Sacha Runa: ethnicity and adaptation of Ecuadorian jungle Quichua 9780252005534

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Acknowledgments (page xi)
Orthography (page xvii)
Chapter 1: Introduction (page 3)
PART I: CANELOS QUICHUA CULTURE AND CONTINUITY
Chapter 2: Sacha Runa Biosphere (page 35)
Chapter 3: Huasi (page 65)
Chapter 4: Ayllu, Marriage, and Llacta (page 105)
Chapter 5: Shamanism and Ayllu Regulation (page 141)
Chapter 6: Ritual Structure (page 165)
PART II: PUYO RUNA ADAPTATION AND CHANGE
Chapter 7: Puyo Runa Baseline (page 205)
Chapter 8: Puyo Runa Ethnicity and Adaptation (page 229)
Chapter 9: Internal Colonialism, Ecuadorian Ethnocide, and Indigenous Ethnogenesis (page 265)
Appendix: Project History, Field Situation, and Rationale for the Book (page 287)
Brief Guide to Souls and Spirits (page between 304 and 305)
Glossary (page 305)
References (page 313)
Index (page 325)

Citation preview

Sacha Runa

Ethnicity and Adaptation - of Ecuadorian Jungle Quichua NORMAN E. WHITTEN, JR. with the assistance of

Marcelo F. Naranjo Marcelo Santi Simbania Dorothea S. Whitten

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS

Urbana Chicago London

© 1976 by Norman E. Whitten, Jr. Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Whitten, Norman E., Jr. Sacha Runa.

Bibliography: p. Includes index.

1. CanelosIndians.2. Indians of South America— Ecuador—Government relations. I. _ Title.

F3722.1.C23W47 986.6’ 4'00498 75-28350 ISBN 0-252-00553-8

Al compadre Marcelo Santi Simbana, a la comadre Faviola Vargas Aranda de Santi, al ahijado Orlando Victor—sinchi yachaj runa, nuca llullucu marcashca—a los otros miembros de su huasi, llacta, y ayllu, y a todos los otros participantes en su cultura, dedico este libro. CAUSANGUICHI ALLI RUNAGUNA SACHA RUNA CAUSAN

Contents

Acknowledgments xi Orthography xvii

Chapter 1: Introduction 3 PART I: CANELOS QUICHUA CULTURE AND CONTINUITY

Chapter 2: Sacha Runa Biosphere 35

Chapter 3: Huasi 65 Chapter 4: Ayllu, Marriage, and Llacta 105 Chapter 5: Shamanism and Ayllu Regulation 141

Chapter 6: Ritual Structure 165 PART II: PUYO RUNA ADAPTATION AND CHANGE

Chapter 7: Puyo Runa Baseline 205 Chapter 8: Puyo Runa Ethnicity and Adaptation 229 Chapter g: Internal Colonialism, Ecuadorian Ethnocide,

and Indigenous Ethnogenesis 265

for the Book 287

Appendix: Project History, Field Situation, and Rationale

Glossary 305 References 313

Brief Guide to Souls and Spirits between 304 and 305

Index 325

Illustrations

Puyo, 1973 4 Canelos, 1973 6

The Bobonaza River at Sara Yacu, 1973 15

Ala 52 Ruya lagartu 55 Unloading fibers for brooms at Cabecera de Bobonaza 24

Purchasing goods in Puyo 24 The road to Puyo, 1973 25

Puyo, Cucha 1971 pillan 25 49

Pottery representation of an ala 54

The back of the same piece of pottery 54

An oval house near Puyo, 1973 66 A round sacha huasi on the upper Conambo River, 1972 66

On the way to a chagra 71 Chagra near Puyo, 1971 74 Making chicha 83

Cutting the manioc stem prior to replanting 73

Storing chicha 86

Drinking chicha 87 Allu asua (fungus chicha) 87 Laying a coil on a tinaja 89

Mixing chicha with water prior to serving 86

Making mucahuas and figurines for serving chicha 92

Piling hot ashes over mucahua during firing 93

Repairing a blowgun Fixing kapok on a dart 96 97

Making a canoe 99 Makingyachaj a bancu150 99 Sinchi

Genipa face painting 170 Pottery figurines for an ayllu ceremony 174

Alli Runa 175

x SACHA RUNA

Sacha Runa 175

Pregnant jilucu bird 175 Sucker-mouth catfish 176

Cichlid 176

A new machin runa, a boss for one of the oil companies 175

Representation of a jukebox 176 Poisonous snake ready to strike 176

Drummers circling counterclockwise 182 Drummer dancing with an asua mama 182

Chicha shampoo 184

Asua mama giving vinillu to a cajonero uyariungui 183 Reentering the house during the “bringing of flowers” 187

Playing with chicha after the camari 192 Drinking aguardiente after ceremonial enactment 197

Colonists selling naranjilla near Puyo, 1960 241

The Pastaza River overflows near Madre Tierra, 1960 241

Amoco base exploration camp, Montalvo, 1970 253

A camp in the forest with helicopter pad 253 A large caserio on the Comuna San Jacinto del Pindo, 1970 256

Playing soccer in the caserio, 1971 256

Minga labor organized to chop out a roadbed, 1973 257

The military on parade in Tena, 1972 266

At home in Puma Llacta 294 MAPS

Western SouthOriente America 9 2 The Central Comuna San Jacinto del Pindo, 1973 244 DIAGRAMS

Consanguineal kin classes, male ego 106 Consanguineal kin classes, female ego 107

Affinal kin classes, male ego 108

Affinal kin classes, female ego 109

Acknowledgments My basic purpose in writing Sacha Runa is to present the rich integration of a particular set of Jungle Quichua lifeways existing in a dynamic moment of

time in some areas of eastern Ecuador. Processes of nationalization and modernization are now well under way there, and the Jungle Quichua are ready to participate in certain types of national consolidation of their rugged jungle domain. They want to bring their knowledge of the vast, complex Amazonian ecosystem to bear on matters of critical national and international concern. At the same time, they want to maintain creative, logical, adaptive systems of relations inherent in their culture, and they express a desire to inform a literate world of this. This book is the direct result of support received by the National Science Foundation, Grant No. GS-2999, between 1970 and 1975. NSF supported

the preliminary field work in 1970 and 1971, and provided most of the finances needed for field research expenses of Dorothea Whitten, Marcelo Naranjo, and me, and for an applied program of medical care delivery in 1972-73. In addition, this grant established the basis for the necessary library and archival work, analysis, and writing at the University of Illinois by freeing the principal investigator from teaching obligations during fall semester, 1973. Without such support, publication of Sacha Runa would undoubtedly have been delayed for years. We are especially indebted to the two former directors of the NSF Anthropology Section, Richard Lieban and John Cornell, and to the present director, Iwao Ishino, for the clear,

consistent, and efficient communications which facilitated all of our planning, and allowed us to proceed with the necessary work without undue strain, even as conditions changed. The proposal itself was developed on the basis of research supported by the Committee on Latin American Studies, Washington University, St. Louis, and NIMH Grant No. PO1 MH 15567-01. Additional funds from the Research Board and Center for International Comparative Studies (CICS)

of the University of Illinois, Urbana, provided research and training experiences for several graduate students. The Archives of Traditional Musie, Indiana University, supplied extra cassettes and advice. The Appendix briefly documents the development of the project, describes the

xii SACHA RUNA ways by which data were obtained, and indicates the role of each person who participated—Cynthia Gillette, Michael Waag, Margarita Wurfl, Nicanor Jacome, J. Peter Ekstrom, and Theodore Macdonald. It also sets forth some of the pivotal ways by which Dorothea S. Whitten, Marcelo Naranjo, and Marcelo Santi Simbana contributed to almost every phase of research, and to the preparation of the manuscript for this book.

In Ecuador we were sponsored in 1968 by the Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana. From 1969 to the present we have worked under the auspices of the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia (I.N.A.H.), with the

approval and consent of the Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana. We must acknowledge our continuing debt to the I.N.A.H. director, Hernan Crespo Toral, for his creative and constructive help in virtually every stage of our continuing research in Ecuador. I am also grateful to Carolyn Orr of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (S.I.L.) field staff in Ecuador, and to Udo Oberem, Seminar fur Volkerkunde, Universitat Bonn, for their technical help, advice, and encouragement. Both of them commented on some of the results of our field work,

and provided very helpful supporting information. Udo Oberem also kindly sent to me documentation of early juro-political moves on the part of native peoples near Puyo, photographic documentation from his field research in 1955, and prepared a paper on that work as well. Louisa Stark provided fresh data and analytical acuity on Jungle Quichua dialects, and reviewed Chapter 1.

In eastern Ecuador many people helped this research along. As will become apparent in the body of the text, native people near Puyo must adapt to series of imposed constraints emanating from national and local processes of modernization and economic development. In spite of our interest in native adaptation, and our help to many native peoples, most of the non-native people of Puyo and other small colonist settlements were

open, friendly, and in some cases overtly supportive of applied and academic endeavors. We wish to extend our gratitude to the non-native people of Puyo, Tarqui, and Madre Tierra. Within Puyo itself we owe a particular debt of gratitude to Joe Brenner of

the Turingia Tropical Gardens. He has taken a special interest in the ethnography since its inception in 1968, and has contributed in multiple ways to the project’s development and completion. His friendship and creative response to our many requests for use of his facilities exceeded all normal expectations of collegial aid. We also wish to thank Sister Francesca

Cabrini, O.P., Sister Reginald Marie, O.P., and Sister Rosario Marie, O.P., of Puyo, and Dr. Wallace Swanson, of Shell, for sharing information

and for their technical support in our applied program of medical care delivery, and Absolom Guevara for his collaboration in the museum project.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xili Father Raoul Maldonaldo provided helpful information and hospitality to me,in Paca Yacu and Canelos, and gave me access to materials in the Canelos archives. Rudi Masaquisa and Francisca de Masaquisa always made traveling between the Andes and tropical lowlands pleasant through their hospitality in Salasaca. They also gave us a great deal of encouragement, and suggested many interesting relationships between Lowland and Andean Quichua symbolism, as well as other interrelationships of Andean and Lowland peoples. The personnel of Western Geophysical Company of America, working as

an exploration company for Anglo-Ecuadorian Oilfields, Ltd., provided facilities and transportation on many occasions. I am especially grateful to

William G. Quirk, G. Thomas Walker, Douglas Newman, and the late Frank Freedman of Western for their interest in the project, and for their willingness not only to open facilities to me, but also to provide maps and technical information on geological and geographical aspects of the area of my concern. Art Lusier of Americana Airlines, Fred Engelmann of ATESA Airlines, Walter Snyder and Larry Peterson of Ecuavia Helicopter Service provided considerable technical support leading to more efficient travel plans, and got me into (and out of) many areas essential to the project.

In addition to the obvious aid extended by other participants in the project, documented in greater detail in the Appendix, it is essential that a few very‘special debts be acknowledged here. In her M.A. field work and

thesis Cynthia Gillette anticipated many of the concerns to which this research turned; we are especially grateful for her insights into colonization and change in the Ecuadorian Oriente, and for help in initially forming the perspective leading to the research. Theodore Macdonald contributed to many phases of the work, not only by creatively and competently carrying

through many facets of archival and preliminary field research, but by frequently suggesting syntheses between diachronic and synchronic processes through provocative application of theory to collected data. Marcelo Naranjo worked with us through part of 1970, through almost the entire field work in 1972-73, and manifested an indefatigable drive to pull together our field data within a historical and comparative framework, and to apply the synthesis to issues of contemporary Ecuadorian juro-political

relevance. Dorothea S. Whitten developed and directed a program of medical care delivery while at the same time undertaking participant field research and a study of Puyo modernization. In addition to this, she read each draft of each chapter, in some cases reworking sections until both of us were satisfied that the prose actually said and implied what our data and synthesis indicated should be stated.

Many anthropologists have contributed to the development of this project through their publications and deep sensitivity to native South American lifeways. I have been especially influenced by the work of

xiv SACHA RUNA Napoleon Chagnon, Irving Goldman, Michael J. Harner, Kenneth Kensinger, Claude Lévi-Strauss, David Maybury-Lewis, Curt Nimuendaju, Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, and Terrence Turner. Robert Braun, Michael J. Harner, Roswith Hartmann, James Lemke, Udo Oberem, Gary Urton, Katherine Wagner, and Sandra Weber read sections of original drafts of some chapters and offered suggestions. Theodore Macdonald commented on an earlier version of the first six chapters, and Marcelo Naranjo reviewed

the first eight. Joe Brenner and Joseph B. Casagrande also read and commented on the entire manuscript and discussed many sections with me. Mary W. Helms provided a splendid critique of the work, which led to the final revision. All of these scholars are, of course, absolved from any responsibility for shortcomings. Darlene Graves worked as secretary to the project from the end of the first summers field work, 1970, until late summer, 1974. She not only typed all material involved in proposals and manuscript drafts, but also handled all correspondence between field workers and those working in Urbana and elsewhere. Without her careful, diligent, dedicated support we would all probably be lost in a sea of uncoordinated papers, notes, and miscommunications. Dorothy Osborne of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, University of Illinois, completed the work of typing

in the preparation of the final draft. David Minor prepared all of the photographs from color slides, and made the pictures of the ceramic figurines from the author’s collection. The maps, diagrams, and sketches were prepared by Sally McBrearty. Both have taken considerable pains to

help illustrate aspects of life and concepts pertaining to the Jungle Quichua. Elizabeth G. Dulany, University of Illinois Press, devoted much

time and effort to the final editing prior to publication. Criticisms pertaining to any aspect of this work are attributable only to me, not to those who have so generously aided in the undertaking. The people who contributed most to this study are the Jungle Quichua inhabiting areas ranging from the east Ecuadorian towns to the farthest refuge areas in one of the world’s most rugged rainforest zones. I have not given identifying maximal clan names in this book, nor have I indicated recent changes to Spanish surnames, simply offering to scholars what I trust are adequate generalizations, without including the information sought by those bent on ethnocide. Each of the names mentioned below is a

common one in the Canelos Quichua culture area. The individuals themselves know whom I am designating, but there is no identifying, or organizing, series of places to aid the reader. I have also not identified the

site of Puma Llacta, where we resided in 1972-73 (see Appendix for discussion of our dual residence pattern). In one way or another, all of the following native people furthered our

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XV research, although in no way should any one of them, or any grouping of them, or the total aggregate of them, be held accountable for my errors in

fact, for my generalizations, for my ideas about process, structure, or national intent: Venancio Vargas, Eliseo Aranda, Josefina Aranda, Reinaldo Huatatuca, Aurelio Huatatuca, César Mucushihua, Cecilia Vargas, Camilo Santi Vargas, Delfina Maianchi, Tomas Maianchi, Teofilo Santi, Nelson Santi, Rosa Santi, Victoria Santi, Marcelo Santi Maianchi, Gloria Santi,

Basilio Alvarez, Beatriz Santi, Marta Vargas, Leandro Santi, Herminia Cariajano, Eularia Vargas, Manuel Aranda, Andrea Canelos, Apacha Vargas, Severo Vargas, Juana Vargas, Atahualpa Vargas, Baltazar Vargas,

Teresa Dahua, Adolfo Chango, Miguel Vargas, Corapicacién Aranda, Pastora Vargas, Segundo Santi, Atanacio Vargas, Tito Vargas, Gilberto Tapuy, Faviola Vargas, Luis Vargas, Estela Dahua, Fernando Vargas, Saraita Vargas, Eva Vargas, Rosenda Vargas, Eliseo Vargas, Manuel Vargas, Guillermo Santi, Rebeca Machoa, Eusebia Aranda, Alicia Canelos, Luis Aranda, Gustavo Vasquez, Corina Santi, César Vasquez, Rafael Santi, Lucinda Vargas, Samuel Isamil Vargas, Alejo Vargas, Dina Illanes, Rubén

Santi, René Santi, Yolanda Imunda, Julian Santi, Maria Aguinda, Jorge Aguinda, Antonia Aguinda, Leonardo Santi, Gladys Salazar, Domingo Salazar, Maria Grefa, Asensiona Canelos, Manuel Vargas, Juan Vargas, Victor Machoa, Solis Grefa, Domingo Grefa, Oscar Huatatuca, Honorio Santi, Turibio Santi, Rosalina Machoa, Enrique Moya, Rebeca Calle Vargas, Juan Vargas.

In addition to these people, and to many others—especially the children—who are not named, the following group taught us more about

the dynamics of social life, culture, and basic humanity than we can possibly express. To Marcelo Santi Simbana, Faviola Vargas Aranda, Bolivar Santi, Clemencia Vargas, Virgilio Santi, José Abraham Chango,

Clara Santi, Juana Chango, Alberto Chango, Teresa Santi, Reinaldo Chango, Pastora Vargas, Alfonso Chango, Gregorio Chango, Luis Vargas

Canelos, Celia Santi, Gonzalo Vargas, Olimpia Santi, Elsa Vargas, Venancio Vargas, Anselmo Vargas, Camilo Santi Simbana, Soledad Vargas,

Segundo Vargas, Balvina Santi, Dario Machoa, Adelaida Santi, Juan Machoa, and Matilde Collahuaso goes our deepest sense of gratitude, not only for their aid in this research, but for the fundamental friendship and

sense of community with which they encompassed us in the general vicinity of Puyo and Puma Llacta. N. E. WHITTEN, JR.

Urbana, Illinois February, 1975

|

Orthography Jungle Quichua in Ecuador is now a written language based on Spanish orthography. With the exceptions noted below, this orthography follows that of Orr and Wrisley (1965). VOWELS

a Spanish a i Ranges from Spanish i to Spanish e u_ Ranges from Spanish u to Spanish o CONSONANTS

b English b c Unaspirated k ch Unaspirated ch, voiced after nasals to give French je sound?!

d Englishd g English g, written gu before i hu English w? j. English h,° a fricativized k (voiceless velar fricative) sound when terminal

1 Spanish | Il Spanish ll m English m

n Englishn n Spanish nv

p Spanish p qu Unaspirated k before i4

r Spanishr s English s sh English sh

t Spanish t ts Similar to English ts as in hats, but heavily aspirated and sometimes voiced

y English y

XViii SACHA RUNA Here and there I deviate from this orthography in cases where pronunciation of loan words from Spanish is rendered much more clearly in Spanish orthography. This usually only involves use of the Spanish vowels e and o as injistero, from the Spanish fiestero (ceremonial participant). Some

place names that have Spanish spellings (e.g. Puyo Pungo instead of Puyupungu) also necessitate deviation from the orthography. Jivaro orthography follows that given by Harner (1972); Achuara orthography is not phonemicized, and is based on roughly English equivalents.

NOTES

1. I am simplifying the Orr and Wrisley “Quichua Alphabet’ here by grouping the allophones of the /zh/ phoneme under the /ch/ grapheme. For example, Orr and Wrisley’s

punzha, day, is here written puncha, and pronounced approximately as punja. This simplification is useful only with the Canelos Quichua, and must not be applied to speakers of other Jungle Quichua dialects.

2. English readers must be very careful to “think” w here, so that huasi, house, is pronounced wasi. 3. Again, English readers must be careful to pronounce this sound as in Spanish. Jauya, for example, sounds much like English “how ya.”

4. Here again, English readers must “think” of ak sound so that Quichua is pronounced keéchua.

Sacha Runa

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b.an.fo& ii ae i 2 ? \ \ ‘°™\/“ew “oe ev

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YURIMAGUAE i

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Western South America

CHAPTER

Introduction Just east of the Andes, in clear view of spectacular snow-capped peaks, live

two of the largest concentrations of tropical forest Indians in central Ecuador. Both speak Quichua,! a language long associated with Incaic expansion in the highlands and well known as a lower-class rural, “Indian” means of communication in contemporary sierran Ecuador. These Jungle Quichua live near the towns of Puyo and Tena, each the capital of a province, Pastaza and Napo. The policy of the contemporary Ecuadorian military government is to destroy their way of life. Those near Puyo and Tena bear the brunt of this national anti-native policy, and carry their ecological, social, and ideological resources into the very teeth of the expanding “national culture. ’* By elaborating and adjusting their system of

tropical forest culture to the dynamics of national expansion, Jungle Quichua peoples continuously create a core ethnicity with expanding boundaries. This book is about the indigenous people—Runa—who live near Puyo,

the most dynamic town in eastern Ecuador. It is about their high jungle—sacha—and, especially, the culture area which runs eastward through an increasingly low rainforest, providing the Puyo Runa with meaningful and resourceful bases for coping with nationally sponsored anti-native colonists from other parts of the republic. All native Quichua speakers refer to themselves as Runa (runa shimi, human speech). I shall use “Canelos Quichua’ to refer to the people participating in the culture which will be presented in this book. The Puyo Runa, then, are a territorial grouping of Canelos Quichua culture. INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE, CULTURE, AND TERRITORY

Canelos Quichua culture differs from that of the people dominating the native culture of Tena, known as the “Quijos’ (Oberem 1971, 1974) or “Quijos Quichua’ (Whitten 1975). In spite of their proximity to the Andes, 3

4 SACHA RUNA

an — ae 2S eeEee * Se a 2)ae im 9 :Bra? Ee eg. eeco ee = Barege er 2ee ca ae z eeee Sees==eee ewes gh ote Poe 7 ot PR:. 2. EF . . 7 SS eee ee a ea ee oe 5 er ee = ee eS ile a Ao me : Sa Bo eg fice pee See SEs ° gee Se “Sa. : Sr =:---:oS Pa ae ee7a eea Se ee =eS ee eeoe oe fo ee jee fee ER PESee Seee = 4EE SS SRR Se =aes =ee sreSa Ste 7. on ~ oa i: SEE Sa aa See Se ee Seas: os eeaae“ag ee =eee. 2,,Soe is eee SB ah SiGe SS ae ae ae Se se gee fee ee ae * =e Be 3 RL EE age ee ee as eee ae eae eS So Se ae . 2 SS a ees. cae =. .|:===eS ee ee Sf ey SS eco Rees ei» ER ZQR es 2 es: Sao oe ae a : . ee ee eS ae eee Sk a SS SS get peo oS see sp a wed . ee 2 oe Eeee 2 ae UE Ree ge ee ale papree i 2 nn Bye se= 7ee “ESS J" 2SE ee SS deanee. ee 2“=e > aes Lf ate== :eee po “ee Joe ess ee, See: SS ce co. eee 2 ee Ee Se af SS 2Spee ae Sees ag=See ae 2“SEs. SHES ee ip.aSa+o. 3wore SaRae eeres — =ae eeeeSe a eee a art g‘7 So co os _een CONES la. 1Tee Fea east WS Se>.. ae a i 2s ES a aaa ge +SSE: Bae FEE SE =ehee sage. Se er. zz cee 3 oh gees ee[= Ese eh ie BE SO Pee A are *2FEAR: JEy SURES Sie SES Ss=SS Se2 -¥*-,3: Seeegeene tSoe5ae esaera Saoreee cae 7 sf. 2per 2 ware oS a.Aa=Se aeSee Sass: i Se ees

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INTRODUCTION 7 members who occupy specified territories in the Ecuadorian Oriente. Intermarriages occur, and political alliances weave in and out of the established, but always flexible, territorial divisions. Another language family—Zaparoan—was once prominent in the terri-

tory of the Canelos Quichua, and some speakers still live there. The language is still “isolated,” which means that it has not been classified by linguists, on linguistic grounds, as belonging to a family larger than that of obviously Zaparoan affiliation (Andoa [Shimigae], Iquitos, Arabela, and perhaps Candoshi—Anderson and Wise 1963, Eastman and Eastman 1963, Wise and Shell 1972). Zaparoan speakers have been labeled by dozens of names (see, e.g., Loukotka 1968:159-160, Steward 1948:628-639). The term itself may derive from zapdra—a hexogonal-weave basket, with lid, enclosing broadleaves to make a waterproof back pack—which is manufactured and used by Jivaroans, Quichua speakers and Zaparoans alike. There are two identified dialects of Zaparoan in the contemporary Oriente (Stark, personal communication). Zaparoan speakers ranged widely through eastern Ecuador and Peru in

historic times, and inhabited the areas of the Canelos Quichua and the Quijos Quichua. They apparently suffered massive (60-100 percent) annihilation due to disease and enslavement during the sixteenth through

eighteenth centuries (Sweet 1969) and thereafter began to live in settlements on affluents of the major rivers, sharing their hunting, fishing, and swidden horticulture territory with Achuara Jivaroans.

The Canelos Quichua seem to have formed from a basic merger of Achuara and Zaparoan peoples, the culture being spread by Quichua speakers (see, e.g., Oberem 1974, n.d.). Unfortunately, we have no descriptions of cultural or social patterns in this zone prior to around the mid-nineteenth century (Simson 1886, Villavicencio 1858, Magalli de Pred 1890, Valladares 1912). Oberem (1966/67, 1974, n.d.) argues persuasively, on the basis of an exhaustive search of available materials, that the Canelos Quichua represent an emergent culture formed out of “early” colonial experiences: “The Canelo are exceptional in being a group formed during the Colonial period consisting both biologically and culturally of a mixture

of the original inhabitants of the northern Bobonaza area: Highland Indians; Quijo; Zaparo and Jibaro. Today the Canelo are distinct from their

neighbors even linguistically, since they speak Quechua, and are well aware of their homogeneity (Oberem 1974:347). The problem of establishing any baseline lies in the concept of, and historical documentation for, “formation” (Naranjo 1974). The Canelos Quichua may well have “formed” out of an Achuara-Zaparoan merger, and expanded the emergent culture through increased use of the Quichua language. The process is apparent in recent history, and extends back in time to “early colonial’ —presumably at

least to the seventeenth century. In short, we are confronted with a

8 SACHA RUNA perpetuative formative process. Travelers, explorers, and missionaries in this zone seem repeatedly to encounter Canelos Quichua forming out of Zaparoan and Jivaroan intermarriages and alliances, with a mediating Quichua language borne by people in contact with distant sources of valued goods. In the colonial era these goods consisted especially of steel tools (Oberem 1974, Naranjo 1974). Existing evidence for the formation of Canelos Quichua culture, then, cannot be taken as indicative of any original baseline for three reasons: first, we have no cultural factors with which to work in the establishment of such a base; second, the paucity of ethnographic descriptions of Achuara and Zaparoan culture prohibit reasoning by analogy and reconstruction; third, evidence first appearing in the colonial era through materials from travelers

is inadequate to demonstrate a colonial emergence of culture. AchuaraZaparoan (and other prehistoric culture) interchange, intermarriage, and syncretism could easily pre-date descriptions by colonial writers and visitors. We simply do not know what the bases for the expansion of Canelos Quichua culture within, or prior to, the colonial era were, though re-expansion within the past 100 years can (and will) be documented. In this book use of the terms “Achuara’ and “Zaparoan’” are quite loosely

applied to refer to languages or language dialects. My basic source stems from elicited information given by contemporary old bilingual native peoples, themselves concerned with indigenous classification of “other native peoples’ sharing acommon stipulated descent system and territory. For example, I tentatively accept contemporary Canelos Quichua and western Achuara informants reconstructive statements that the “Canelo” or “Penday Jivaroan (Loukotka 1968:158) once spoken near Canelos, but replaced by Quichua, was “Achuara.”’ In the central Oriente of Ecuador remarkable adaptability and transformation of cultural system and core ethnicity exist. The markers of a culture area in no way prohibit specific individuals from crossing the boundaries, provided that the appropriate transformations in identity portrayal and in cultural makeup are acceptably enacted. For example, there are Jivaro proper and Quijos Quichua culture bearers living by intermarriage among the Canelos Quichua, but such penetration in the culture area is absorbed and reconfigurated into the Canelos Quichua way, just as the Canelos Quichua peoples who out-marry into Jivaro proper, Achuara, or Quijos Quichua zones submerge the Canelos Quichua way.® NON-INDIGENOUS TERRITORY AND INDIGENOUS ETHNOHISTORY

The eastern zones of the contemporary territory of the Canelos Quichua were part of the mission of Maynas (Mainas) from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century. This Jesuit mission was centrally located in Borja, in

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16 SACHA RUNA characterized by more intrusion from Quijos Quichua and Highland Quichua than any other area of Canelos Quichua territory, including Puyo _ (Gonzalez Suarez 1970:202-203, Tobar Donoso 1960:130-131, Oberem 1974:347, Naranjo 1974). Marriage between Canelos Quichua and Achuara has been recorded by evangelical Catholic friars for the past 200 years, in all of the mission sites discussed above. “Zaparo’—“Jivaro” (usually Achuara) marriages, with Canelos Quichua ritual sponsors (Catholic padrinos-madrinas), are also

common in the existing Dominican archives. In Puyo, Canelos, and Montalvo, marriage with the Jivaro proper has also taken place, to a more limited extent. The Canelos Quichua have virtually absorbed the Zaparoan

speakers in the last fifty years, and marriage with highland Indians, occasionally with highland whites, and with Quichua-speaking Indians from both northern dialects of Jungle Quichua takes place. Nonetheless, the Canelos Quichua aggressively assert cultural commonality to charac-

terize themselves as a distinct people, and manifest their distinctive cultural markers through their pottery tradition, soul acquisition, ceremonial structure, and in many other features discussed in ensuing chapters. ETHNOGRAPHIC SYNOPSIS

Economically, the staple of Canelos Quichua life is manioc (Spanish yuca,

Quichua lumu). A chagra, cleared field for swidden cultivation, covers from one to two hectares. Land is cleared with axe and machete by a man, his wife, sons, and sons-in-law, more often than not without help of kinsmen or friends, although a minga, reciprocal labor exchange, may take place. Men plant plantains, bananas, maize, and naranjilla (Solanum quitoense and other species). Women plant manioc and other root crops, keep the chagra clean, harvest tubers, carry them to the house, prepare them, and serve them as food and drink. Palms, taro, yautia, jicama, and a wide variety of fruits, peppers, tomatoes, and herbs are grown in kitchen gardens in back of the house as well as on the chagra. Near Puyo the naran-

jilla is grown as a cash crop; otherwise, the Canelos Quichua have few current crops of cash value, even though the Puyo Runaare ringed on their western and northern flanks by sugar and tea plantations. Manioc beer, called chicha in Spanish and trade Quichua but asua in Quichua, of very low alcoholic content (more of a gruel), is a staple of life, and the making and serving of chicha constitutes a focal point of symbolic

interaction within the household. The masticated manioc is stored in a large pottery jar, called tinaja in Spanish and trade Quichua and asua churana manga, “dressed ’ or painted chicha pot, in Quichua; itis served ina

thin, finely decorated bowl, mucahua. All pottery is made by coiling.

INTRODUCTION 17 Women make their own serving bowls and storage jars and guard small

secrets pertaining to color, design, and ways to produce the thinnest possible sides and rims. Knowledge and techniques are passed from mother to daughter or from mother to sons wife. The pottery is fired without a kiln. This is the finest pottery made today in the Ecuadorian Oriente, and one of the finest in the Central, Northwest, and Upper Amazon. Most, if not all, pottery sold in the Ecuadorian highlands as “Jivaro pottery’ comes from the Canelos Quichua. Indeed, some of the Jivaro proper marry Canelos Quichua women and bring them to their own houses in order to enjoy Canelos Quichua pottery and the associated female knowledge of ancient souls. A black pottery cooking pot, yanuna manga,

and eating dish, callana, are also made, sometimes with thumbnail decoration called sarpa manga. Fine decorated pottery for intra-household use is dwindling, though not disappearing, with the introduction of aluminum pots and pans, but the black pottery is rapidly disappearing. People buy the new goods, or trade other things to obtain them, but they maintain at least one or two tinajas for chicha storage, and at least one mucahua for serving. Several fish poisons, such as barbasco (Lonchocarpus species), are grown in the chagra to be used during relatively dry times of the year, when the rivers and streams run especially low and clear. Hallucinogens such as

ayahuasca (at least three Banisteriopsis species) and huanduj (several Datura species), are grown, together with huayusa (Ilex species), tobacco, and a large variety of jambi, medicinal, and supai, spirit, herbs, shrubs, vines, and trees.

Men fish with spears, traps, weirs, lines, and nets, and hunt with blowguns and poison darts, muzzle-loading shotguns, and traps. Although many of the Canelos Quichua men make curare poison (also jambi), using some forty or more plant and other substances, more powerful curare for the blowgun darts comes along trade networks originating in the east and southeast. Peruvian Achuara bring poison to Conambo, Montalvo, Copotaza, and Sara Yacu, and Copotaza Achuara and Conambo Achuara carry it on

westward. Muzzle-loading shotguns are also used for small game, and cartridge guns are becoming available. Once or twice a year a long trek, purina, to gather turtle eggs, to hunt for large quantities of meat, to catch and dry large fish, to keep a distant chagra, and to trade for the appropriate

black, red, and white clays for pottery decoration is made by a family, sometimes by itself, sometimes with a larger kinship or settlement group. Travel is frequent among the Canelos Quichua, and it is usually by foot. The rivers are too rapid and unpredictable in depth (sometimes flooded, sometimes quite low) to provide stable avenues for transportation on the Pastaza east to Ayuy, or the Bobonaza east to Canelos. The Curaray itself

18 SACHA RUNA meanders so much that it is about as efficient to travel on foot from one

point to another as to make one oxbow turn after another by canoe. Nevertheless, canoes are used when heavy cargo is to be moved, and the Canelos Quichua are excellent canoe makers and superior boatsmen. The nuclear family is a very tightly knit unit with man and woman sharing equally in decision making, in spatial mobility, in upward socioeconomic mobility in some cases. Residence is ideally in the area of a wife's father, for

one year, then in the vicinity of the husband's father, but much variation exists. There is no term for this unit except the Quichua term huasi, house or household. The huasi symbolizes a microcosm of the combined concepts of the universe brought to the unit by the man and woman founders.

Long before dawn husband and wife share information from their dreams, seeking more visionary symbolism to combine with their technical knowledge. Around 4:00 A.M. the Runa day begins with women bringing

water, cutting firewood, preparing chicha and food for the household members. Men, in turn, may hunt or fish for a couple of hours before daybreak or work on some craft. Soon after dawn one of the two daily meals

is eaten, and the couple most typically goes to the chagra for the day between 7:00 and 8:00 A.M., returning between 3:00 and 6:00 P.M. for their

second, final meal. Chicha sustains them during the approximately ten-hour day.

Although information often enters the huasi from outside sources— radios, traveling peoples, news picked up by children during the day while

the parents are at work—such information is usually reflected upon and slept on until the pre-dawn hours. Then, when it seems important, the news is transmitted by individuals from household to household during the pre-dawn period of chicha drinking and vision-knowledge regulating.

The maximal kinship grouping, and segments of this grouping, are referred to as ayllu. The ayllu, as maximal clan, is a stipulated descent system from acommon animal ancestor, often a variety of cougar or jaguar. Each ayllu is today identified with a set of surnames, and extends through much of Canelos Quichua territory and on into other culture areas as well. Segments of these maximal referential systems are constructed by men and

women who formally reckon their position according to certain ground rules. Each man derives a position in an ayllu segment by reference to a sequence of ties going from his father to his father’s father to his father’s father’s wife. A woman reckons her primary position by reference to a sequence of ties going from her mother to her mother’s mother to her mother’s mother’s husband. Segmental clans emerge from ayllu structure and are linked to one another in several ways. These segmental clans are built around the core of tightly knit stem kindreds, the members of which reckon ties from old, founding shamans.

INTRODUCTION 19 Members of a stem kindred may refer to their localized relatives as nuca

ayllu, my ayllu, or nucanchi ayllu, our ayllu, but because of the intertwining of clan membership through marriage with other clan segments within a territory, intermarried, residential relatives often refer to their common membership by the term for a territorial subdivision, llacta. Each ayllu (maximal, territorial, segmental) maintains its special culture, transmitted to intimate residential in-laws. In this transmission special

concentrations of knowledge or culture concatenate within the actual subdivisional residential systems of the Runa territory. These ayllu units—many of which span two or three Ilactas—expand and contract with the purina (trek) system, as well as segment within a given llacta system. Such fissioning produces clans which ramify throughout a territory and across territorial boundaries. In this way shared knowledge embedded in the dispersed, maximal ayllu of antiquity is maintained through conflict and competition in the llacta system, and transferred repeatedly across ayllu and territorial boundaries. Ayllu members maintain their special descent ideology through visionary experience, through mythology, and through actual travel. They can reactivate the maximal ayllu concept after many

generations through the stipulated system of shared descent from a common animal ancestor, and through shared possession of the linked souls of the deceased. In ascending order of kin and neighbor units, a child is born into a huasi, of which the woman’s cultural maintenance through pottery tradition and the man’s maintenance through soul acquisition assure each newborn a place in a maximal clan extending into ancient times. The huasi itself exists within a llacta which was established by a founder in alliance with other founders of ayllu segments. These minimal segmental ayllus within a llacta

(or between adjacent llactas) are stem kindreds (Davenport 1959:565, Goodenough 1962:10-11 [“nodal kindred’], Whitten 1965:156—159). Beyond the stem kindred is the extended clan, which includes localized and dispersed kinsmen within and beyond a Runa territory. And beyond the extended clan is the maximal clan, the everlasting system of stipulated descent into mythic time and structure. A developmental sequence exists which ties male hausi, ayllu, and Ilacta founders to the knowledge of mythical times. On marriage a male must, by taking huanduj, converse with the soul master spirit, Amasanga, and have the soul master cure him of supai biruti, spirit darts, sent by jealous suitors of his wife. Also, the bride must visit the wife of Amasanga, Nunghui, to get her sacred stones and knowledge to make the manioc grow. Ifa man wishes to head a stem kindred he must, through a long period of time, acquire the

status of yachaj, shaman, becoming both curer and potential mystical

20 SACHA RUNA killer. Ifhe ever seeks to found a llacta he must make pacts with the various supai and aya, spirits and souls, of the territory, through which process he potentially becomes a bancu, seat, for the spirits and souls. He usually does not serve as bancu, however, because retaliation for the evil done by the

spirits and souls through the bancu leads many people to attempt to eliminate the bancu's social capital—his family, neighbors, friends— usually by sorcery. As the process of making pacts with spirits and acquiring souls goes on,

something else also occurs due to the constant outward movement of affinally related clan segments, and territorial consolidation by remaining members of clan segments: certain extended clans gain ascendancy withina territory. Such clans are often identified with a given area. Terms such as

Puyo Runa, Canelos Runa, Sara Yacu Runa, etc. then take on another meaning, for not only do the territories exist as interrelated and intermarried clan segments, but certain clans come to dominate, and knowledge of the Runa territory suggests the dominant clans. Segments of other clans do cut through these territorial boundaries, however, as do alliances formed through intermarriage. Such crosscutting of the circumscribed territorial clans suggests evolutionary potential toward an ethnic state of the Canelos Quichua. Such development, however, is today confined and disrupted by frontier politics of mission and nation-state controls. QUICHUA ORIGINS: UNRESOLVED ETHNOLINGUISTIC ISSUES

Before proceeding with the description and analysis of the Canelos Quichua let us turn briefly to the language itself. Ecuadorian Quichua belongs to the major Quechua group called “Quechua A” (Parker 1969:7;

“Quechua II” of Torero 1965, 1972) which is borne by speakers who separated from the “Quechua B” group of northern Peru around 800 A.D., and is the language grouping of the people who lived around Cusco, Peru,

in the fifteenth century. Incaic imperialist expansion extended this language south into Bolivia and north into Ecuador. Louisa Stark (1973) has

recently classified Ecuadorian Quichua dialects into two groups: “Ecuatoriano A’ and “Ecuatoriano B.” The former is represented today by

many dialects spoken in the central highlands of Ecuador; the latter contains less diversity and is more widely distributed in the Ecuadorian Andes and in the Oriente. It is significant for our work that Ecuatoriano A is regarded as containing ancient forms of Proto-Quechua which pre-date the

800 A.D. reconstruction for northern Peru, while Ecuatoriano B more closely approximates that of Cusco Quechua of the fifteenth century (Stark 1973:11).

Stark goes on to suggest an Ecuadorian Oriente origin for the emergence

INTRODUCTION 21 of Ecuatoriano A prior to 600 A.D., a spread westward and southward, establishment in northern Peru, and eventually a reintroduction as a lingua

franca, in Ecuatoriano B form, with the Incas. What remains to be understood is the possible development and perhaps diverse routes of dispersion of Ecuatoriano B in lowland and highland Ecuador before, during, and after the Incaic and Spanish conquests. The serious study of Ecuadorian Quichua is on the verge of clarifying many issues revolving around the spread of this ancient language, which became a lingua franca for Incaic expansion and later for Spanish expansion as well. There is no question but that Catholic missions, always understaffed in a vast, unfamiliar, rugged jungle territory of warring peoples, established small sites and endeavored to spread Quichua from the sixteenth century on to the present. But for the area of our concern it does not seem sufficient

to claim, as the Catholic Church does, that such missions caused the language to become dominant. There is today, and apparently has been for

centuries, a coherent jungle trade Quichua which allows speakers of various jungle and highland dialects to communicate with one another and

which can be picked up without great difficulty, in pidgin form, by Jivaroans, Zaparoans, Panoans, and others (Uriarte 1952:76—77). But a pidgin trade language, even with some perfection and creolization around mission bases, is probably also inadequate to claim as the origin for what is currently represented by a clear-cut set of mutually intelligible dialects. Many people in the Puyo area insist that a former home was in the east and southeast, and even in the westernmost zone of the Puyo Runa their orientation toward necessary jungle products—chambira-palm fiber for fishnets and net bags, chicle for stone-sinker coating, stones, clays, and rubber sap for pottery manufacture, genipa for face painting—is eastward, even where substitutes are readily available from the nearby Andes. We must consider the possibility of an ancient, Andean-lowland pre-Incaic, early Quichua language family to have ranged from the semi-Andean warm-valley Quichua living north of Cusco in the early fifteenth century (Rowe 1946:189; see also Savoy 1970:16g-172, Orr and Longacre 1968:546,

and Lathrap 1970:171-179) northwest to Yurimaguas (see Tessmann 1930:219, 234, Uriarte 1952:76-77, Steward and Métraux 1948:598-599).

The lowland and montana bearers of the language were by this period probably surrounded by speakers of other languages and dialects, and separated from one another long before the Incaic expansion. Under such circumstances bilingualism, or multi-lingualism, may well have become a basic adaptation of Lowland Quichua speakers. Quichua was not the lingua franca in highland Ecuador prior to its forced spread by the Incas. In southern Ecuador the Palta spoke Jivaroan. Farther north the Canari spoke another language which may or may not have been

22 SACHA RUNA related to Jivaroan, and continuing north languages such as Puruha, Panzaleo, Quito, and Caranquis may have been related to languages of the Quijos in the east, and to languages such as Manta, Esmeralda, and Cayapa on the central to north coast (Jijon y Caamano 1951, Murra 1946). Karsten (1935:2-3) suggests Jivaroan habitation of the south central highlands and south coast to around the mid-sixteenth century, when the Inca conquest destroyed them. A legend, which the Puyo Runa tell as they watch a red sunset, is that the sun is eating the blood of fallen Jivaroans, in the face of Inca Atahualpa’s conquest. Prior to Incaic rule, Jivaroan languages undoubtedly served as an

important source of communication for trade between lowland and highland peoples, in south and east central Ecuador, on both sides of the Andes (and perhaps beyond through the Guayas basin to sea-traveling

peoples). Jivaroan dialects—Palta, Jivaro, Achuara, Huambisa, Aguaruna—are mutually intelligible (Wise and Shell 1971), and apparently

once extended from Upper Amazonia over the Andes, perhaps to the Guayas basin or to the Pacific Ocean. With the demise of this language in the sierra, and its replacement with Quichua throughout Andean Ecuador, good reason for the expansive spread of Quichua in the adjacent tropical

forest and montana becomes apparent: Quichua replaced Jivaroan and other languages such as Quijos and Zaparoan as the language used to maintain trade relationships. Of course this reasoning cannot tell us where Quichua originally came from.

Penetration of the Quichua language into Canelos in the midseventeenth century occurred (Oberem 1971:37) when 150 Quijos Quichua from Napo fled hacienda oppression, but this does not explain why it should

have spread eastward, or become dominant, except as a convenient highland-lowland lingua franca after the south highland and south central

montana demise of Jivaroan. Nor does such a documented spread of Quichua speakers imply any “beginning” of the spread of the Quichua language in this area. The reader must bear in mind that many indigenous peoples of Amazonia have long been bilingual in native languages (see, e.g., Sorensen 1967, 1973). The learning, spreading, and elaborating of trade languages does not necessarily suggest linguistic replacement, even when we know that a language is spreading in an area. I am talking about dominance of the Quichua language, which became clearly identified with a culture area by the mid-nineteenth century. But it must be remembered that many contemporary Canelos Quichua speakers continue to maintain another language. The following simplified scheme of ethnic-linguistic relationships is postulated to guide further archival research and to clarify relationships in the culture area considered. It will have to suffice until archaeology and

INTRODUCTION 23 linguistic reconstruction clarify some lingering ethnohistorical issues. By the time of the Incaic conquest of Ecuador, the area east of Banos, in central

Ecuador, represented a narrow, spectacular transition zone between the high Andes, montana, and the very hilly jungle to the east. South of the Llanganati Mountains this area was occupied by both Achuara and Jivaro proper, warring and feuding with each other, among themselves, and perhaps with the “Huamboyas’ (Monteros 1937:167—168) to control the montana territory of the trade routes. North of Banos, along the eastern slopes of the Llanganati Mountains, lived other peoples speaking other languages such as Quijos. As the Jivaroan language began to disappear in the sierra and Incaic control was extended west of Banos, Quichua became

the dominant lingua franca of the sierra. Sierran mission, Highland Quichua, and Quijos penetration brought Quichua to the Puyo-Canelos

area by the seventeenth century, but still farther east-southeast the language already existed. The existence of a new trade language in the sierra, a need for a “mixed”

ethnic culture to buffer and cover warring Zaparoans, Jivaroans, and probably Tupians, and sporadic entry from the east, southeast, and west of more Quichua speakers gave the Quichua language an adaptive advantage earlier enjoyed by Jivaroan. In an area where bilingualism was common, and where war and trade complemented one another, the existence of an ancient stock plus new reasons for learning the language contributed to its ascendancy to dominance over the past two centuries. By adopting Quichua as the lingua franca the Canelos Quichua were able

to maintain and transform their distinctive cultural characteristics and adaptive strategies in the face of expanding nation states and new “frontier conditions brought to them. They also gained certain trade advantages over the Jivaro proper, and came to occupy central positions between the Quijos and their southern neighbors (see Oberem 1966/67:243-255).?

CONTINUITY AND CHANGE

The first part of this book, “Canelos Quichua Culture and Continuity, © seeks to portray these lifeways as they exist today in many areas, in spite of, or even in the face of, current obliteration and confinement policies of the

Ecuadorian government. An academic rationale for such portrayal of enduring structure is provided by Claude Lévi-Strauss (1963:95-96): “.. . as soon as the various aspects of social life. . . are expressed as relationships, anthropology will become a general theory of relationships. Then it will be possible to analyze societies in terms of the differential features characteristic of the systems of relationships which define them.’ This approach makes

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