Comparative Arawakan Histories: Rethinking Language Family and Culture Area in Amazonia

11. Porphetic Traditions among the Baniwa and Other Arawakan Peoples of the Northwest Amazon

11 Prophetic Traditions among the Baniwa and Other Arawakan Peoples of the Northwest Amazon robin m. wright This chapter explores prophetictraditionsamongArawak-speakingpeoples of the northwest Amazon seeking, through a comparative and historical view, to determine what seem to have been critical elements of the Baniwa religious imagination that came to be expressed in historical prophetic movements . It begins with a regional perspective on the Arawakan peoples of the northwest Amazon, focusing on the Rio Negro and, in particular, the Upper Rio Negro valley. Both the written sources and oral histories attest to the existence of vast regional networks of commerce,exchange,and ceremonial interaction among Arawak-speaking peoples as well as intense cultural interaction with non-Arawak-speaking peoples, particularly the Tukanoan and Makuan peoples (see chapter 10).Recently,ethnographers have also drawn attention to religious traditions among diverse Arawak-speaking peoples, suggesting the perceptionof awiderlinguisticandculturalidentityamongtheArawak-speaking peoples of the northern Amazon, in contrast with non-Arawak-speaking peoples with whom they have been in contact throughout history. With this broad perspective, I then focus on the Baniwa in Brazil and the nature of prophetism in their culture.In previous publications,Jonathan Hill and I have analyzed the history of various messianic and millenarian movements , including conversion to evangelical Christianity (Wright and Hill 1986; Hill and Wright 1988; Wright 1992b, 1998). Here I present an in-depth interpretation of diverse aspects of the Baniwa religious imagination to illustrate how notions that seem to be similar to Western ideas of “purity” and “contamination” are central to prophetism and the dynamics of historical religious movements. I illustrate this through shamanic discourse, myths, sickness and curing rituals, and eschatology. 11.269-294/H&S 6/4/02, 10:13 AM 269 270 robin m. wright In these, the notion of a protected place, or sanctuary, appears to be of fundamental importance where,for example,the sick may recover and where sickness and death-dealing elements are prevented from entering. Powerful shamans and prophets have concretely translated this notion into historical millenarian ideology and practice. In a similar way, such notions have been fundamental to conversion to evangelical Christianity by defining Baniwa expectations of the coming of a savior, their representations of this figure, and the concrete utopia, which they have sought to realize in practice. This chapter concludes by returning to the comparative, historical view examining similarities and differences with other Arawakan and Tukanoan prophetic movements in the northwest Amazon. I first compare indigenous representations of two prophetesses, both extraordinary cases in the long history of religious movements in the region,and then suggest ways in which, based on this discussion, the anthropological notion of culture area may be rethought based on the ethnographic material from the northwest Amazon. Arawak-Speaking Peoples of the Northwest Amazon The Arawak-speaking peoples of the Upper Rio Negro valley today include the Baniwa andWakuénai (including the Curripaco) of the Isana and Guainía river basins, the Warekena of the Xié River in Brazil and Caño San Miguel in Venezuela, the Baré of the Upper Rio Negro between Santa Isabel in Brazil and San Carlos in Venezuela, and the Tariana between the Middle and Lower Vaupés in Brazil. Further north are the Piapoco of the Guaviare and Inirida and the Baniwa of the Upper Guainía and Atabapo; to the southwest are the Kabiyarí andYukuna of the Mirití-paraná and Apaporis River regions in Colombia. The earliest historical sources from the eighteenth century indicate a large number of other Arawak-speaking peoples in the Rio Negro region about whom we know very little,such as the Maríarana,Amaríavana,Mepuri (probably related to a group of the same name on the Orinoco), Carnao, Kavaipitena , Tibakena, Iaminari, and many others. All of these are simply mentioned in the sources with at most a few details about their location and language. By the end of the period of Portuguese slavery in the eighteenth century, they no longer existed as distinct peoples. It is nevertheless important to remember that all of the Rio Negro valley, from the mouth to the headwaters and including many of its major tributaries such as the Vaupés, and a large part of the Upper Orinoco were the territory of northern Arawakspeaking peoples and had been for centuries before European expansion began in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. The Upper Rio 11.269-294/H&S 6/4/02, 10:13 AM 270 Prophetic...