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51 CHAPTER TWO “So Many Stories on This Day-World” History as the Retracing of Tracks after we had filmed the remains of the B-26 bomber on Wakayri Mountain in 1997, David and i made our way home to Kumene village in Kiyavwiye Floriano’s canoe, with ivailto, avelino, and Luciano poling and paddling alongside with their hunting dogs perched on the prow of their dugout. Crossing the flooded grasslands with its sawgrass and wild rice and mardi gras of water spiders took about nine hours. as we heaved our way through the dense ten water plants1 and glided through the pools that ivailto said were alligator houses, Kiyavwiye Floriano told stories nonstop. every place we passed seemed to cue another story: the war with the Hiye or Galibi; the Imawri spirit creatures on Wakayri Mountain; ihamwi shamans and poisoned potatoes; iveytipti, the inland spring that bubbled up salt water at full moon and had the power to kill or curse an enemy; datka anaconda spirits that saw children splashing in the water as parrots; Waramwi giwbi, the mound of shells that the anaconda Waramwi had left, and so on. Told in Palikur, with David translating as we went, the conversation taught me this: while the physical landscape of arukwa is sculpted by islands of jungle forest and three small mountains, in the everyday , arukwa is made and remade by improvisations on autobiography, anecdote, genealogy, and extraordinary histories. The words of Floriano’s stories were part of the canoe’s rhythm, finding point and counterpoint in the dipping and dripping of the storyteller’s pole, and the water grasses strumming David’s paddle. * * * chapter two 52 Our public archaeology proposal to the Wenner Gren Foundation for anthropological research, two years later, aimed to make links between the kinds of stories Floriano had told that day and the archaeological sites that dotted the landscape. When that project got under way in 2000, one of our first tasks was to try to make sense of the canons of stories and to try to organize them and to link them to places. Despite a strenuous effort to workshop the sets of stories into a chronology with a small council of leaders and interested people, it took quite some time for me to realize that a chronology was not something that the stories would settle into easily—and that workshops, like committees, could generate agreements with which no one fully agreed. The initial timeline of the stories that we developed was based on the workshop we had run and the many stories we had recorded in 1997 and 2001. Working backward, the “eras” we arrived at were these: 1. The Christian era (1967 to present): This period centers on Kumene , founded as a settlement of Christian Palikur in the late 1960s. These stories describe a society in crisis, painting a picture of much hunger and feuding between clans, and link both to drinking . Conversion to Christianity, according to the stories people tell now amid the nightly revival meetings, ended feuding and hunger and restored the sociability that is seen as “truly Palikur.”2 2. The era of the shamans and dances: The powerful shamans and the battles between them for control over the spirits of the region form a counterpoint to the stories of the Christian era. not readily spoken about—magic is considered evil—these stories specifically deal with places in the landscape that have magical properties. 3. The slave raids (c. 1700–1800): Many stories are told of slave raids (such as that at the island of Masika) and also of those who fled from slavery and became Palikur. 4. The war between the Palikur and the Galibi (c.1400–c.1760): readily invoked in conversation are many stories or allusions to the stories of the wars between the Palikur and the Galibi. specific stories provide detailed references to places. 5. The era of the amekenegben (literally, the Yesterday Ones, or Ancestors ): The Amekenegben are the “old ones” who were strong and had great courage, braved the ocean, buried the dead in pots not boxes, and had no salt, metal, or matches. Their settlements ranged between the amazon river and into French Guiana. stories about the Amekenegben are rarely told; historical information is generally in the form of anecdotes. 6. Struggles against axtigs (predatory animals or spirits): stories of wild and mythical creatures that eat people are readily told, perhaps [13.59.82.167] Project MUSE (2024-04-19 13:57...

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