly to help the bereaved forget about their lost relative. Jowosi songs
can also be sung when a visitor arrives, a hunting or fishing party returns
to a village, or a group of warriors returns home, provided that a death has
not recently occurred (see Travassos 1993). In the past, Jowosi singing
also concluded male initiation rites. While the Kayabi no longer hold male
initiation, singing in this style is still a sign of adult male status, now
reached for men upon marriage.
Kayabi consider Jowosi songs to be autobiographical in the sense that
most songs are understood by the audience and the singers to be about the
singer's own valiant experiences confronting a non-Kayabi. Songs recount
how the singer defeated an enemy in battle, how he kidnapped an enemy
child, married a non-Kayabi, or simply encountered a non-Kayabi while
passing through their territory. A few describe similar types of events with
nonhuman spirit beings as well. Most recount these events through the use
of a standard set of metaphors. In addition, some Jowosi songs are also
recognized as inherited. Songs are passed down to young men from their
male paternal relatives. As one man explained, "songs are left over after
people die." These songs recount similar types of encounters in the first-
person singular.
Content with the idea that some songs were autobiographical and
some inherited, only eventually did I realize that the most interesting
songs were those recognized to be both at the same time. These songs, to
invoke the comments of Bakhtin on language more generally, use words
that are very much "half someone else's" (1987:293). My interest is in the
shared nature of these Jowosi songs, how they join subjects of past genera-
tions to subjects of the present through various means. In these sorts of
Jowosi songs, one sees how the general characterizations of the cultural
conceptions of self and person that have been made for Amazonian peo-
ples and specifically for Tupi-Guarani-speaking peoples take a particular
shape in Kayabi ritual practice. For example, in his analysis of ritual wail-
ing and ceremonial dialogues, Greg Urban (1993) has described central
Brazilian indigenous cultures as having a sociability based on overhearing
and incorporating the other into one's self. This kind of sociability is based
on a model in which distinct selves are understood to be the same, as
C r e a t i n g a C o n tin u ity b e t w e e n S e l f a n d O t h e r 1 61
sharing "the discourse that circulates by means of their interaction"
(1993:170). In these traditions, "the boundaries of the self are extended
to encompass others" (Urban 1993:170). Eduardo Viveiros de Castro,
drawing on the social organizations and cosmologies of Tupi-Guarani-
speaking groups, particularly the Arawete, has formulated "a structure of
the person" for all Tupi-Guarani-speaking peoples (1992:1). In describing
this model, he uses as a foil the structure of the person among Ge-speak-
ing-groups in Central Brazil, societies on which Urban's model is largely
based. According to his Tupi-Guarani structure, the person is marked by
"Other-becoming" rather than "Being" (1992:2, 4). "The other," be it en-
emy, dead, or god is not in opposition or a mirror for the self but, rather,
interwoven with the self (Viveiros de Castro 1992:2, 4). Unlike Urban's
model, his gives more weight to "the other" than "the self," this side of the
pair being seen as the end point or the encompassing term rather than the
encompassed. Despite differences, both models point to the fact that the
boundaries between self and other are complicated in Amazonian tradi-
tions.
Following Elinor Ochs and Lisa Capps (1996:22), I see Jowosi per-
formances as engaging only facets of the singer's selfhood rather than the
self of each singer in its entirety. The fact that a Jowosi song is sung re-
peatedly over the course of a man's life, however, indicates that Jowosi
may engage key or central facets of the adult self. There are, of course,
many other practices, non-narrative as well as narrative, which also en-
gage these men's self-awareness, and very likely do so in a different way.
James Peacock and Dorothy Holland have observed that in the range of
tools of identity, life stories are often particularly powerful means of com-
ing to self-understanding (1993:371). The fact that these songs are treas-
ured by singers and are recognized to be a privilege of mature men, which
is to say, men who have reached a certain level of self-awareness, indicates
that these songs too may also be powerful means of reflecting on the self.
After a description of the Kayabi and the Jowosi ritual, I turn to the
performance of one man's song. I focus on how the use of metaphor, the
lack of tense-evidential markers, and the use of first-person pronouns fa-
cilitate the singer's identification with the experiences of relatives from
previous generations. Then I turn to how this kind of incorporation of
another's experiences relates to the importance of repetition in Kayabi
notions of human development.
ETWtWMPWC MCKUMMMD: 1W M Y AND JOWOSI
The Kayabi are a riverine people who practice hunting, gathering, and
extensive agriculture. They have traditionally lived in isolated extended-
family homesteads dispersed along river banks in central Brazil. Kayabi
1 62 ETHO S
conceptualize their homesteads as lead by a senior male family headman.
The headman's following consists of his wife, unmarried children, married
daughters, sons-in-law doing bride service, and their respective children
as well as a variety of other relatives who may attach themselves to the
household. In the past, disparate households would gather together mainly
during Jowosi festivals or shamanic cures. Currently, however, the major-
ity of Kayabi have moved to a multi-ethnic reservation called the Xingu
Indigenous Park. Here, since the 1980s, independent extended families
have started to settle together in large multifamily villages. These villages
are run by younger leaders proficient in dealing with the government and
nongovernmental agencies active within the Xingu though senior family
headmen continue to lead their own extended family households within
villages.
Kayabi families have been relocating to the Xingu Park over the
course of the last four decades from areas located further to the west and
northwest, along the Tapajos and Peixes Rivers. Families relocated in re-
sponse to pressure from miners, ranchers, and rubber tappers who have
been moving into their territories over the course of the 20th century.
Initially their relocation was orchestrated by the Villas Boas brothers, In-
dianists who are credited with establishing the park beginning in the late
1950s (Davis 1977:50). The park was set up in explicit contrast to the
dominant government policy of acculturation of indigenous peoples (Davis
1980:50). Residents were and still are to some extent encouraged to speak
their native languages, practice traditional customswith the exclusion of
warfareand hold ritual events. For example, upon arrival to the park,
Kayabi communities seem to have held many more Jowosi rituals than
they did directly prior to relocation (Gowell 1974; Griinberg n.d.: 170).
Currently Jowosi rituals are a frequent part of village life, provided that no
one in the village has recently died.
The fieldwork on which this article was based was carried out for nine
months over the course of 1992 and 1993 in one of the larger new style
villages within the Xingu Park. The young chief of this village allowed me
to hang my hammock at one end of his long-house so I was fully engaged
in household affairs both day and night. As villagers knew I was studying
their rituals, they were quick to incorporate me into these kinds of events
as well. Much as another anthropologist who had lived in a Kayabi village
in the early 1980s has reported, my participation in village life was some-
times more like that of Kayabi men and at other times more like that of
Knyabi women. For example, during shamanic cures I was asked if I would
like to sing with the men's chorus. During Jowosi, however, I was very
much aligned with the women and encouraged to participate as such. Fre-
quently, one of the chiefs assistants would offer to take over the process
C r e a t i n g a C o n tin u ity b e t w e e n S e l f a n d O t h e r 1 63
of tape recording Jowosi songs so that I could sing with the other unmar-
ried women in the chorus.
The Jowosi I saw performed were done both to greet visitors, welcome
home travelers, and help the bereaved end their sadness over a death.
Many times the singing performed more than one of these functions simul-
taneously. In all cases the singing took place over the course of several
days to several weeks. All of the Jowosi singing that I witnessed began in
the following manner: In the afternoon, after the heat of the sun began to
diminish, young unmarried women from various households would begin
to gather in the plaza or were recruited by a senior woman to form a cho-
rus. This group, which grew as the afternoon wore on, went first to the
house of one of the most senior men and verbally asked him to sing. Once
the soloist began singing, the women served as a chorus and, standing next
to his hammock, collectively repeated each of the lines he sang first along
with a repeating refrain (to be discussed below). After each soloist sang
one or two songs, the women moved on to another man. Men were usually
reclining in their hammocks and sang from this position. Eventually, as
more people finished their daily activities and afternoon bathing, the cho-
rus began to ask some of the younger men to sing for them as well. While
more senior men tended to sing in a loud, robust voice, the youngest men
sang in a barely audible whisper.
Once night fell the singing increased in intensity, and the women's
chorus tended to attract many more members including young mothers
and little girls. At night, the women made the rounds in the village and
ideally asked each of the married men in each of the households to sing
for them. After several hours of singing at different houses, the women
eventually dispersed and went to sleep.
The last few nights of a Jowosi are the most festive. While I witnessed
19 nights of Jowosi singing, most of the periods of singing I witnessed were
cut short by a death or serious illness. During the Jowosi that I saw per-
formed to completion, however, people gathered in one of the more tradi-
tional style long-houses, large structures that are rectangular and spacious
in contrast to the newer houses, which are smaller and oval. Families came
with their hammocks and pieces of meat to roast over small fires as they
lounged, visited, and participated in the singing. Families hung their ham-
mocks together in clusters, and parents and their young children sat to-
gether. On these last nights, only the most senior men, that is, men who
were grandfathers, were asked to sing. They began in their hammocks but,
after a few lines, got up to dance.
In Jowosi-style dancing, each male soloist dances up and down the
central corridor of the house, taking several steps forward and a few steps
back. The women's chorus follows in one or two rows behind the soloist.
The women dance side by side with their arms around each other's waists
1 64 ETHO S
and shoulders, alternately. Men carry weapons or hunting implements
such as bows and arrows, fishing poles, clubs, or shotguns. In the past,
when heads were taken in battle, I was told that some singers also carried
skulls suspended from poles by cotton strings. This type of Jowosi is simi-
lar to the war rituals described for other Tupian groups such as the "dance
of heads" for the Kagwahiv (Kracke 1978.45) or the Arawete "strong beer
ritual" (Viveiros de Castro 1992:133). On these last days of singing, men
are also painted with designs in red annatto and black charcoal repre-
senting enemies or game animals. Others are painted solid red.
During the nights of dancing that I saw, some of the oldest men danced
very quickly and varied their steps slightly in order to trick the women's
chorus who was following them. Little girls held on to the men's shorts or
belts of beads as they sang, following their steps along with the chorus as
best they could. Boys hooted with approval after a particularly well sung
song and urged the women's chorus to sing louder. People sang and danced
until a few hours before dawn when a blast on a jaguar bone flute ended
the singing and families returned to their homes.
KU' A ' S S O N G
The song that I focus on here was sung by a very elderly senior man
named Ku'a, in the late afternoon on one of the first days of a Jowosi held
in order to help the young chief of the village forget the death of his baby
son. The women who formed the chorus insisted that I join them in singing
as I tape-recorded the event. So, tape recorder in hand, I followed them to
Ku'a's hammock where he was resting in the afternoon heat.
Ku'a's song describes an encounter with oropendola birds. Oropendo-
las, part of the icteridae, or oriole, family, have a long sharply pointed bill,
feed on fruits and insects, and construct woven, purse-shaped nests
(Schauensee 1970:352). Though their plumage may be a variety of colors,
some of the most distinctive are black and have bright gold tail feathers
used in diadems throughout lowland Brazil. While all sorts of encounters
with enemies were sung in this Jowosi in order to help the young chief
forget about the death of his baby son, the fact that this song focuses on
kidnapping baby birds seems to be particularly suited to the young chiefs
situation. The two Kayabi men who translated the song for me also
stressed that the species of this bird they were familiar with did not sing.
This was perhaps a metaphorical reference to people like my own who do
not have a tradition of singing Jowosi.
The women's chorus began by asking Ku'a to sing. He sang a line that
was barely audible and then they sang one of the standard refrains used in
Jowosi. The following text of the song begins with the chorus's opening line
as Ku'a's was unintelligible:
C r e a t i n g a C o n tin u ity b e t w e e n S e l f a n d O t h e r 1 65
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
C h o r u s :
Ku'a:
Chorus:
Ku'a:
Chorus:
Ku'a:
C h o r u s :
Ku'a:
C h o r u s :
Ku'a:
C h o r u s :
Ku'a:
Chorus:
Ku'a:
C h o r u s :
Ku'a:
C h o r u s :
Ku'a:
C h o r u s :
Ku'a:
C h o r u s :
Ku'a:
C h o r u s :
Ku'a:
Chorus:
14 Ku'a:
Eheeeja. Eheeeja (vocables). He says to him. Eheeeja. He says to him.
He says to him. He says to him. Eheeeja. He says to him.
I am standing looking at the oropendola bird's children.
"I am standing looking at the oropendola bird's children," he says to
him. He says to him. Eheeeja. He says to him. He says to him. He says
to him. Eheeeja. He says to him.
The oropendolas are standing grouped together, guy.
"The oropendolas are standing grouped together, guy," he says to him.
He says to him. Eheeeja. He says to him. He says to him. He says to
him. Eheeeja. He says to him.
I stay looking at the oropendola's children.
"I stay looking at the oropendola's children," he says to him. He says
to him. Eheeeja. He says to him. He says to him. He says to him.
Eheeeja. He says to him.
Might we have a long branch to take the oropendola's child?
"Might we have a long branch to take the oropendola's child?" he says
to him. He says to him. Eheeeja. He says to him. He says to him. He
says to him. Eheeeja. He says to him.
This one moving is the child of a red oropendola.
"This one moving is the child of a red oropendola," he says to him. He
says to him. Eheeeja. He says to him. He says to him. He says to him.
Eheeeja. He says to him.
They [the birds] are arriving, guy.
"They are arriving, guy," he says to him. He says to him. Eheeeja. He
says to him. He says to him. He says to him. Eheeeja. He says to him.
This one moving is the child of the white oropendola.
"This one moving is the child of the white oropendola," he says to him.
He says to him. Eheeeja. He says to him. He says to him. He says to
him. Eheeeja. He says to him.
The oropendolas are standing all mixed together, guy.
"The oropendolas are standing all mixed together, guy," he says to him.
He says to him. Eheeeja. He says to him. He says to him. He says to
him. Eheeeja. He says to him.
Might we have a long branch to take the oropendola's child?
"Might we have a long branch to take the oropendola's child?" he says
to him. He says to him. Eheeeja. He says to him. He says to him. He
says to him. Eheeeja. He says to him.
In any old tree, they have their children.
"In any old tree, they have their children," he says to him. He says to
him. Eheeeja. He says to him. He says to him. He says to him. Eheeeja.
He says to him.
In the mountains, they have their children.
"In the mountains, they have their children," he says to him. He says
to him. Eheeeja. He says to him. He says to him. He says to him.
Eheeeja. He says to him.
The oropendola are standing grouped together, guy.
"The oropendola are standing grouped together, guy," he says to him.
He says to him. Eheeeja. He says to him. He says to him. He says to
him. Eheeeja. He says to him.
I always go to the oropendola's tree on foot.
1 66 ETHO S
Chorus: "I always go to the oropendola's tree on foot," he says to him. He says
to him. Eheeeja. He says to him. He says to him. He says to him.
Eheeeja. He says to him.
15 Ku'a: 1 look at the oropendola's children with curiosity.
Chorus: "I look at the oropendola's children with curiosity," he says to him. He
says to him. Eheeeja. He says to him. He says to him. He says to him.
Eheeeja. He says to him.
The two young men (approximately 25-40 years old) who translated
this song for me recognized it as one that Ku'a frequently sang. They both
readily admitted that they did not know exactly what event it referred to
but thought that it was an account of something that had happened to Ku'a
in the past. Despite the fact that all audience members know that some of
the songs sung by men in their own families have been inherited, most
people tend to interpret songs sung by members of other families as being
about the singer's own experiences. The two men who translated Ku'a's
song thought it was very likely about a trip he made to the FUNAI (the
Brazilian equivalent of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs) office in Sao
Paulo. They knew this man had spent extended periods of time at FUNAI
in urban centers undergoing medical treatment for a skin disease common
among the Kayabi. They inferred with confidence that the white and red
birds standing together in one place must stand for the whites and the
Indians who worked together at FUNAI. Line 10, "Might we have a long
branch to take the oropendola's child?" was interpreted, according to the
standard metaphorical equivalents used to decipher these songs, as mean-
ing that he wanted to kidnap one of the children in Sao Paulo and take it
back to raise. The fact that a "long branch" is needed in Line 10 as well as
Line 12, which describes the birds as raising their children "in the moun-
tains," were both interpreted as references to the tall buildings in Sao
Paulo where, they said, people live in tall buildings "like birds in trees."
Ku'a, on the other hand, when I asked him about the event the song
referred to, explained that the song was inherited from his uncle. Accord-
ing to him, this song recounted his uncle's travels. He said that this uncle
lived in an area to the west of the Xingu Park and interacted with the
indigenous peoples living in this area. This song when his uncle sang it may
have referred to another Tupian group, the Apiaca. According to many of
the older men, songs about "white" animals refer to the Apiaca* because
they did not wear red body paint like other peoples in the area, including
the Kayabi. The Kayabi also frequently raised Apiaca" children in the past.
Ku'a's uncle, however, may also have inherited the song, in which case
white birds would also have previously referred to a different people of
earlier import who could have been construed as "white."
In explaining this particular song to me, Ku'a did not simply say that
it referred to his uncle's experiences. He went on to indicate that it re-
ferred as much to his own experiences. Rather than referring to the period
C r e a t i n g a C o n t in u it y b e t w e e n S e l f a n d O t h e r 1 67
of his medical treatment, however, Ku'a related the song to his experience
of first coming to the Xingu Park, as a much younger man, after having
lived away from his fellow Kayabi. He explained that his uncle had raised
him until he was an adult, and then his uncle died. During this period, his
uncle taught him this song. Ku'a said, however, that he did not sing it
himself until later. As a young adult, Ku'a went to live with the Bororo
(another Brazilian indigenous people). He then moved to Sao Paulo where
he reconnected with some of his Kayabi relatives who convinced him to
move to the Xingu Park. On the occasion of disembarking from the boat
that brought him to a Kayabi village in the Xingu, Ku'a said he sang this
song for the first time in his life. With this type of commentary, Ku'a sug-
gests that his travel experiences outside of the Kayabi community paral-
leled those of his uncle and that the song represented his life experiences
as much as they did his uncle's. The two young men who translated his
song for me were not so far wrong in their interpretation of how the song
related to Ku'a, though they were unaware of the song's genesis. My sense
is that other men, who also sing inherited songs, come to understand their
songs in a similar manner, as relating to their own experiences as well as
to their relatives'.
I K u v m r a u i i o N OF M O THER S EKFEMENCES
The appropriation of another's experience as the speaker's own has
been reported in a number of narrative traditions. Focusing on ordinary
talk, Miller et al. (1990) have identified the appropriation or vicarious re-
telling of caregiver's or friend's experiences among African American,
Zuni, and white middle-class children in the United States. In Polynesia,
Marshall Sahlins has drawn attention to the fact that chiefs use the first-
person singular to narrate the activities of specific members of their an-
cestral lineage (1981). Focusing on political oratory, Francesca Merlan and
Alan Rumsey have observed that in the highlands of New Guinea, speakers
can refer to their entire segmentary unit with the first-person-singular pro-
noun (1991:96, 355 n. 4; Rumsey 2000). As in Polynesia, the events being
referred to may be activities that took place before the speaker was born.
"For example, 'I fought with you' can mean 'My ancestors, qua segmentary
unit fought with yours' " (Merlan and Rumsey 1991:96). Closer ethnog-
raphically to the Kayabi are, however, the Ge-speaking Shokleng and
Xavante of Brazil. Greg Urban (1989:40; 1996:49) has identified cases in
which Shokleng narrators occasionally switch from third to first person
when telling their origin myth. This use of the first person is accompanied
by a trancelike state in which there is a felt projection of the narrator into
the self of a (mythic) other. With respect to the GS-speaking Xavante,
Laura Graham (1995) has discussed how, through a similar shift in pronouns,
1 68 ETHO S
senior men, near the end of their lives, begin to appropriate the experi-
ences of mythic characters as their own during the public account of
dreams.
Perhaps the case that most parallels the material presented here is
found among the Ecuadorian Achuar. Anne Christine Taylor describes the
visions sought by Achuar men in drug-induced hallucinatory spirit quests,
called arutam, in a way that is strikingly similar to the way I am suggesting
Jowosi songs work. According to her, the arutam is a vision of an unrecog-
nizable dead person. This vision gives the seeker a "virtual biography"
comparable "in achievement to the life of the dead man who transmits it,"
but one which is "shorn of all its particulars" (1993:666-667). I am arguing
that Jowosi songs likewise function as templates (see Schrauf 1997) that
structure the singer's past experiences rather than being actual accounts
of specific occurrences that a singer assumes in detail as his own.
Here I am interested in the standardized aspects of Jowosi singing that
enable singers to identify with and incorporate the general contours of the
experiences of past generations. In the Kayabi case, unlike the examples
from the United States and the Ge-speaking groups, the formal mecha-
nisms that enable the incorporation of others' experiences are much less
of a creative choice for individual singers: Aspects of the Jowosi genre are
relatively fixed. Songs are also understood by Kayabi people to be passed
down from senior relatives without any adaptations or changes.
First, the metaphors used in Jowosi songs, like those of Ku'a's, facili-
tate the process whereby older songs can be taken up by new singers and
used to organize and understand their own life experiences. The common
set of metaphors used in these songs gives them a timeless quality: They
do not usually index the time period of any particular generation. For ex-
ample, when a singer sings about "the noise that fish make," he is referring
to the sound of battle. When he sings about "chopping down a tree," he is
referring to killing an enemy in battle. Hunting or chasing various sorts of
animals refers to encounters with various sorts of non-Kayabi. The color
of the feathers or fur gives clues to the ethnic group being sung about. In
general, these metaphors give only a general sense of the interaction but
are not specific enough to clearly identify any particular instance or ethnic
group. For most adult Kayabi who are not members of the singer's family
and not familiar with the events that first gave rise to a song, they only
provide the most schematic outline of action and the most general features
about the ethnicity of the enemy in question. As my translators' accounts
proved, new interethnic relations can be easily fit within one of the types
of encounters sung about in Jowosi.
The use of metaphor in these songs also demonstrates Catherine
Lutz's point that "metaphors will frequently be used in attempts to under-
stand and communicate the experience of the self and other" (1985:39).
C r e a t i n g a C o n tin u ity b e t w e e n S e l f a n d O t h e r 1 69
Many of the common metaphors featured in Jowosi songs are about a Kayabi
appropriation of an enemy or a merging of perspective between a Kayabi
and a non-Kayabi. In Ku'a's song, the narrator is contemplating taking a
bird (non-Kayabi child) home to raise. Other songs, however, recount suc-
cessful kidnappings. The most dramatic recount how enemies are killed at
the hands of Kayabi warriors. In these songs, the singer takes on the per-
spective of his victim, even quoting the final speech and thoughts of his
victim. These songs are understood to bring back the dead enemy through
the voice and body of the singer himself when they are sung. They of
course allude to the merging of a much more radically distinct self and
other than that of a junior and senior patrilineal relative.
Another feature of Jowosi songs that ties them to the present rather
than the past and leaves them ambiguous in terms of how they are related
to the self of the singer is the lack of tense/evidential markers. Kayabi has
a series of six forms that mark how distant in the past the reported event
occurred relative to the present and if the speaker experienced the event
firsthand or not (Dobson 1988:28; Helga Weiss, personal communication).
These forms are used in everyday speech and in other sorts of sung per-
formances such as shamanic curing songs.
With respect to the narrative tradition of one of the Kayabi's neighbors
to the south, the Garib-speaking Kalapalo, Ellen Basso has observed that
the most elaborate use of evidentials occurs in story contexts when there
is an outright denial of shared experience or point of view (1995:39). They
show up in "situations of doubt, potential discord, and of actual disputes,
and especially in situations of dialogue where persuasion and resistance to
persuasion take place" (Basso 1995:39). The fact that Jowosi songs have
an unusually low use of evidentials suggests that they might be particularly
suited for conveying the opposite: a shared point of view and a shared
experience.
The incorporation of a relative's experiences into the singer's own
identity is fostered perhaps most fully by the use of the first-person pro-
noun. When Ku'a repeats a line such as "I always go to the oropendula's
tree on foot," he is both repeating the words of a senior relative, and per-
haps even several generations of relatives, as well as taking on the role of
an adventurous warrior himself. Greg Urban has distinguished several dif-
ferent types of first-person-singular pronominal usages that he calls "types
of discourse 'I.'" The type used in Jowosi songs is most similar to what he
calls the "theatrical type." With the "theatrical T " there is virtually no
trace of quote framing; rather, the individual speaks through the character
that he or she represents much the way actors do in theatrical perform-
ances (Urban 1989:36). Depending on the amount of knowledge a listener
possesses, Ku'a either takes on the role of himself as a young man, the role
of his uncle, the role of a more distant male relative, or all of the above.
1 7 0 ETHO S
According to Urban, the "theatrical T " hides the everyday persona of
the speaker. An actor's usual identity is, for example, not displayed as he
plays the part. To some extent this is true for Ku'a's performance. In his
solo lines, his everyday personapresently an old, crippled man who is no
longer a valiant warrioris in fact hidden. On the other hand, Jowosi
songs are not entirely the same as roles played by actors, because rather
than hide the everyday persona, they open it up and display the interper-
sonal identifications that have made a mature man who he is. For the
singer and others who know the history of a particular song, these types
of performances display a kind of intergenerational mimicry or, in Urban's
terms, an "iconic otherness" that undergirds a mature singer's identity
(1989:46).
KA Y A B I A N D O THER A M A ZO N I A N C O N C EP TUA L I ZA TI O N S O F HUM A N
DEV EL O P M EN T
The imitation of elders by a younger generation is understood by Kay-
abi themselves to be crucial for human development. When male initiation
was still performed, adolescent boys were confined to their homes for a
period of time during which they would consciously try to imitate the ac-
tivities of senior male relatives. Through this process they would learn how
to save seeds for gardening, weave baskets, and hunt by shooting at targets
set up in the rafters of their homes, as well as how to speak and control
their facial expressions in an adult manner. An elaborate period of seclu-
sion in which girls copy the behavior of their senior female relatives is still
practiced.
Jowosi, which used to be held at the end of male seclusion, empha-
sizes this sort of behavioral imitation in the invitation procedure. When
people from outside a local group are invited to a Jowosi, a messenger is
sent to inform them. The messenger is supposed to shadow the headman
of the invited family, performing the same chores, taking a bath and eating
with him. The invitation process recalls the imitation an adolescent was
expected to undergo before becoming hilly adult.
Imitation is also an important part of the production of songs. Songs
are, for example, learned through repetition. While I have never witnessed
the process of a song being passed down from senior to junior relative, men
said that they learned their songs through a type of silent repetition. Men
said that after hearing a song from a relative, they sang the song to them-
selves in private, while walking in the forest or fishing, before singing with
a chorus. Even new songs are acquired through repetition. They do not
originate with the singer, in the sense that Western autobiography does
but, rather, originate from an outside source. They somehow "come from
the enemv" featured in the sung encounter as much as they do for the
C r e a t i n g a C o n tin u ity b e t w e e n S e l f a n d O t h e r 1 7 1
Tupian Arawete* (Viveiros de Castro 1992:240-243). The singer hears the
song from the enemy often on his way home after the encounter and then
repeats it to himself before singing with a chorus.
In each performance of a Jowosi song, the choral singing also func-
tions as an icon of imitation or mimicry, perhaps also recalling the imita-
tion of seniors by their juniors which brings about maturity. In the case of
a Jowosi performance, however, it is younger women who imitate a senior
man. Most of the lines of a Jowosi song are sung first by the male soloist.
Once he sings a line, the female chorus then repeats it directly after him
along with a repeating refrain. The fact that all the women blend their
voices to form the chorus is yet another iconic representation of how as-
pects of the self come to be integrated with others of a slightly different
order. Overall, it is the choral repetition of the soloist's lines that drives
performances from beginning to end.
The chorus in Ku'a's performance, however, does not only imitate, it
also adds additional content. The women sing the refrain: "He says to him.
He says to him. Eheeeja. He says to him. He says to him. He says to him.
Eheeeja. He says to him." This particular refrain in effect turns each of
Ku'a's lines into directly quoted speech. While not all refrains frame the
soloist's lines as quoted speech, many do. Other common refrains such as,
"I say to myself," or "I say to myself as I was walking," for example, turn
the soloists' lines into quoted speech of a slightly different sort.
While the refrain in Ku'a's song may invoke the image of an ongoing
dialogue between two characters at the foot of the tree with the oropendo-
las' nests, the choral framing in this song also may invoke the image of a
senior man teaching the song to a younger relative. It gives the sense that
Ku'a is repeating someone else's words. The repetition of the phrase "he
says to him" could even be interpreted as referring to a series of moments
of quoted speech or a series of men teaching this song to their junior rela-
tives over the course of several generations. This song demonstrates par-
ticularly well how the choral refrain has the potential to change the
"theatrical T " to an "I" that is clearly framed as quoted speech, what
Urban (1989) calls the "anaphoric 'I.' " The alternation between the "de-
quotative" and "quotative T " has the potential to display the fact that a
particular kind of social relationship based on a kind of mirroring under-
lies each of the soloist's lines.
The merging of experiences between two separate generations may be
associated with the process of moving toward male adulthood and matur-
ity throughout the Amazon. Graham (1995), for example, describes how
among the Xavante, young pre-initiates repeat the songs and dances newly
initiated men receive through dream. Through this repetition, the older
men'8 dream songs move from being individually dreamed compositions
to being socially shared experiences (Graham 1995:116). During the
1 7 2 ETHO S
Ge-speaking Suva's rite of passage, called the Mouse Ceremony, older
name givers transmit their names to young boys, and while not understood
necessarily as bringing about a merging of experiences, this process is un-
derstood as a type of replication of the senior men (Seeger 1987). Accord-
ing to Anthony Seeger, "the Suya compare a man and the child who
receives his names to a double rainbow, identical but different in size"
(1987:10). In Ku'a's account of his Jowosi song, he seems to imply that he
matured into his uncle's song or, in other words, that he does not mature
by singing his uncle's song but, rather, matured after a period of adult
travel when his own experiences came to fit the kind of exploration his
uncle's song describes. In this respect, Ku'a's account could be said to
conform to Viveiros de Castro's general model of the Tupi-Guarani struc-
ture of the person: In it he tells how he matured into the autobiographical
narrative of a significant deceased other.
CONCLUSION
Indigenous autobiographical practices as they are situated in social
life offer particularly clear windows on aspects of the self in specific con-
texts within a cultural tradition (see also Lutz 1985:40 and Miller et al.
1990:292). By examining one such genre, Kayabi Jowosi singing, this re-
search follows others that suggest that some of the most interesting aspects
of first-person accounts may be the way that they show how, in certain
circumstances, subjects understand themselves to have a continuity with
others, or how they understand their own experiences to replicate the
experiences of others. Jowosi performances seem to involve an interesting
transmission or circulation of experiences between subjects of different
generations, a process that may be linked to male maturity and found in
other ritual genres throughout Amazonia more generally.
S U Z A N N E O A K D A L E i s A s s i s t a n t P r o f e s s o r i n t h e D e p a r t m e n t o f A n t h r o p o l o g y a t t h e U n i v e r s i t y o f N e w M e x i c o .
NOTI
Ackno wledgments. The research on which this article was based was carried out be-
tween 1991 and 1993 and was funded by an HE Fulbright Grant for Doctoral Dissertation
Research Abroad, a Predoctoral Grant (no. 5372) from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for
Anthropological Research, and a Travel Grant from the Center for Latin American Studies at
the University of Chicago. A much shorter version of this article was presented in a session
organized by Stanton Wortham at the 1998 meeting of the American Anthropological Asso-
ciation in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania, and has benefited from the comments of the partici-
pants Illld clisCUSKJllltH in thlH NCMHiOll.
C r e a t i n g a C o n tin u ity b e t w e e n S e l f a n d O t h e r 1 7 3
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