Society-TUCANO

The Tucano are a group of tribes speaking languages of the Eastern
Tucanoan (Betoyan) language family. This family is part of the Macro
Tucanoan division of the Andean Equatorial macro-phylum. The Tucano
tribes include the Arapaso, Bara, Buhagana, Carapana, Cubeo, Cueretu,
Desana, Macuna, Pamoa (Tatuyo), Piratapuyo, Tucano, Tuyuca, Uaina,
Uanana, Uasona, Yahuna, and Yapua (Japua), each of which may be linguistically
differentiated from the others.

The Tucano live in the northwestern Amazon region, along the Vaupes
River and its tributaries. This region lies within the southeastern
portion of Colombia and the northwestern portion of Brazil. The whole
northwestern Amazon region is often referred to as a single culture
area, comprising members of the Eastern Tucanoan, Arawakan, Tupi-Guaranian,
and other language families. Despite linguistic differences, all these
groups share a common tropical forest type of culture.

Population figures for the Tucano are extremely sketchy, making it
difficult not only to say how many Tucanso there are at present but
also to make any assessment of population trends. The most recent
estimate suggests that there are some 8,500 indigenous people in the
northwestern Amazon region as a whole. This figure is based largely
on guesswork, and there is no way of knowing how many of these people
are Tucano as opposed to being members of other groups (Sorensen 1967:
683).

The equatorial climate of the Tucano area is characterized by a fairly
stable annual temperature, with diurnal readings ranging from a low
of about 19 degrees C. to a  high of about 32 degrees C. Rainfall
is abundant and reaches its height around midyear. Rivers, the main
routes of transportation, are marked by frequent rapids. Flooding
occurs in both winter and summer. The terrain is transitional between
rolling plains and hilly uplands, and tropical forest growth covers
the land.

Tucano subsistence activities include fishing, hunting, collecting,
and horticulture, the relative importance of each depending on seasonal
abundance. Fish are the most important source of protein in the diet.
Fishing is a male activity, done individually or collectively, and
includes a variety of techniques, such as the use of bow and arrow,
lines, nets, weirs, and poisons. Hunting, a secondary male activity,
employs shotguns, blowpipes, bow and arrow, and poisons. Deer, peccaries,
tapirs, squirrels, monkeys, jaguars, capybaras, pacas, birds, and
other tropical forest fauna are the major game animals. A number of
insects and reptiles round out the list of Tucano animal foods.

Large areas of forest near Tucano villages are cleared for cultivation
by the slash-and-burn method. Horticulture is largely, but not exclusively,
a female activity. Bitter manioc (cassava) is the most important crop
and is the dietary staple of the Tucano. Manioc cultivation and processing
to remove poisonous substances occupy much of the women's time. Other
crops include squash, melons, yams, sweet potatoes, calabash, sugarcane,
bananas, plantains, citrus fruits, and pineapples. Men are the exclusive
cultivators and consumers of coca, tobacco, and hallucinogens. Although
still a minor economic activity, some Tucano engage in production
for trade with non-Indian people in the area. Furthermore, a few Tucano
have worked for these outsiders, especially as rubber tappers.

The settlement pattern of the Tucano is dispersed villages, located
along river systems. Rivers, navigated in dugout canoes, are the major
travel routes. Each community shifts its residence within a large
area every three to five years, as soil depletion necessitates the
clearing of new crop lands.

Communities range in size from 20 to 100 people, and frequently the
whole community is housed within a single, multifamily dwelling called
a maloca. The community is typically made up of all the members of
a patrilineal sib, the most important unit of social organization
among the Tucano. Sibs are named, localized, and have important social,
economic, political, and ritual functions. They are the largest units
within which there is any kind of authority structure. The sib headman
achieves leadership status through a combination of personal abilities
and relationship to the past headman. His powers are limited to persuasion,
however, and his term in this role lasts only as long as the sib members
accept his leadership. There are no formal mechanisms for settling
disputes, and, if the parties involved cannot resolve their differences,
disputes may result in the fission of a family from the maloca or,
more rarely, from the community.

The sibs are hierarchically ordered, and each sib belongs to one of
five phratries. The major importance of the phratry is as an exogamous
unit. The usefulness of the term tribe among the Tucano is questionable.
Observers use it to identify Tucano groups that share common descent
and language, but the Tucano have no indigenous overarching sense
of the tribe as a political or territorial unit, and there are no
tribal leaders.

Tucano marriage restrictions include sib and phratry exogamy. The
kinship terminology is Iroquoian, and marriage to real or classificatory
cross-cousins is the preferred, but not obligatory, pattern. The exogamic
restrictions, coupled with patrilocal postmarital residence, result
in a situation where the wives' primary languages are often different
from their husbands'. Marriage arrangements include the payment of
bride-price. Most marriages are monogamous, the exception being a
few headmen who have two wives. Divorce is usually accomplished by
the wife's returning to her paternal sib, while her children remain
in their father's sib.

The Tucano practice both abortion and infanticide, most frequently
female infanticide. The couvade is also practiced. Naming ceremonies
are held when the child is about a year old. Girls are confirmed at
the time of their first menses, but there is no single puberty rite
for boys. Rather, beginning around the age of eight boys undergo a
series of initiation rites in conjunction with mourning ceremonies.
These initiations include whippings, instruction in ritual, and viewing
of the sacred musical instruments, the sight of which is forbidden
to women and children.

Inter-community contacts center around drinking parties sponsored
by a sib and to which other sibs in the same phratry are invited.
Because of the marriage patterns and linguistic variety, most Tucano
are at least bilingual and often multilingual. Tucano proper serves
as a lingua franca throughout the area. Warfare does not seem to be
common and is of a defensive rather than offensive nature.

The Tucano religious system has a multitude of spirits and souls,
rather than a few important deities. Major rituals center around the
cult of the ancestors, in connection with which mourning ceremonies
are held and the sacred musical instruments played. The Tucano are
known for their use of coca, tobacco, and a number of hallucinogens,
all of which may have been confined to magico-religious practices
in the past. Shamanism is largely a male role, and achievement of
this status requires apprenticeship to an established shaman. Besides
curing, shamans practice both sorcery and poisoning.

There is little information on Tucano prehistory and their early historic
contacts. First contacts with Europeans occurred in the sixteenth
century, but intensive contact did not begin until the start of the
rubber boom in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Their relatively
remote location has to some extent buffered the Tucano from outside
influences, but rubber tappers and missionaries have had some impact.
European diseases have taken their toll. Rubber agents have offered
sources of employment, trade goods, and incentives to produce for
trade. Missionaries have focused on more sweeping Westernization of
the Tucano, including education, reorganization of the Tucano into
communities of single-family dwellings, encouragement of changes in
social organization and marriage patterns, and, of course, reorientation
of Tucano religious beliefs.

General accounts of the Tucano may be found in Silva (1962), Goldman
(1963), and Moser (1967).

Culture summary by Eleanor C. Swanson



Goldman, Irving.
 The Cubeo: Indians of the Northwest Amazon.
 Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1963.
 10, 305 p. illus., map.
 Moser, Brian.
 The cocaine eaters.
 By brian Moser and Donald Tayler.
 New York, Taplinger, 1967.
 14, 204 p. illus., maps.
 Silva, Alcionilio Bruzzi Alves da.
 A civilizacao indigena do Uapes [The indigenous civilization of the Uaupes].
 Sao Paulo, Centro de Pesquisas de Iauarete, 1962.
 496 p. illus., maps.
 Sorensen, Arthur P., Jr.
 Multilingualism in the Northwest Amazon.
 American Anthropologist, 69 (1967): 670-684.


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