Burst of Breath: Indigenous Ritual Wind Instruments in Lowland South America

11. Spirits, Ritual Staging,and the Transformative Power of Music in the Upper Xingu Region

11. Spirits, Ritual Staging, and the Transformative Power of Music in the Upper Xingu Region ulrike prinz This essay aims to develop a better comprehension of the “complex of the secret flutes” in the Upper Xingu region by highlighting their ritual counterpart, the women’s music and dance, iamurikuma (cf. Menezes Bastos, this volume). The male ritual complex has gained much attention because of its gender exclusivity and the cruel menace of gang rape for women who violate the prohibition against seeing the “secret flutes.” This practice is accompanied by myths in which women are said to have been the original owners of the flutes. This has led to some speculations concerning “antagonistic” gender relations in the Upper Xingu region. The spatial and social segregation of the sexes is common not only in Upper Xingu but also throughout Lowland South America . Gender differences are expressed in the division of the village into separate women’s and men’s areas as well as the division of labor and social roles. Because the use of aerophones is of special importance for the Arawak-speaking societies of Amazonia (see Wright, this volume), the Arawak-speaking Wauja, Mehináku, and Yawalapití of the Upper Xingu present an ideal field site where the complementary nature of two gendered rituals can still be observed. Since the beginning of the scientific investigation of Lowland South America, the so-called trumpet cult has taken center stage.1 The female ritual counterpart, however, remained unknown un- til the 1970s.2 Its scientific investigation starts in the 1980s with the works of Ellen Basso (1985) and Aurore Monod Becquelin (1982, 1987), but until recently the significance of the ritual has been quite underestimated. Recent studies (e.g., Mello 1999, 2005; Prinz 1999, 2002) have demonstrated the importance of female ritual and musical traditions and should help to bring about a more balanced perspective of the ritual complex as a whole in the Upper Xingu region. Another recent study (Piedade 2004) has provided a detailed ethnographic documentation and analysis of the music of kawoká,3 the “sacred flutes” of the Arawakspeaking Waujá village, for ethnographic detail (see Mello and Piedade, this volume). In this essay, I will develop an interpretation of the entire ritual complex by taking into account not only the complementarity and opposition of ritual practices but also the transformative power of ritual and music itself. The playing of the men’s “sacred flutes” as well as the women’s iamurikuma ritual represent inversions of gender roles, and they both play with alterity that is described not only by the other sex but also by the spirit conditions. This is because during both male and female performances, the participants get into a serious and dangerous play with the apapaatai , the powerful mythical beings and producers of uncontrolled transformations and diseases. For a better understanding of the ritual complex, it is necessary to take a look at the ritual process itself: what occurs when women are acting like men, and what happens to the flute player while playing the music? How does the world of the spirits interrelate with the gender groups, what does it mean for the individual person, and, in a supposed “gang rape,” who will be acting , ghosts or men? In the Mehináku Village “Ukayumai” In 2000, I had the opportunity to investigate gendered rituals in the village of Ukayumai. The iamurikuma feast had been canceled 278 prinz shortly before my arrival, replaced by the pühükã, the piercing of the ears for the boys. After the initiation ritual, Mehináku women, being aware of my curiosity about iamurikuma, sang and danced for me on two occasions. Each time, Mehináku men seemed uncomfortable with the representations and perhaps also with the importance women were gaining with their dancing. So they disturbed the women’s dancing and singing, objecting that they were either getting too close to the “house of the spirits” (casa do bicho ) or that someone in the village was seriously ill. I was able to attend another ritual belonging to the context of “gender quarrel” rituals: the manioc feast. It includes the manufacturing of manioc sticks and scoops for turning over the beiju pancakes. Like the iamurikuma ritual, the manioc feast implicates repeated phases of men and women arguing (xingar) about their mutual sexual deficiencies. About Iamurikuma The Arawak-speaking villages of Upper Xingu are considered...