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5 Ethnomusicological Interlude: The Catfish Trumpet Festival of 1981, or How to Ask for a Drink in Curripaco There are a group of musical performances, dances, and other activities that make up pudáli, a tradition of ceremonial exchange that originated in the time of “The World Begins.” The origin of pudáli and the accompanying subgenre of ceremonial dance music, called mádzerukái, marked a crucial transition between the earlier period of Made-from-Bone’s violent struggles against his adversaries and the more recent, fully human world created during the lifetime of the first human being (Kuwái). In “The World Begins,” Made-from-Bone’s invincibility and his ability to survive life-threatening challenges are less prominent than his omniscience and capacity for getting things for people by asking various mythic owners. Made-from-Bone knows what to ask for and how to get what he wants. His power to ask for and get things is transferred to the human social world in the story about Manioc-Man, who taught his sons how to ask for drinks from other people through the collective singing, dancing, and instrumental music of pudáli exchange ceremonies. At the time of my first fieldwork in 1980–81, pudáli ceremonial exchanges were in a state of flux, reflecting major changes in social organization and subsistence economics happening throughout the Venezuelan Amazon Territory . In those villages where the musical dances of pudáli were still being performed, the context had changed from the exchange of food gifts between affines to small social gatherings for the purposes of dancing and drinking together. Nevertheless, my inquiries in various Wakuénai communities along the lower Guainía River indicated that ceremonial exchanges of surplus foods had been commonly practiced until the recent past. The mythic meanings of collective singing, dancing, and music making persisted in the changing conditions of life along the Upper Río Negro during the early 1980s. These performances continued to serve as ways of creating conviviality and solidarity between communities of people through asking for and receiving drinks. What was different in the 1980s was the extent to which collective dancing had become a means for creating new social ties between the Wakuénai and other indigenous peoples, such as the Baniwa, Guarequena, and Yeral. Pudáli was still at its base a process of building relations of friendship and alliance, but it was more focused on neighborly relations between the Wakuénai and other ethnic groups living along the Río Negro.1 In July through November 1981, I devoted much of my time to recording, photographing, and studying the collective musical performances of pudáli. In the process of learning about these performances, I became increasingly identified with the music I was studying and learning to perform. It is not surprising that anthropologists working in the field become identified with the topic(s) that they are studying. The traditions of performing máwi (or yapurutú) flute duets with Curripaco men and women placed me in a sphere of more inclusive, egalitarian relations that provided some much-needed balance to my association with masculine ritual power. Unlike the ritual chanting and singing I had been studying for several months and that continued to form a central focus of my field research, the ceremonial music was lighthearted and playful and required direct physical interaction between male flute players and female dancers. After recording several hours of ceremonial music played on pairs of flutes, called máwi, I became aware of a basic contrast between standardized duets played on two or more pairs of máwi flutes during the opening stages of pudáli ceremonies and improvisatory duets played on a single pair of flutes in the closing stages of pudáli. I learned to play several of these improvisatory pieces with Horacio, Félix, and other men in the village. Performing and improvising máwi flute music was an enjoyable activity that required close physical collaboration with my Wakuénai hosts. Máwi duets are played in a hocket style in which higher and lower notes from longer and shorter, or “male” and “female,” flutes are interwoven to create single melodic lines. In addition to this intimate collaboration between pairs of male flute players, máwi flute duets require that each male flute player be accompanied by a female dance partner who holds his upper arm. By learning to participate in máwi flute dances, I became much more aware...

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