Names, places, and dance houses: social units among the Eastern Tukanoans

Abstract

Abstract Since Irving Goldman’s pioneering work among the Cubeo (Goldman, 1968 [1963]), defining Eastern Tukanoan social units has been a recurring issue in regional ethnology. Many late twentieth-century ethnographies produced solid knowledge on Tukano social structure by showing distinctive and exclusive features within the Amazonian scenario (such as language exogamy, patrilineality, specialized hierarchical clans or sibs, etc.). However, they also indicated some inconsistencies and paradoxes related to a discrepancy between the ideal model of hierarchy and patrilineality and a dynamic reality more attuned to equality and cognatic arrangements. Recent attempts to understand these paradoxes have focused on what a social unit actually means from an indigenous perspective, leading to new ideas about the fractal (multi-scale) character of such units and the way they work. These interpretations take the maloca (communal house) as a model, which evolves as it changes names, places, rituals, and specific narratives that serve to create permanent differences, which in turn produce disputes and alter kinship relations.