Book

The fish people: linguistic exogamy and Tukanoan identity in northwest Amazonia

Cambridge University Press (39) • Published In 1983 • Pages: xix, 287

By: Jackson, Jean E. (Jean Elizabeth).

Abstract
This book is primarily a study of the Bará or Fish People, one of several Tukanoan groups living in the Colombian Northwest Amazon. These people '…form part of an unusual network of intermarrying local communities scattered along the rivers of the region. Each community belongs to one of sixteen different groups that speak sixteen different languages, and marriages must take place between people not only from different communities but with different primary languages. In a network of this sort, which defies the usual label of 'tribe', social identity assumes a distinct and unusual configuration. In this book, Jean Jackson's incisive discussions of Bará marriage, kinship, spatial organization, and other features of the social and geographic landscape show how Tukanoans (as participants in the network are collectively known) conceptualize and tie together their universe of widely scattered communities, and how an individual's identity emerges in terms of relations with others' (back cover). Also discussed in the text are the effects of the Tukanoan's increasing dependency on the national and global political economy and their decreasing sense of self-worth and cultural autonomy.
Subjects
Speech
Linguistic identification
Regulation of marriage
Mode of marriage
Clans
Phratries
Tribe and nation
culture
Tukano
HRAF PubDate
1998
Region
South America
Sub Region
Amazon and Orinoco
Document Type
Book
Evaluation
Creator Type
Ethnologist
Document Rating
5: Excellent Primary Data
Analyst
John Beierle ; 1996
Field Date
1968-1970
Coverage Date
1968-1970
Coverage Place
Bará Indians, Pumanaka buro, Vaupés region, central area, Colombian northwest Amazon
Notes
Jean E. Jackson
Includes bibliographical references (p. 259-272) and index
LCCN
82023564
LCSH
Tukano Indians