Jivaroan peoples

"Jibaros" redirects here. For the Puerto Rican people, see Jíbaro.

Pwanchir Pitu, Achuar shaman

Jivaroan peoples refers to groups of indigenous peoples in the headwaters of the Marañon River and its tributaries, in northern Peru and eastern Ecuador. These groups identify speakers of distinct languages of the language family of the same name.

The Jivaro people are famous for their head-hunting raids and shrinking the heads from these raids. These head-hunting raids usually occur once a year in one particular Jivaro neighborhood. These raiding parties usually only attack one homestead per raid, killing the men, spearing the older women to death, and taking younger women as their brides. Once the heads have been collected they are shrunk by cutting the skull vertically and removing the skull and jaw bone. Then,the head is boiled and later mixed with hot gravel and sand, shrinking the head to the size of a large orange. The head is sewn along the lips, which are blackened with charcoal.

Percentage of male deaths due to warfare amongst the Jivaro, as compared to other indigenous ethnic groups in New Guinea and South America and to some industrialized nations.

Jivaro also engage in hunting activities. These activities usually involve both a man and his wife hunting with a blow gun and poisoned dart, dabbed with the poisonous plant curare, which stops the heart beat of the animal. Jivaro usually hunt for monkeys and birds, but they do not rely on hunting as their primary food source.

• Aguaruna

Some have also named the following:

• Antipas
• Mayna

Moreover, the Shiwiar are a group of Achuar speakers living along the Corrientes River, next to Quechua speakers; many Shiwiar also speak this other, unrelated, language.

Religion

Beliefs/Worldview

The Jivaroan worldview is built upon the idea that both animate and inanimate objects hold souls that cannot be seen by our common eyes. These souls contain power, or karáram, that the Jivaroan people believe can be contained and harnessed within one’s self. Harner talks about these souls, called arutam:

“A person is not born with an arutam soul. Such a soul must be acquired, and in certain traditional ways. The acquisition of this type of soul is considered to be so important to an adult male’s survival that a boy’s parents do not expect him to live past puberty without one. By repeatedly killing, one can continually accumulate power through the replacement of old arutam souls with new ones. This “trade-in” mechanism is an important feature because, when a person has had the same arutam soul for four or five years, it tends to leave its sleeping possessor to wander nightly through the forest. Sooner or later, while it is thus drifting through the trees, another Jivaro will “steal” it. Accordingly, it is highly desirable to obtain a new soul before the old one begins nocturnal wanderings. This felt need encourages the individual to participate in a killing expedition every few years.”

Killing becomes a vital part of the Jivaro culture. Men are only marriageable after becoming hunters within their communities. The more one kills, the more power one has, granting one immunity of death. Violence is a huge part of Jivaroan culture in respect to this type of soul belief. Harner talks about the main systems of belief within the Jivaroan communities:

“Jivaro souls beliefs constitute one of four major autonomous systems of verbalized thought so far noted in their culture. The other three are the systems of crop fairy (nungui) beliefs, and kinship system. Since belief in one system is not explicitly based upon belief in another, an adequate understanding of Jivaro soul beliefs can be achieved without recourse to the beliefs regarding nunui, witchcraft, or kinship.”

Gods and Deities

The Jivaroan people have a polytheistic religion. The Jivaro god, Tsungi, is the god of shamanism, and the Jivaro goddess, Nungüi, refers to mother earth. Nungüi is described as being a short and large woman, dressed in a black dress. According to Jivaro belief; if Nungüi dances in a woman's garden, this will produce a productive garden during the harvest seasons.A central figure is “Nungui, or Earth Mother, is believed to have the power to make plants grow. Living deep underground, she emerges at night to dance in the garden. Women sing to Nungui to ask her to protect the garden, and they carefully weed the garden daily to appease her. Jivaro believe in a protective spirit that comes to them through spirit visions. This spirit, known as arutam is thought to protect them from injury, disease, and death. The Jivaroan gods and goddesses are deeply tied to nature. There are different creators and gods that explain the origins of man and animal, the occurrence of natural events and relationships that exist in daily life. Their creation myths support their violent culture as “it is dominated by a series of battles among the gods and an essential duality of where people are the victims.” Among the deities are spirits that are known to provide wisdom and protection to the person they are tied to. Some commonly seen animals are the anaconda, pangi, and the giant butterfly wampang. These animals can help assist shamans in healing or bewitching people. Through the Jivaroan worldview, it is believed that sickness and death are caused by attacks on one’s spirit by malevolent shamans. The healing shamans will hold ayahuasca ceremonies and perform different rituals to counteract the work done by witchcraft.

Rituals

Headhunting

See: Shrunken Head

Jivaro Gardening

Unlike many other cultures, the Jivaro cultures place more emphasis on gardening (horticulture), than they do on hunting. This is due to the unpredictable nature of hunting in the Amazonian region, where the Jivaro call home. As a result, a ritualistic approach to gardening sprouted from the Jivaro cultures.

Despite the reliable, elaborate system of horticultural development the Jivaro have developed, they still believe the act to be “…as fraught with uncertainty as hunting” as Michael Brown stated in a paper titled, “Aguaruna Jivaro Gardening Magic in Alto Rio Mayo, Peru.” He then went on to say that in order, “To encourage the growth of their cultivated plants they sing magical gardening songs, perform a set of ritual acts when planting a new garden, and observe certain taboos connected with garden work.” Much like similar beliefs and rituals associated with hunting, the Jivaro believe that spirits reside in the plants and they need to be encouraged to grow by various songs, chants, and dances.

Due to the belief of spirits residing in the plants, the garden is regarded as a place of great spiritual significance. Like the inside of a temple, the garden is a place where one receives sanctuary.

"It is one of the few places where a woman can go alone without attracting curiosity and suspicion. It offers privacy from prying eyes and ears and is therefore the site of a certain amount of intra- and extra-marital sexual activity" (Brown, 171)

Experiential/ Practices

Ayahuasca Ceremonies

Ayahuasca ceremonies play a large role in the Jivaro culture. These ceremonies are used for healing practices usually directed toward enchanting spirits. Here, Bradley C. Bennett makes note of these healing practices,

"During Healing Ceremony, only shaman and patient drink Natem and will participate in the singing and chanting while the shaman will perform different actions to the patients body thought to heal the spirit."

The shaman goes about relieving the patient of any harmful spirits that may be attacking his or her body. The Jivaro also believe in an act of what may be considered telling the future or telling time. Bennett makes another note of the Jivaro and their ayahuasca ceremonies, where a Jivaro will hire a shaman tell tell of far away friends and family.

"The Jivaro shamans, Under the influence of ayahuasca, often believe that they are seeing distant relatives or sweethearts. These distant persons apparently have to be individuals with whom the shamn is already acquainted, so that he can "know whom to look for." Also it is normally necessary for the shaman to be already acquainted with the distant locale and the route to get there, and preferably he should know the appearance and location of the house of the person being sought."

The Jivaro have been practicing these ceremonies for hundreds of years, keeping them held close to their roots. The ceremonies of the ayahuasca brew continue to be practiced this day.

Experience of the Shaman

The shaman of the Shuar have a few different tools that are used to conduct their healing. The first being, Tensak, a spiritual dart that is cast out to curse or heal a person. Bennett recorded that the Tensak "exists in a higher plane of existence that can been seen when in the shaman state." Bennett also observed that, as a shaman works to heal spirits and counter bewitching shamans he will consume Banisteriopsis caapi, tobacco and alcohol to help enhance and fuel his trip from the Natem.

During a shaman's healing ceremony and trip, it is told that he will go on a literal trip; one's body is said to lift off the ground and levitate through the air.

"Part of the soul may leave the body, with the subject having the sensation of flying, returning when the effects of the drug wear off. This is actually referred to as a "trip" by the Jivaro, who say that this is an experience more commonly achieved by shamans than by other takers of the brew."

Amongst this trip, it is also said that the shamans will see beasts of the jungle. Seeing large Anacondas and Jaguars throughout the jungles of the world.

"Among the Jivaro, the most typical apparitions seen on the vision quest by persons taking the Banisteriopsis drink or Datura are pairs of giant anacondas and jaguars which roll over and over through the forest as they fight between themselves. The shamans under the influence of ayahuasca, see snakes apparently at least as often as any other single class of beings. sometimes they also see caymans. The intruding objects to be sucked out of the patient's body very commonly have the appearance of various snakes to the shaman. (Coiled snake as seen in a patient's abdomen)."

Panthers and Jaguars are not only commonly seen among the shaman's of the Jivaro but also among the commoner who might consume Natem, the ayahuasca brew.

Experience of the Commoner

The first encounter with ayahuasca was by missionaries from Portugal and Spain in the 16th century. These Christian missionaries claimed that these South American indigenous peoples methods were of the devil. Since then, the outside world has become open minded; there are now many foreigner and white people who have partaken of the Natem brew who claim to have gone through a similar experience as that of a Shuar shaman.

Michael J. Harner, recalls experiences with ayahuasca that he has had,

"As for myself I can say for a fact that when I've taken ayahuasca I've experienced dizziness, then an arial journey in which I recall perceiving the most gorgeous views, great cities, lofty towers, beautiful perks, and other extremely attractive objects; then I imagined myself to be alone in a forest and assaulted by a number of terrible beings from which I defended myself; thereafter I had the strong sensation of sleep."

This is a common recurring theme that people, both indigenous and commoners, claim to have experienced. Though these experiences are very similar among the commoner and the shaman, they are very different at the same time. A shaman goes into another realm to heal the spirits of another. But the use of ayahuasca by the foreigners and domesticated people that continue to push and expand into the Amazon's forests is causing this DMT packed brew to undergo more and more recreational use.

Missionary Influence

The Jivaroan people were the only indigenous people known to have revolted against the Spanish Empire successfully and deny all attempts by the Spaniards to conquer them. For example, in 1599 the Jivaro led a raid on two Spanish settlements, killing 25,000 white people in the process. When provoked by Spaniards the Jivaroan people retaliated without hesitation and in full force. Enraged by taxes on gold, the Jivaro people laid waste to the settlement of Logrono and in the process killed its governor by pouring molten gold down his throat until his bowels burst. All remaining people were killed mercilessly except young women that could be of use, they were forced to join the clan.

Confounding factors

Anthropologists have recognized these languages as distinct peoples, but have called attention to two confounding factors. The first has to do with nomenclature: Jivaroan language speakers typically identify themselves either by their language's word for person (shuar) or by the name of the river on which they live. Consequently, historical sources record either one name for all, or a plethora names of many small Jivaroan tribes, each the name of a different river.

The second reason has to do with social organization. Prior to Ecuadorian or Peruvian colonization and Christian missionization in the 20th century, the principal unit of Jivaroan social organization was the polygynous matrilocal household or cluster of matrilocally-organized households. Notably, although Jivaroans shared the same language and culture, each household or cluster of matrilocally organized households were politically and economically autonomous. Thus, in 1938 Matthew Stirling commented that:

the Jivaros scattered over this vast territory of approximately are of similar appearance physically; they speak a single language and their customs, beliefs and material culture are closely interrelated. With this, however, their unity ends. The scores of small independent groups, living for the most part on the headwaters of the tributary streams, are constantly at war, one group with another.

He also said that:

...they live in widely separated household groups with very little consciousness of any sort of political unity. Such groupings as exist are continually shifting location, separating, amalgamating, or being exterminated.

Prior to colonization and the presence of Christian missionaries, Jivaroan speakers were not organized into any stable and clearly bounded polities or ethnic groups.

In response to European colonization and missionization, Jivaroan speakers have formed nucleated settlements that are organized into political federations: the Federación Interprovincial de Centros Shuar and the Nacionalidad Achuar de Ecuador in Ecuador, and the Organización Central de Comunidades Aguarunas del Alto Marañon and the Consejo Aguaruna y Huambisa in Peru.

Etymology

The word "Jivaro" is likely a corruption of the indigenous word, Shuar. During the Spanish colonial period, "Jivaros" were viewed as the antithesis of civilized. The word Jíbaro thus entered the Spanish language; in Ecuador it is highly pejorative and signifies "savage"; outside of Ecuador, especially in Mexico and Puerto Rico, it has come to mean "rustic."[1][2]

External links

• Media related to at Wikimedia Commons