Urarina

Encyclopedia : U : UR : URA : Urarina

Urarina shaman, 1988

The Urarina are an Indigenous Peoples of the Peruvian Amazon (Loreto). According to both archaeological and historical sources, we know that the have resided in the Chambira Basin of northeastern Peru for centuries Myers, Thomas P. and Bartholomew Dean “Cerámica prehispánica del río Chambira, Loreto.” Amazonía peruana, 1999 Lima, Published by the Centro Amazónico de Antropología y Aplicacíon Práctica. 13(26):255-288. They refer to themselves as Kachá (lit. "person"), ethnologists know them by the ethnonym Urarina, while the local vernacular term is Shimaku, [Spanish wiki entry for Shimaku] which is considered by the Urarina to be pejorative. The Urarina are a semi-mobile, hunting and horticultural society whose population is estimated between 2,000  [Dr Knut Olawsky's photos],  [Peruecologico's Urarina factsheet] -6,000 people  See Bartholomew Dean's forthcoming, Ambivalent Exchanges: Urarina Society, Cosmos and History in Peruvian Amazonia. University Press of Florida, 2007, which represents the first book-length ethnographic of account of Urarina society,culture and shamanic resistance. The Urarina have an elaborate cosmological system Dean, Bartholomew. "The Poetics of Creation: Urarina Cosmology and Historical Consciousness." Latin American Indian Literatures Journal 1994 10:22-45 predicated on ayahuasca shamanism. The Urarina customarily practice brideservice Dean, Bartholomew. "Forbidden fruit: Infidelity, affinity and brideservice among the Urarina of Peruvian Amazonia." Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute March 1995, Vol. 1 Issue 1, p87, 24p , [Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology], citing Dean 1995, uxorilocal paterns of post-nuptial residence and sororal polygyny. Urarina women are consumate weavers of palm-fiber bast mats, hammocks, and net-bags Dean, Bartholomew. "Multiple Regimes of Value: Unequal Exchange and the Circulation of Urarina Palm-Fiber Wealth" Museum Anthropology February 1994, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 3-20 available online[(paid subscription)],  "Múltiples regímenes de valor: intercambio desigual y la circulación de bienes intercambiables de fibra de palmera entre los Urarina"  Amazonía peruana, Special edition: "Identidad y cultura", Lima, Published by the Centro Amazónico de Antropología y Aplicacíon Práctica. 1995, p. 75-118 .  Despite challenges to their on-going cultural survival, including ecocide [link], inadequate health-care Health and Human Rights: An International Journal Special Focus: Reproductive and Sexual Rights François-Xavier Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University’s School of Public Health,Vol. 4, No. 2, 1999,  http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/fxbcenter/V4N2.htm] accessed July 10 2006 and cultural appropriationhttp://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0414/2003025783.html] accessed July 9 2006, the Urarina have both been inspired by and resisted the violence of the colonial and postcolonial encounters in Amazonia Dean, Bartholomew. "State Power and Indigenous Peoples in Peruvian Amazonia: A Lost Decade, 1990-2000." In The Politics of Ethnicity Indigenous Peoples in Latin American States. Chapter 7, David Maybury-Lewis (ed.) Harvard University Press[link]] Documentation of spoken Urarinahttp://www.ethnologue.com/14/show_language.asp?code=URA] SIL International Ethnologue data base, accessed 11 July 2006, or what Kaufman (1990) has deemed an isolated or unclassified language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_schemes_for_indigenous_languages_of_the_Americas#Kaufman_.281990.29] accessed 9 July 2006 is now under-wayOlawsky, Knut (La Trobe University). "Urarina – Evidence for OVS Constituent Order."  Leiden Papers in Linguistics 2.2, 43-68. [available online] accessed 5 July 2006]. Linguistic work among the Urarina was first pionered by SIL International Manus, Ronald and Phyllis Manus. Text and Concordance of words in Urarina Datos Etno-Lingüísticos 65 series, SIL; 1979 [available online] accessed 5 July 2006. . The Urarina continue to tell elaborate stories about the violence that they experience from outsiders, which historically has included forced labor conscription, rape, disease, concubinage, and abusive treatment at the hands of outsiders In Anderson, Myrdene (ed.) Cultural Shaping of Violence: Victimization, Escalation, Response.  Purdue University Press;2004 ISBN: 1557533733 Chapter 21 [reviewed online] accessed 5 July 2006,   Dean, Bartholomew.“Intercambios ambivalentes en la amazonía: formación discursiva y la violencia del patronazgo.” Anthropológica. 1999, (17):85-115.  Portions of the Bible were first published in Urarina in 1973, nevertheless the complete Bible has yet to be published Worldscriptures.org [online Urarina data] accessed 5 July 2006. Contemporary indigenous resistance has involved intercultural education projects [Foundation for Endangered Languages] Cultural Survival's [SPECIAL PROJECTS UPDATE: Amazonian People's Resources Initiative; Building Partnerships in Health, Education, and Social Justice October 31, 1997, Cultural Survival Quarterly, Issue 21.3]and IK Monitor 3(3)Research.[link], Dean, Bartholomew. "Language, Culture & Power: Intercultural Bilingual Education among the Urarina of Peruvian Amazonia" Practicing Anthropology Special Issue: Reversing Language Shift in Indigenous America, Published by the Society for Applied Anthropology. 1999, 20(2):39-43. See online cite, Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education[link] as well as Uraina political mobilization Dean, Bartholomew and Jerome M. Levi, Eds At the Risk of Being Heard; Identity, Indigenous Rights, and Postcolonial States University of Michigan Press;2003 ISBN 0472097369 (Chapter 7: Dean, Bartholomew. At the Margins of Power: Gender Hierarchy and the Politics of Ethnic Mobilization among the Urarina)[link], Jackson, Jean E and Kay B.Warren. "Indigenous Movements in Latin America, 1992-2004: Controversies, Ironies, New Directions." Annual Review of Anthropology 2005, Vol. 34 Issue 1, p549-573, 25p

See also

Indigenous peoples

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, (incomplete) Urarina version[link] from the Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos

Notes