In patriarchal societies women are set up to have less power and control of their lives compared to men. This often leaves women powerless in various ways, particularly when it comes to making individual decisions for themselves and their children. This is problematic if and when women have no recourse in regaining control, no matter how small that control is. Today’s blog post will explore these situations among the Wanano/Kotira of the Northwestern Amazon and how women have been able to regain some power.
The Wanano/Kotira of the Northwestern Amazon are made up of 15,000 individuals who speak languages within the Tukanoan language family. These groups are linguistically exogamous, which means men and women marry spouses who do not speak their same language. They are also patrilocal, meaning women leave their natal (birth) home/village and move into their husband’s home/village. This produces a situation wherein men are interrelated and know each other, whereas women do not know others and are considered outsiders.
Among the Wanano/Kotira groups men maintain political and creative power and control, but women have reproductive and food production power and control. Women are valued by the number of children they birth and raise, and their value also comes in the form of the manioc they produce. Women grow, harvest, and handle the manioc, which is important because mishandling manioc can lead to poisoning others (due to poor handling). These defining masculine and feminine roles can be viewed either as complimentary or competitively. In either case there is stress felt by both men and women as they maintain their specific family and community roles.
Adding to the tension is the fact that while women are responsible for raising their children the children are expected to learn and speak their father’s language, not their mother’s. Ultimately, children will often learn both their father’s and mother’s languages, but the children must speak their father’s language in public. It is forbidden to speak their mother’s language. This fosters isolation among women, who are outsiders and often cannot and do not speak their husband’s language (even if they do know it).
To deal with these tensions men and women participate in po’oa rituals, which are drinking parties and exchange rituals. Men and women come together to share beer as well as food (game, fish, and manioc). During the po’oa ritual women will sing “sad songs” known as kaya basa. It is during these performances that women are able to reclaim some control and power. Singing in their native language these women will lament their loneliness, describing how it feels to be an outsider in the village. The women will often describe themselves in demeaning ways by stating they are ugly, small, or similar to insects. All of these evoke images and feelings concerning their isolation and outsider status. Women who speak the same language will be drawn to each other and connect on these shared emotional states.
These events are not just about expressing sadness, however. They also enable the women to vent their frustrations about political matters that they observe and have strong opinions about. The men cannot acknowledge they understand the women’s words (assuming they learned the language the women are speaking), but they can hear them. As men are not allowed to voice their concerns about political matters they can use the women’s words to understand the complexities of the issues from different perspectives. They can then choose to act based on those concerns or not.
On the outside it appears that these women have no power, and ultimately while they have no political power they can yield what they do have to express their feelings and frustrations. The po’oa ceremonies allow the women to vent their frustrations, and if the men are understanding and listening to their words then some changes may be made, providing them some subversive control in an otherwise powerless situation.
Works Cited
Chernela, Janet M. "Language ideology and women's speech: Talking community in the Northwest Amazon." American Anthropologist 105.4 (2003): 794-806.
Hosemann, Aimee J. "Women’s song exchanges in the Northwest Amazon: Contacts between groups, languages, and individuals." Upper Rio Negro: Cultural and Linguistic Interaction in Northwestern Amazonia (2013): 245-270.
Hosemann, Aimee J. "Wanano/Kotiria women’s kaya basa ‘sad songs’ as borders between sexes and discourse genres." Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Symposium about Language and Society-Austin. 2015.
