Hidden from women’s ears
Gender-based taboos in the Vaupés area
Across the multilingual area of the Vaupés River Basin in north-west Amazonia, women are considered a dangerous
‘other’. In accordance with the local marriage practices, men marry women from language groups different to their own. Women are
denied access to important rituals, such as the Yurupary rite, and are not supposed to hear any words associated with this
tradition. The paper addresses a special linguistic practice of a women-directed taboo, so far documented just for the Tariana
(the only Arawak-speaking groups in the Vaupés River Basin area). All the paraphernalia associated with the Yurupary ritual and a
number of place names which contain the name of the Yurupary flute are a taboo to women, and so their original names cannot be
pronounced in the presence of women. If a woman is present, a tabooed form has to be used instead. The tradition is on the way
out, since the Tariana language and culture are severely endangered. The ‘taboo against women’ in Tariana is compared with other
systems of gender-based taboos across the world. How did the erstwhile secret knowledge become public? And how can one get
access to ‘forbidden’ knowledge in the Amazonian context? These issues are addressed at the end of the paper.
Article outline
- 1.Hidden from women’s ears
- 2.The setting
- 2.1The Tariana within the Vaupés River Basin linguistic area
- 2.2The Tariana language: A brief profile
- 3.What women are not supposed to know: Male cults in the Vaupés area
- 4.Women in the Vaupés cultural area
- 5.What is ‘hidden from women’
- 6.What is special about the Tariana ‘hidden from women’ register
- Notes
- Abbreviations
-
References
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Cited by
Cited by 2 other publications
Epps, Patience
2021.
Diversifying multilingualism: Languages and lects in Amazonia.
International Journal of Bilingualism 25:4
► pp. 901 ff.
Epps, Patience & Danilo Paiva Ramos
2020.
Enactive Aesthetics: The Poetics of Hup Incantation.
Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 30:2
► pp. 233 ff.
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