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Women Among the Kuikúro

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Women Among the Kuikúro Women Among lhe KuikUro Aruak, and Tupi language groups; while coexisting in a denso relational network of BRUNA FRANCHETTO exchange, thevariousviflagesstillmaintain their respectivo territorial, political, linguistic, Translation by CHRISTOPHER PETERSON and cultural identities. lhe reader will find a story told in a literary This article systematizes scattered and personal rather than academic style, ethnographic observations on women, stitching together fragments from various womanhood, sexes, and sexuality among sources: excerpts from my field diary, the Kuikúro, a Karib people from the Alto drawings, narratives, songs, conversations. Xingu, recorded on the fringes of another My narrative sequence is a rather isomorphic study of a different nature, with different tracing of my working and living experience objectives' .lhe Alto Xingu region, located as it unfolded in an indigenous village of ia the State of Mato Grosso, constitutes an some three hundred inhabitants, from 1976 ecological, political, and cultural unit, the to 1982. Along the way, I gradually lost my result of a long history of migrations and initial feeling of oddness as both a foreigner adjustments by various indigenous peoples and a woman. An initially androgynous who ended up forming an intertribal and being ended up being drawn into a female multilingualsociety, sharing many elements identity constructed ia lhe contradictory of social organization and cosmology. Living space between a woman on this side and side by side in the Alto Xingu are Karib, another woman that was feeling her way around on that side. Once there, my need My research was and is of a linguistic nature and the objective of the field work. carried out over the for emotional survival drove me into an course of a year and a holt, was to document, apparently archaic feminization, together describe. and analyze the Kulkúro language. one with a refusal of or reaction towards a of the variants of Alto Xingu Karib. My PhD thesis was woman being who (once again apparently) an ethnolinguistic study proper, where in addition to structure 1 consider values and uses of the crudely revealed what we on this side language in the social and cultural context. This identify as marginalization, inferiorization - research would not have been possible without the a suffering condition. Finally, I discovered support of the Program for Graduate Studies in thevillagewomenthemselves, oncehaving Social Anthropology at the Museu Nacionol/UFRJ, achieved a basic command of their the Brazilian Notional Research Council (CNPq). and the Ford Foundation. I continue with the Kuikúro language, through conversations and my todoy and1continue to learn with and about them labor at understanding words, expressions, and the peoples of the Alto Xingu. I thank Vanessa narratives, songs - in short, my discovery of Leo for the invitation to participate In the Working a women 's collective and its power. Group she coordinated on gender in lowland South American indigenous societies at the 19th Meeting Beyond the desire to share a woman' s of the Brazilian Anthropology Association (Universi- singular experience in the specific context dade Federal Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro, March of an indigenous society, this essay adds 1994), wherelpresented a preliminary version of the ethnographic and reflectivo elements to data ond ideas contained in this article and where an anthropological discussion of genders, I had the opportunity to hear criticism and suggestions. I also thank Cecilia McCallum and the result of an increasingly sophisticated Carlos Fausto for their contributions. literature abounding in recent years. I thus ESTUDOS FEMINISTAS 205 S.1199 suggest (by wav of conclusion) what one their territory, while never failing to might call an alternative reading ot the constantly re-situare me on lhe fringes of mythical/ritual compiexof the JOMUrikUrnált.J. womannood. Thus, I could Traverse and The Hyper-Women, seen as the femaie occupy some male spaces that were "voice" - that of the Kulkúro women - forbidden to the women: lhe pathways on expounding on the theme of difference, lhe central village grounds and lhe hierarchy, and comolementariness between kwakútu, lhe central house of the male the sexes. collective, where the men meet, teu stories and histories. (est far removed from lhe Among the men, obsennng the women family ana aomestic domam, and where lhe first phase of mv living experience in they prepare for ana develo p "feasts", the Kuikúro village was marked by solitude sacred and profane rituais. 1 movea about and the harsh feeling of being outside lhe equally among lhe domestic areas of lhe fringes of a society in which lwas absolutely houses. the huge Xingu housesarranged in foreign and strange. lhe Kulkúro placed a circle around the vast central plaza; not me in the surreal position of an androgynous naving mv own space. I caule' enter ali of Peng. At night, certain dreams from my them, path free and lacking a center, with adoiescence would reappear. fantasies no reference except mv own little nook, a of anarogyny and herma phroditism. Distant nammock, a sleeping bag, a tew boxes, a from the women, who eyed me witn aisTrust, guest imposed ana received with certain since they did not s peak my language nor careful calculations as to material and I theirs, I was stuck among lhe men, unaer symbolic prestige, "adopted" into a family their control because of the goods, objects, in a pantomime of protection and control. "gifts" that bossessea and was expected In time, I encied up having powerf ul to distribute or cede little by little. Distant, brothers. sist ers, (women)friends who clistrusting women and nearby distrusting waited patiently for my metamorphosis. men defined my ambiguous. Tidiculous, and a severe, exploring, and hopelessly frigntening iaentity. distant mother. Finally, identified fictionally A solitary individual like lhe "owners of as lhe member of a family, I enclea up spells", nad a woman'svisible ana oovious being identified realistically as lhe member Podily traits, ver they were covered, of a faction and gained some alhos and disguised by clothing. I had male traits, enemies, faithful and coherent as such to manifestations of some power emanating lhe very end. At lhe same time, I never from the worid of wnites, and traits of failed to be a woman for lhe men. who incomplete, mutilatedfemaleness: ahagy2, always reminded me of what I could not an aia woman according to the system of do, for not being and being at lhe same age categories and the fact that 1 noa no time intellectual lmmits ("women have hard children: married but without a husbana; heaas"), which mode the aiready difficult alone, sterile, exiled. To lhe women I was a work of my iearning process even harsher; pseudo-woman beyond reach from lhe iimits to freedom (there were forbidden other side of a borderline. To lhe men I was spaces and times, like those of thepajelan- a pseudo-woman, rather disgusting for not ça, or shamanic session, which I was being a fui( woman, rather desirable for supposeci to either avoia altogether ar having something femaie inscribed i my Traverse with a keen awareness aí lhe risks body; they accepted me among them, in involved); insurmounTable limitsof the body (blood, smell). Outsiae of my nookiretuge, my hammock, I always felt on lhe verge of The indigenous terms are written using the spelling nothingness, at lhe edge of an abyss (ar on established for the Karib variants(Kuiláro. Kalapálo. Maitupú, and Nahuquó). The Alto Xingu lndians are top of an open tower in lhe middle of a undergoing an incipient literacy phase in both their storm, another recurrent theme in my mother tongues and Portuguese. dreams/nightmares in lhe village). YEAR 7206 1" SEMESTER 99 There are two definitivo characteristics of flesh. lhe hair must grow black and shiny being a woman among the Kuikúro (and until it hides the face and back. lhe skin not only among them): blood, essentially must be kept perfectly white in lhe darkness menstrual blood, and a particular smell, of reclusion, from which the young girl is unmistakable, exciting and disgusting, only allowed to leave for a few minutes in dangerous for men and individuais in the early evening or when she presents threshold situations (transformations in herself in dances aí the height of rituais - initiation and disease, the integrity of lhe exhibitions of her beautiful body and gra- wrestler and the pajé, ar shaman). dual previews of her return to society as a Menarche is an unavoidable fact in a woman, literally made. Her legs are woman's life, marking a criticai passage in painstakingly modeled; knees and ankles her biological and social life, a metamorphosis bound with embira fibers ar cotton string taking place during a period of pubescent for her caves to swell up tumescent and reclusion3 . When a woman menstruates for round, overly highlighted between the the first time, she is defined collectively and upper and lower furrows. Her body is publicly as masópe (from matso, to beautiful, white, and tal, her thighs and menstruate, with a nominalizing and tem- buttocks fat; for months lhe recluse has her poral suffix added, "she who has already physical activity reduced to a minimum. had menstrual blood"), is removed from Regular scarification, ingestion of emetics, social visibility for a period varying from and observation of dietary restrictions several months to two years, depending associated with blood - interdiction of fish, on her family group's expectations and lhe basic source of protein in lhe Alto Xingu status. Physically invisible in a protected, diet - help fabricate the body/person, surrounded nook of lhe house, the recluse maintaining a balance of entries and exits undergoes a metamorphosis from girl to of substances and experiencing pain. In woman; her body, like that of any her confines, the recluso receives visits from pubescent recluso, whether male ar her nearest reatives, mainly women, and female, issubmitted to a somatic fabrication clandestinely from the men who desire her resulting in an adult sexual and social and succeed in approaching her, skirting person.
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