433 Chapter Seven Cosmos For the Matsigenka of Shimaa, kameti ...

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This system of classification conveys useful information about resource zones. For example, some birds walk on the forest floor (saaviku), meaning they can be caught in certain kinds of traps, whereas others live among the branches (enoku “up” or oshiku “in the leaves”), requiring different traps. As Werner Wilbert has pointed out, such a classificatory system groups animals according to the spaces they occupy, a kind of de facto recognition of plant and animal associations (W. Wilbert 1992: 71; 1995). As Wilbert interprets this aspect of cosmology, it is not the descent of species that matters, but their “balanced complementary diversity” within the natural (and spiritual) world. Such a classification groups biotic communities rather than a Linnean tree of genetic relatives. In conversation Machiguengas explore details that generate cross-cutting classifications. Different monkeys prefer different fruits, seeds or leaves, traces of their aboreal feeding littering the ground below. Some fish can be caught with fishhooks, others cannot. Some animals are dangerous (koveenkaripage) or eat people (sekatantacharira). Matsigenkas know all sorts of behavioral details about the animals around them, and any of these details is liable to be used in describing any particular one. Shepard (1995b) explores many forms of noun classification that also result in partial or cross-cutting typologies of animal life. Some patterns of classification, however, do come up frequently in conversation. In Matsigenka, one does not ask directly, “What kind of x is y?” (e.g., “what kind of bird is a dove?”). Two other questions have to serve instead: first, tiara ipaita “What is it called?” and second, “Is x a y?” (e.g., shiromega inti kanari “Is dove a ‘guan’?”). The “What is it called?” frame usually elicits the specific name of an animal. But sometimes I found that it was eliciting cover terms, which are more common for animals than they are for plants. A few of them have 450
very narrow scope. For example, shintori is a cover term for two species of peccary: shintori (collared peccary, Tayassu tejacu), and santaviri (white lipped peccary, Tayassu pecari); matsontsori is a cover term for four species of wild cats: matsontsori (jaguar, Felis onca), matsontsori potsonari (puma, Felis concolor), patiaigi (ocelot, Felis pardalis), and kovoteri (Felis wiedii ?). But some other cover terms range over significantly larger territory and represent intermediate categories not found in plant classifications. Typical of these is the cover term kanari, a category of large game birds. Like virtually all Matsigenka cover terms, kanari is the name of a particular species, Pipile pipile, the Blue-throated Piping Guan. At the same time, it is also used to label a number of other large game birds, such as kentsori (White-throated Tinamou, Tinamus guttatus), tsamiri (Razor-billed Curassow, Mitu mitu), and pareto (Mitred Parakeet, Aratinga mitrata; Golden Plumed Parrot, Leptosittaca branickii). Each of these birds is quite distinct from the others, but they have in common that they are forest-dwellers, they are relatively large and good-eating, they provide feathers useful for headdresses and arrows, and they are usually hunted with barbed bird arrows. In answer to a question like “What is it called?” a companion might answer, kanari ipaita tsamiri “a guan called currasow.” Many of the larger game birds, however, are not called kanari, as seen in the following exchange: “Is Cock-of-the-Rock kanari?” “No, he is Cock-of-the Rock.” Oe inti kanari? Tera, inti oe. The other cover terms frequently applied to animals are: Tsimeri, a cover term for many different small birds, such as sheshegiri (White-banded Swallow, Atticora fasciata), mampiro (Sapphire Quail-dove, Geotrygon saphirina), and marini 451
Page 1 and 2: Chapter Seven Cosmos Matsigenka rel
Page 3 and 4: egards Tasorintsi as a cover term f
Page 5 and 6: far more quickly than I could write
Page 7 and 8: The Matsigenka world is charged wit
Page 9 and 10: Words for smell are often built fro
Page 11 and 12: until the desired number (less than
Page 13 and 14: As I worked in field and forest wit
Page 15 and 16: whose hard outer wood is used in ma
Page 17: classificatory principle, I was tol
Page 21 and 22: of about 20 cm in length, whereas o
Page 23 and 24: east stomach heart liver intestines
Page 25 and 26: courteous but distant. They saw the
Page 27 and 28: that the badness of others is linke
Page 29 and 30: worlds, a material world and an “
Page 31 and 32: elief in ghosts or in the return of
Page 33 and 34: (shamans). Since both of the latter
Page 35 and 36: all my skills, knowledge and aspira
Page 37 and 38: (Baer 1979: 110-111). Itinkame look
Page 39 and 40: and came home. That night the serip
Page 41 and 42: pepper is to prevent another snake
Page 43 and 44: “You must spin now,” her mother
Page 45 and 46: leaned the tubers against the wall,
Page 47 and 48: come. But you said, ‘Eat her!’
Page 49 and 50: humans like game or seek them as sp
Page 51 and 52: A smaller number of animals, but st
Page 53 and 54: will kill you so that you cannot pr
Page 55 and 56: garden here. Now, never go upstream
Page 57 and 58: different now, not like the brother
Page 59 and 60: (Shepard 1998: 323-24). If we retur
Page 61 and 62: illness, and acquire guides for the
Page 63 and 64: In the folktale, Shintori “Peccar
Page 65 and 66: A seripigari is seen as a powerful
Page 67 and 68: wear shining armor and carry large
Page 69 and 70:
Commands are issued over and over w
Page 71 and 72:
cannot escape the human dilemma of
Page 73 and 74:
Matsigenka religion is based on spl
Page 75 and 76:
she will grow up to be one of those
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433 Chapter Seven Cosmos For the Matsigenka of Shimaa, kameti ...

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