Society and Culture
Urarina society and culture have received exceptionally little attention in the burgeoning ethnographic literature of the region, and only sporadic references in the encyclopedic genre of Peruvian Amazonia. Accounts of the Urarina peoples are limited to the data reported by Castillo, by the racist information relayed by the German ethnologist G. Tessmann in his magnum opus Die Indianer Nordost-Peru, and to the erratic and idiosyncratic observations of missionaries and contemporary adventure seekers.
The Urarina are a culturally vibrant, semi-mobile hunting and horticultural society whose population is estimated to be around 2,000. Urarina settlements are composed of multiple longhouse groups, located on high ground (restingas) or embankments along the flood-free margins of the Chambira Basins many rivers and streams. The embankments are bounded by low-lying territories (tahuampa and bajiales) that are susceptible to flooding during the annual rainy season (roughly November–May).
Urarina local politics are characterized by a mercurial balance of power between demes united through affinal ties and episodic political alliances, exchange relations and disputation. Surrounded by the Jivaroan, and the Tupi–Guarani-speaking Cocama-Cocamilla indigenous peoples of the upper Amazon, the Urarina have an elaborate animistic cosmological system predicated on ayahuasca shamanism, which is based in part on the profoundly ritualized consumption of Brugmansia suaveolens.
The Urarina customarily practice brideservice, uxorilocal patterns of post-nuptial residence, and sororal polygyny. While men are esteemed for their hunting prowess and shamanic skills, Urarina women are likewise recognized for their craftsmanship: the women are consummate producers of woven palm-fiber bast mats, hammocks, and net-bags.
Read more about this topic: Urarina People
Famous quotes containing the words society and/or culture:
“The longer we live the more we must endure the elementary existence of men and women; and every brave heart must treat society as a child, and never allow it to dictate.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“... we’ve allowed a youth-centered culture to leave us so estranged from our future selves that, when asked about the years beyond fifty, sixty, or seventy—all part of the average human life span providing we can escape hunger, violence, and other epidemics—many people can see only a blank screen, or one on which they project fear of disease and democracy.”
—Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)