Amerindian Amazons Women Exchange and The Origins of Society

Amerindian Amazons: Women, Exchange, and the Origins of Society
Authors(s): Astrid Steverlynck

Source: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Sep., 2008), pp.
572-589
Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
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Amerindian Amazons: women,
exchange, and the origins
of society
Astrid Steverlynck Brandeis University
The Amerindian myths of Amazon-like women, widespread in lowland South America, refer to the
primordial exchange of particular ritual objects between men and women: ciba, greenstones, flutes,
axes. This primordial exchange represents the socially creative moment that led to the establishment
of society and provides a general model for social relationships. The ritual exchange or circulation
of these objects in other spheres involving male-male relationships turns ordinary exchanges into
socially creative exchanges by ritually re-creating the exchange described in the myths. The myths
shift the focus from male-male relationships to female-male relationships as the basis of society and
provide a commentary on the significance of exchange and social relationships in lowland South
America.
Early European travellers in South America reported on their encounters with warrior
women and on the stories they heard about women who lived by themselves away from
men, whom they swiftly identified as Amazons. Faced with the elusive existence of these
women, later explorers of the region dismissed these stories as mere fantasies or
borrowed tales (Steverlynck 2005). But centuries later the stories still persisted, now
collected by ethnographers and anthropologists, revealing that they were clearly not the
result of fervid imaginations but philosophical musings on the very nature of society
and its contradictions, a metaphorical commentary on the world.1
In this article I explore the significance of these stories and argue that the
Amerindian myths of Amazon-like women refer to a general model of human social
relationships based on the reproductive exchange between men and women.2 The
myths relate that the women, who sometimes lived by themselves away from the men,
possessed some cultural object essential for the establishment and continuity of society:
ciba stones and guanin ornaments among the Taino (Pan? 1999), greenstones in the
lower Amazon, the Yurupari flutes among Tukanoan and Arawak groups (see note 24),
Karok? trumpets among the Mundurucu (Y. Murphy & Murphy 1974: 88-9), ceremo
nial axes among the G?-speaking Apinay? (Nimuendaj? 1939:177; Wilbert & Simoneau
1956: 335), and bullroarers and ritual masks among the Yamana and Selk'man of Tierra
del Fuego (Bamberger 1974; Chapman 1982; Gusinde 1961 [1937]). The stories discuss
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14, 572-589

? Royal Anthropological Institute 2008
Astrid Steverlynck 573
the establishment of proper social relationships between men and women through the
exchange of these objects as a necessary condition for social life. The objects exchanged
become fundamental valuables within different spheres of exchange - spiritual, politi
cal, and economic.
I will start with the myth about the Women of Matinino among the Taino, since this
is the first recorded Amazon-like myth in the Americas. The Taino myths were collected
very soon after Columbus reached the Caribbean by Fray Ram?n Pan?, who was sent by
Columbus in 1494 to learn about 'the beliefs and idolatries of the Indians' (Pan? 1999:
3).3 The story related by Pan?, though short and incomplete, shares many fundamental
elements with other accounts of Amazon-like women from lowland South America and
reassures us in our understanding of them. Furthermore, it supports the existence of a
native South American Amazon-like story predating the arrival of Europeans.
I then pursue the analysis of other Amazon-like stories, in the lower Amazon and in
the northwest Amazon regions. I base my analysis on the rich ethnographic material
available and attempt a comparative study that leads to generalizations about the
significance of these myths in the wider context of Amazonian societies, focusing in
particular on what they reveal about the nature of social relations in the region. This
article, then, constitutes an exercise in generalization of the kind proposed by Leach
(1961) and following a trend in the region that started in the early 1980s (Overing
Kaplan 1981; Rivi?re 1984) when the accumulated ethnographic information started to
reveal fundamental principles underlying social and cosmological relations common to
the whole region, and continues today with Viveiros de Castro's (2001) attempt at a
grand unified theory' of Amazonian sociality. Myths are polys?mie and acquire par
ticular meanings at different levels of existence and within different contexts. Identi
fying the fundamental structure of the myths of Amazon-like women allows us to
understand their significance at all levels of existence as well as the variations in the
different contexts.
The Women of Matinino

The story of the Women of Matinino is part of the cycle of myths about the origins of
the Taino people. The myths tell that the Taino people emerged from the cave of
Cacibajagua (in the region of Caonao in the Dominican Republic). The culture hero
Guahayona convinced the women to leave the cave and took them to the island of
Matinino, where he left them. Then Guahayona met a woman in the sea called
Guabonito, who gave him stones called ciba and gold alloy ornaments called guanin.
Pan? explains that
in those lands the ciba are made of stones very much like marble, and they wear them tied to their
arms and around their necks, and they wear guanines in their ears, in which they make holes when
they are little, and they are made of a metal almost like a florin. (1999:10)
Guabonito cured Guahayona of his skin sores and gave him new names. Guahayona,
now called Hiaguali Guanin, went on to Guanin, cso named because of what he carried
away from it when he went there' (Pan? 1999: ch. 1-6).4
Ciba and the shaman

Guabonito's shamanic powers are manifested in the cure of Guahayona's skin disease.
She prepared a bath for him and placed him in seclusion, after which he was cured of

574 Astrid Steverlynck
his sores and he obtained new names. Similar curing techniques were used by the Taino
behique or shaman (Pan? 1999: ch. 15-18). Ciba played an important part in curing
rituals. During these sessions, the behique would suck the stones out of the body of the
sick person. Pan? says:
And sometimes they believe it is true that those stones are good, and they help women give birth, and
they keep them very carefully, wrapped in cotton, and they put them into small baskets, and they feed
them some of what they eat, and they do the same thing with the zemis [cern?s] they have at home
(1999: 23).5
Ciba can also be related to the stones inside the shaman's rattle, which enhanced
communication with the spiritual world. Among the Taino the most valued ones were
the cohicibi, little stones made from the cobo shell (strombus giga, Pan? 1999: 9-10).
Guabonito represents female fertility related to water, periodicity, and regeneration.
According to Robiou Lamarche (1990:45), the appearance of Guabonito coincides with
the appearance of the Pleiades, marking the beginning of the rains in June. Guabonito
has also been related to the cern? Boinayael (Pan? 1999:17) associated with the moon,
rain, periodicity, and the brown serpent. Stones or ciba were also related to fertility,
associated in turn with crops, women, and rain. According to Las Casas,
[T]hese stones were of three kinds ... they held each one to have its own power: one had the power to
favor their sown lands; the second, so that women would have good fortune in childbirth; the power
of the third was that they would have water and good rains when they had need of them (1967: ch. 120).
The association of ciba with fertility and reproduction is clearly reflected in this
passage. Women wore ciba amulets hanging as necklaces or tied around their arms,
while pregnant women used ciba in the form of frog amulet pendants.6
In the myth, the power of ciba as shamanic object is associated with the creative
powers of women: their ability to transform life and regenerate society. In lowland
South America, the role of women in society is closely related to this creative potential
that involves natural periodicity, mixing, and transformation. Women are associated
with the periodic regeneration of plants and the seasons, they transform foods in pots
as they transform life in their wombs, and they incorporate the Other through mar
riage, transforming affines into kin (C. Hugh-Jones 1979; S. Hugh-Jones 1979). Many
lowland South American myths tell how men lost this power accorded by menstruation
and obtained shamanic powers instead, in the Taino case through the acquisition of
ciba from Guabonito.7 Through the control and circulation of ciba, men as shamans
participated in the creative processes that involved the transformation of life essence.
Ciba were fundamental in shamanism and, as we will see below, they were also
exchanged as part of marriage arrangements and political alliances.
Guanin and the leader

If ciba represented shamanic powers and the ability to control regeneration at the
cosmological level, then guanin symbolized the power of the leader at the socio
political level, mainly concerned with the reproduction and continuity of social order
through the creation and maintenance of social ties. Guanin were hammered objects
made of an alloy of gold, silver, and copper.8 Guanin was exchanged as part of mar
riages, alliances, and as hospitality gifts among the elite. The Taino traded these objects
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14,572-589

with the Island Carib, who in turn obtained them in the South American mainland.
The value of guanin was partly based on its scarcity, as opposed to pure gold, which was
found naturally on the islands, but, more importantly, guanin was valuable because it
represented the fundamental role of the political leader in the establishment of social
ties and in the continuity of Taino society. Guanin as an object of prestige legitimated
political power.
Guahayona's mythical canoe journey is a fitting representation of the culture hero as
leader and mediator in the process of regeneration of society. Guahayona's journey has
a cyclical character related to the stars and the seasons that represents the periodical
renewal of cultural order maintained through exchange with the other (Robiou Lama
rche 1986). This periodical process of renewal and regeneration at times involved
conjunction stressing complementarity with the Other and marked by a period of
inter-island navigations. At other times it involved differentiation stressing opposition
so that the boundaries of the social group could be maintained, a period during which
the Taino stayed at home due to weather patterns (L?vi-Strauss 1978 [1968]: 153). The
seasonal character of the canoe journeys among the Taino represents the periodic
nature of regeneration through exchange, mediated by the leader, between Us and
Other, in this case Taino and Island Carib. Through the acquisition of ciba and guanin
from Guabonito, Guahayona becomes a shaman and a leader, two social roles that are
essential in the establishment and regeneration of society.
The reproductive exchange of ciba and guanin

The philosophy underlying the regeneration of life described by Joanna Overing for
lowland South America also underlies Taino ideas about regeneration: '[T]he universe
exists, life exists, society exists, only insofar as there is contact and proper mixing
among things that are different from one another' (Overing Kaplan 1981: 161). The
myths about the Women of Matinino represent the role of the Other in the establish
ment and regeneration of society. By taking away the women from the cave, Guahayona
introduced a new order: men had to get 'new' women from outside the group in order
to reproduce their society. The myths tell that the quadruplets Caracaracol caught four
eel-like creatures that came down from a tree. The woodpecker, Inriri Cahubabayael,
turned the eel-like creatures into women by opening women's vaginas (Pan? 1999:
ch. 7-8).
The woodpecker is the shaman, a relationship that is widespread in South American
mythology (L?vi-Strauss 1973 [1966]: 221-38). The Island Carib called their shamans
caracaracol, caracolis or coulloucoli (Taylor 1954: 153). The Caracaracol in the Taino
myths can then be identified with Island Carib shamans. Thus, the myth tells us that the
Taino obtained the first marriageable women, socially creative, with the help of Island
Carib shamans, the archetype of the Other from the point of view of the Taino.
In this way, the separation of men and women (the women left in Matinino) is
assimilated to the distinction between Us and Other (the Island Carib in Guanin) that
becomes creative through the reproductive exchange of ciba and guanin. Underlying
this exchange in the political sphere is the primordial mythical exchange of ciba and
guanin between men and women that constitutes creation and regeneration, which in
social terms involves the incorporation of the Other. This is reflected in the exchange of
ciba and guanin as part of marriage alliances. Las Casas relates that
the lords bought daughters from their fathers to take as their wives, sending in payment certain beads
that they called cibas,... which means stones, because they called all stones cibas,... which they held as

precious and in great esteem ... They also gave in payment certain plates of guanin, that were a kind
of poor gold that they smelled and held for precious jewels, to wear hanging from the ears ... (1967:
ch. 99).
The significance of ciba and guanin in this context is clearly represented in the myth.
After leaving the women in Matinino and on his way to Guanin, Guahayona received
ciba and guanin from Guabonito, marking the primordial exchange between men
and women. With ciba and guanin Guahayona would then be able to participate in
exchanges with other groups, and procure women, allies, political power, or prestige.
Thus, it is not the circulation of women among men that is at the basis of exchange, as
proposed by L?vi-Strauss (1969 [1949]: 116), but rather it is the exchange of creative
powers between men and women (alternately the appropriation of female creativity by
men), represented in this case by ciba and guanin. Furthermore, by taking the women
to Matinino, Guahayona is first and foremost marking a separation between male and
female creative potentials rather than the separation between sisters and wives, some
thing that will happen later when affinity is introduced as part of the exchanges
between Taino and Island Carib men in Guanin.9
The loss of female creativity, seen from the male perspective, is described in many
mythologies in lowland South America and marks the original separation or differen
tiation of male and female creative principles (S. Hugh-Jones 1979). The story of the
Women of Matinino tells how men lost female creative powers, which now remain
inalienable in Matinino, and obtained ciba and guanin, valuables symbolizing creative
power that circulate in their place and that allow men, as shamans and leaders, to
achieve regeneration through exchange with Others. The primordial exchange of ciba
and guanin that introduces creative difference constitutes the basis of society.
Cecilia McCallum describes the construction of sociality as a process that involves
two types of relationships that complement each other: ?[M]ale-male affinity allows
men's engagement with male beings of the outside to transform them from supposed
enemies into potential male affines. It implies the subsequent activation of male-female
affinity, as men turn inwards again towards women. The process continues from here
until eventually kinship is produced' (2001:180).
In the story of the Women of Matinino the process starts with the cosmological
separation of male and female creative potentials and the necessary exchange between
them represented by ciba and guanin that serves as an underlying rationale, or model,
for male-male exchange, mediated by ciba and guanin, which is creative if it is again
mediated by male-female exchange in the domestic sphere (where women receive ciba
from men, their husbands and fathers). In this sense, male-female relations encompass
male-male relations, as cosmological relations in general encompass social relations:
Male-Female ?> Male-Male ?? Male-Female
Cosmological Outside/Social Inside/Social
Ancestors Affines Kin
The control and exchange of ciba and guanin by men represents their control over
the creative powers in the universe, not just female creativity but the conjunction of
male, female, and ancestral creativity that leads to social regeneration. Through the
proper exchange of these objects in the political sphere, men attempt to regenerate
society as leaders and shamans, at the same time that they participate in the regenera
tion of the universe at large. In this way, and following Santos Granero (1986), men as

shamans and leaders control the mystical means of reproduction'.10 Seen in this light,
we should not see women as being objectified when 'bought and sold' for ciba and
guanin, but rather we should see ciba and guanin as sources of creative power that do
not just represent regeneration but that are themselves agents of regeneration.11
The significance of material objects such as ciba and guanin in the wider social and
cosmological world has been given little attention in contemporary Amazonian eth
nography.12 I will draw parallels between the role of ciba and guanin and the role of
other objects in lowland South America: greenstones, quartz stones, and sacred flutes.13
This will not only focus our attention on the social and cosmological significance of
these cultural objects, but it will also illustrate some of the cultural continuities
between the Caribbean islands and lowland South America.14
The Ikamiaba and greenstones

A parallel can be drawn between the exchange of ciba and the exchange of greenstones,
thus relating the Women of Matinino to other stories about Amazon-like women in
lowland South America. In general, greenstones refer to stone amulets of nephrite jade
or serpentine shaped in the form of animals, especially frog, bird, lizard, and fish
pendants, as well as cylindrical, square, and barrel-shaped beads.15 Sometimes similar
amulets were worked in other kinds of stones of different colours: white quartz, for
example. These stone objects were widespread in Amazonia but they seem to have been
especially abundant in the lower Amazon area, where they were known as muyrakyt?
and the frog motif was predominant.16
Drawing on historical and archaeological reports, Boomert shows that greenstones
circulated as objects of ceremonial exchange between the elites, 'as means of death
compensation, during marriage transactions and peace making ceremonies, and as
forms of non-commercial payment to establish or maintain alliances between tribal
segments or chiefdoms, just as other types of "primitive valuables" in other stateless
societies elsewhere in the world' (1987: 37). This inter-tribal system extended through
out the Amazon and Orinoco floodplains, reaching the hinterlands by their tributaries
and along the Guiana coast as far as the Antilles. Greenstones represented successful
participation in the system of inter-regional exchange and inter-tribal politics, and
denoted political power and prestige. The exchange of greenstones led to the incorpo
ration of the Other through alliances and, ultimately, to the construction of kinship and
society through marriage. It represented, in the same way as ciba and guanin among the
Taino, a form of social regeneration and continuity controlled by men in the political
sphere.
At the end of the nineteenth century, Barbosa Rodrigues (1899, II: 3) recorded three
myths about the origin of greenstones or muyrakyt? in the lower Amazon, all variants
of the same story:17 the Ikamiaba women of the Nhamunda river had abandoned the
men of their tribe and established themselves at Yacy-Taper? or Mountain of the Moon
on a sacred lake called Yacy-Uaru? (Lake of the Moon); every year the women fasted
and held a feast in honour of the moon, who was the Mother of the muyrakyt? and
dwelled at the bottom of the lake; the Ikamiaba dived in the water and received the
precious stones or muyrakyt? in the shapes that they requested; the muyrakyt?
remained soft while in the water but hardened outside when in contact with air; they
came in many shapes and colours. The Ikamiaba of the Nhamunda, like the Amazons
of other parts of the world, had an arrangement with the men of their tribe: the men
could visit the women only once a year, the male children born were returned to their

fathers while the female children stayed with their mothers and their fathers were
rewarded with gifts of muyrakyt?.18
The muyrakyt? or greenstones reflect the complementarity between male and female
creativity and symbolize regeneration. When the stones were in the water, the primor
dial feminine underworld, they were soft and malleable, like the rocks in the rapids of
the Vaup?s river were soft and malleable in primordial times and bear the imprints of
the ancestors. Once they emerged from the water, they became hard under the heat and
energy of the sun.19 Hence, they were handed over from the feminine to the masculine
realm, involving a process of transformation that resulted from contact and exchange
between women and men. The creative potential of greenstones that results from
male-female creative contact underlies their circulation in the political sphere among
men. Like the circulation of ciba, greenstones represent reproductive exchange and the
circulation of life essence or creative potential at different levels of social existence
between men and women, kin and affines, Us and Other, humans and ancestors.
Peter Rivi?re says:
Certain types of creativity depend on the mixing of unlikes, of which inside and outside are stereo
typical forms, and this becomes clearest in essential moments of social reproduction - the creation of
social beings in initiation and of social units in the house. However, I now think that there is a further
rider to be added to this. What creativity requires is the transcending of the mundane like and unlike
to achieve a cosmic unity (2001: 42).
He suggests that this transcendence is achieved through ritual because ritual time itself
is transcendence, 'It is the temporary transcendency, during which the divisions of the
ordinary world are suppressed, that is creative and not just the differences themselves'
(2001: 42).20 In the myths, the exchange of greenstones, ciba, and guanin has this
transcendent quality related to the spiritual world of the ancestors. These objects are
permanent' manifestations of creativity that imbue social phenomena with ritual
character, thus making them creative.21
Moroever, at the same time that they represent the ultimate consubstantiation - as
far as it can be achieved - that underlies creativity and human existence, ciba, guanin
and greenstones also reflect the ambiguity of this creative potential that is born of an
insurmountable difference or tension between opposed but complementary principles.
In this sense, these symbolic objects represent in material form what myth represents at
the level of ideas. Through the circulation of these objects humans negotiate the
inherent tensions underlying existence in a creative way: male and female, Us and
Other, kin and affine, human and spiritual. They are circulating myths, or a cosmology
in circulation.
Quartz stones in the northwest Amazon region

In the northwest Amazon region, quartz stone pendants have an origin similar to
greenstones. Quartz stone pendants are white opaque stones ground into cylinders with
flat ends and pierced with a hole at the end through which a string is inserted. The
chief's cylinder is larger and the piercing for the string is done lengthways so that the
cylinder hangs transversely across the breast; it is the symbol of his authority (Ribeiro
de Sampaio 1825: 114; Wallace 1870 [1853]: 279). The myths say that the culture hero
Yurupari obtained the stone pendant - called it?-tix?ua (stone of the chief), according
to Stradelli (Orjuela 1983), and nanacy, according to Barbosa Rodrigues (1899: II, 50) -

from the Mountain of the Moon, together with the feather ornaments necessary to
celebrate the Yurupari rites. These versions relate the quartz pendants, it?-tix?ua or
nanacy, to the muyrakyt?, all originating from the Mountain of the Moon (Yacy
Taper?). More recently recorded myths in the northwest Amazon say that the quartz
stone, feather headdresses, and other ritual paraphernalia were given to the ancestors by
the primordial female shaman creator (Correa 1992; Fulop 1956; Panl?n Kumu &
Kenhiri 1980).22 The ancestors gave these items to the culture hero so that he would be
able to establish society. Thus, quartz stone pendants are related to ancestral creative
powers.
Quartz stones are especially significant in the context of shamanism. They are part
of the shaman's paraphernalia, not only in the form of the cylinder pendant but also as
magical stones that the shaman carries in a special pouch and are used in curing rituals,
just like the ciba of the Taino. They are also found inside the maraca that enhances
communication with the spiritual world (Goldman 1963: 164; Wilbert 1993; Wright
1998: 85-6). Reichel-Dolmatoff (1979) remarks that the quartz cylinder represents the
Sun's semen or creative energy and that quartz crystals allow the shaman to be trans
ported to the other world, where the real nature of things is revealed, allowing him to
understand and influence the creative process.23 In the northwest Amazon all men have
access to shamanic power, thus all men used to wear the quartz cylinder. In the case of
the leader, it enhanced his earthly authority by relating him to the ancestral source of
vitality, order, and continuity.
Quartz crystals are at once a symbol of the primordial womb - or ancestral maloca
- containing life essence and a symbol of the Sun's semen. They represent female
creativity, yet the stones also represent the solar principle, hardness and masculinity,
and are the symbol of men's control, as shamans and leaders, over the creative process.
The sacred flutes

In the northwest Amazon, the myths of Amazon-like women involve the flutes that
women once kept hidden from the men. These instruments, known throughout the
region as Yurupari flutes and associated with the culture hero Yurupari, represent the
exchange between men and women that led to the establishment of society. Chaumeil
proposes that the complex of sacred flutes is of Arawak origin and interestingly
adds:
We can't but be struck by the similarities between certain qualities of the Taino trigonolites, the
famous 'three-pointed stone' figures believed to prevent illness, make manioc grow, or facilitate
childbirth, and certain attributes of the sacred flutes, knowing, moreover, that the Taino shamans used
trumpets with resonators during their curing sessions, the sound of which could be heard many
kilometres away (1997:106, n. 2).
His comment about the trigonolites seems to apply to ciba as described by Las Casas,
mentioned above.
The sacred flutes have a widespread presence in lowland South America, not only
among the Tukanoan groups in the northwest Amazon but also among Arawak groups
in the upper Orinoco and upper Rio Negro, among the Canela and the Mehinaku in the
Upper Xingu region, and among the Mundurucu of central Brazil (Chaumeil 1997: 97,
102-3).24 I will refer mainly to the northwest Amazon region, and to the Barasana in
particular as described by Stephen Hugh-Jones (1979).

The Barasana myths tell that it was the women who first discovered the sacred flutes
or He instruments (S. Hugh-Jones 1979: 265-6). The creator had hidden the flutes in the
river, and before he could teach the men how to play them, the women, led by the
female ancestor Romi Kumu, stole them and ran away along the river-beds, thus
abandoning the men. During this time the women played the flutes, performed the He
House rituals (known more generally as Yurupari rituals), and became powerful. The
men had to do the women's work and lived in fear of them. They were also worried
about the future of humanity since the women refused to have sex. Finally, an ancestor
helped the men get the flutes back through the use of shamanism. Some versions say
that the shaman made new flutes and taught the men how to blow them, thus giving
them the powers of shamanism. As punishment, the men made women menstruate.
They blew in the direction of women's vaginas, debilitating them and causing men
struation. Other versions say that the men rammed the instruments inside women's
vaginas. It was He Anaconda (known more generally as the culture hero Yurupari) who
finally taught the men how to play the flutes and celebrate the He House rituals that
constitute the foundations of Barasana society.
The He instruments or Yurupari flutes are the bones of the culture hero, and represent
the ancestors, the He, who come alive during the rituals. The rituals are male initiation
rituals but they also revitalize and re-create the whole society, the male descent groups.
At the same time the natural world is regenerated since the flutes also represent animals
that come to dance with the Barasana during He House. Similar rituals, called Fruit-House
rituals among the Barasana and dabucuri more generally, celebrate the ripening of
important fruits and plants. The ritual playing of the Yurupari flutes leads to the
regeneration of the social and natural worlds through ritual contact with the spiritual
world of the ancestors and the re-creation of the primordial world of creation, when the
human, natural, and spiritual/ancestral worlds were an undifferentiated, spontaneously
creative whole. Although women are not allowed to participate in the Yurupari rituals or
see the sacred flutes, the flutes represent both male and female creative powers: for
example, the flutes are played in pairs representing male and female complementarity.
Furthermore, in the rituals the beeswax gourd and menstruation are fundamental
symbols of female creativity that men attempt to control through shamanism.
While women lost the flutes and shamanic powers to the men, they gained the power
to menstruate, and, vice versa, men cannot menstruate but they have the Yurupari flutes
and shamanic powers that allow them to control the creative process. The necessity to
exchange, understood in terms of establishing co-operation and complementarity
between men and women, arises from this initial differentiation that is manifested in
male and female creativity. The same was observed in the case of the Taino, where
Guahayona received shamanic powers from Guabonito and it is the shaman who causes
women to menstruate by opening up women's vaginas.25 The Barasana myths show
that without shamanic control, female creativity would lead to an asocial world, the
world of Amazon-like women, through the reverse voyage along the ancestral river
beds from society back to primordial chaos, where there is always the threat of the
animal or the spirit lover, the mixing of categories that should remain separate.26 At the
same time, shamanic power alone, without contact with female creativity, is sterile
(Erikson 2001; Rivi?re 1969). This is clear in the Yurupari rituals, where the shaman
handles the beeswax gourd, a symbol of female menstruation and, according to
Stephen Hugh-Jones (1979), maybe the most fundamental symbol of creative power in
the rituals.

The differences between male and female creativity are insurmountable and
exchange has to be kept alive through continuous co-operation achieved through
reciprocity in production and reproduction in everyday life in order to achieve social
regeneration. This is achieved through the establishment of proper social relationships
that vary according to the social organization of each particular group (Steverlynck
2003). The proper celebration of the Yurupari rituals by men in the northwest Amazon
accompanies the establishment of a particular social order - male descent groups,
virilocality, and language exogamy (?rhem 1981; S. Hugh-Jones 1979; Jackson 1983) - in
which women are seen as uncontrollable and are associated with otherness while men
control regeneration through ritual and shamanism (Jackson 1992), sacred flutes, and
quartz stones.
Flutes and quartz stones are part of what Tukanoan myths call the Instruments of
Life Transformation,27 a term that refers in particular to their power to transform life,
in turn related to the power of women to create through transformation in pregnancy
and birth as opposed to the creative powers of men related to aggression (killing
animals to provide food and regenerate the animal world [?rhem 1996], burning trees
to regenerate the world of plants), death (transmission of names/souls to newborn
children), and control (ritual regeneration) (S. Hugh-Jones 1979). According to Stephen
Hugh-Jones, although flutes are not normally exchanged, one might see flutes and
feather ornaments (which were and still are exchanged) as one single complex with
silent feathers as the visual, chromatic complement (must be seen; no noise) to noisy
flutes (must be heard but not seen by women)' (S. Hugh-Jones in press). Even if the
flutes are not actually exchanged, the playing of the flutes mediates all ritual exchanges
between humans and spirits, humans and the natural world in He House and Fruit
House rituals, or between Us and Other during Food House rituals (S. Hugh-Jones
1993; also Hill 1987). Hence, one could say that in a sense celebrating the rituals or
playing the sacred flutes is similar to exchanging feather ornaments, greenstones, or
ciba. Sometimes ritual blowing replaces the playing of the flutes, as in the exchange with
the Master of Animals (?rhem 1996); sometimes it is quartz stones that mediate
between humans and the supernatural. What is always represented is the exchange
between complementary and opposite creative potentials modelled upon the mythical
exchange of the flutes between men and women, which constitutes the foundation of
Barasana society.
Discussion
The mythical exchange of ciba, guanin, greenstones, quartz stones, and the sacred flutes
between men and women helps us to understand exchange and social relationships in
general in Amazonia. In the myths, and following Overing's description of the philoso
phy of life in Amazonia (Overing Kaplan 1981), the exchange of these objects is a
creative process that leads to the establishment of society through the conjunction of
opposed and complementary principles: male and female, human and ancestral/
spiritual. At the social level, creation and regeneration are achieved through the circu
lation of greenstones, ciba, and guanin or through the ritual mediation of quartz stones
and the Yurupari flutes that also circulate in the form of feathers.
The myths of Amazon-like women provide a metaphysical commentary on the
nature of social relationships in Amazonia that encompasses different views of social
relationships developed in the region. Viveiros de Castro (1996), in a review article on
Amazonian anthropology, recognizes three major analytical styles that produced

diff?rent descriptions of social relationships: the political economy of control', the

'symbolic economy of alterity', and the 'moral economy of intimacy'. As he says, this
classification 'highlights only theoretical emphases within a widely shared thematic
field, and various ethnologists combine more than one' (Viveiros de Castro 1996:188).
Thus, these approaches do not exclude one another as explanations of the social
universe; rather they complement each other by focusing on different dimensions of
social relations.
The political economy of control' approach of Turner (1979) and Rivi?re (1984)
privileges relationships in the political sphere, mainly between men, that influence
factors related to the distribution and control of people, such as marriage rules and
post-marital residence, and shape the nature of social relationships in a particular
society. Viveiros de Castro also emphasizes the relationships that humans establish with
the outside, again conceived mainly in terms of male-male relationships, but he points
out that it is not just other people that humans have to deal with but many other types
of Others. Thus, he gives priority to the cosmological sphere of relationships, rather
than the political, and suggests that these relationships provide the model upon which
other social relationships, at the political and domestic level, are modelled. He empha
sizes the role of difference or alterity, often expressed in terms of pr?dation, as the
structuring principle underlying social relationships in Amazonia, thus the 'symbolic
economy of alterity' (Viveiros de Castro 1993; 1996). These two approaches are coun
terbalanced by a shift in focus towards the domestic sphere and the construction of
kinship in which the relationships between men and women are fundamental and are
mainly understood in terms of complementarity and reciprocity, rather than pr?da
tion. This is what Viveiros de Castro calls the 'moral economy of intimacy' proposed by
McCallum (1989; 2001), Gow (1991), Santos Granero (1991), and Overing and Passes
(2000). Nevertheless, although sociality or conviviality defined as a processual phe
nomenon based on equality and reciprocity is far removed from pr?dation as proposed
by Viveiros de Castro, it is also based on alterity or difference defined by gender and
understood as male and female agency, in turn related to creativity.
The Amerindian myths of Amazon-like women are concerned with social relation
ships in all these spheres, the political, the cosmological, and the domestic, articulated
through the idiom of exchange. Exchange in these spheres reproduces the primordial
exchange between men and women that led to the establishment of society. Underlying
exchange are the differences between male and female creativity that have to be medi
ated in order for life and society to exist (Overing Kaplan 1981). The myths establish the
complementarity of the feminine and the masculine in the acquisition of culture and
the re-creation of society at the same time that they represent the tensions inherent in
the relationships between men and women. There is always a potential for pr?dation,
initiated in the Barasana case paradoxically not by the men but by the women, who
keep the sacred flutes away from the men. This is expressed in other myths in the
northwest Amazon, where women are described as unreliable partners in exchange:
Be it that they take without giving in return (it is the image of the vagina that guards the white stone
of Baribo in the Desana myth), be it that they do not want to receive (it is the image of the vagina that
pushes out the sperm of Kaaritairi in the Curripaco myth) (Bidou 1996: 73).
From the male perspective, it is women who are - voluntary or involuntary- predators.
This potential for pr?dation has to be overcome before society can be established. When

women openly refuse to co-operate with the men, it triggers a predatory response on
the part of the men in order to re-establish the balance, as in the case of the Barasana
and the Mundurucu. In such cases complementarity is achieved through pr?dation.28
Nevertheless, relationships are ultimately not about pr?dation but about establi
shing complementarity, reciprocity, and conjunction. Even if this is the more
unstable pole of relationships, it constitutes the ideal and the driving force in the
system.
The myths relate that on leaving the men, the women carried away with them some
cultural object fundamental for the survival of society. The Apinay? Amazons took the
ceremonial axes, the Tukanoan Amazons stole the Yurupari flutes, the Ikamiaba of the
lower Amazon owned greenstones, while the Taino Amazons owned ciba. The under
lying tension represented in the myths results from 'certain universal themes pertaining
to gender differences and concerns about physical and spiritual reproduction (Jackson
1995: 91), or the Freudian problem of understanding how one can be born from two'
(L?vi-Strauss 1963 [1958]: 217, original emphasis), and how to overcome this problem.
The myths reflect not only this tension but also the way in which each society deals with
it through social organization. Whether the women stole these objects that represent
their creative power or they are the original owners of this power, and how the conflict
is resolved, either through exchange or violent means, depend on the particular society
in which the myth emerges. The mythical exchange between the women and the men
varies, from peaceful co-operation involving reciprocity in the case of the Taino, the
Ikamiaba, and the Apinay?, to more violent (predatory) forms of forced exchange
among the Tukanoan and the Mundurucu. The variations in the way exchange is
achieved in the different societies are related to their particular social organization, in
turn the result of historical factors that will define the mechanisms of control and
distribution of persons, the attitude towards outside others in general, and the culture
of gender of a particular group.29
The myths shift the focus from the relations between men and other men, humans,
and spirits to those between men and women. In this context, exchange is defined no
longer by the relationships between men through women, as with L?vi-Strauss (1969a
[1949]), but by the relationships between men and women through symbolic objects
that then reproduce this creative moment at other levels of exchange involving different
entities: kin and affines, Us and Other, humans and spirits, humans and animals. The
exchange of these objects does not privilege one type of relationship over the other;
rather it suggests a continuity between them.
The significance of exchange reflected in the myths of Amazon-like women fits well
with Weiner's discussion of gift exchange among the Kiriwina of the Trobriand Islands,
in which she proposes that gift exchanges should be seen not just as the result of the
principle of reciprocity enforced by some spiritual force inherent in the object
exchanged - Mauss's obligation to return - but as part of processes of reproduction
that involve whole societies (Weiner 1980). It is in this sense that the exchange of
prestige objects such as ciba and greenstones constitutes a total social fact, as described
by Mauss (1990 [1925]), and it is also in this sense that exchange constitutes society, as
proposed by L?vi-Strauss (1987 [1950]). I would include ciba, guanin, greenstones,
quartz stones, and sacred flutes as described in this article in the category of'total social
objects' that Erikson (2001) uses to describe blowguns among the Matis, an expression
that calls attention to the significance of these objects of material culture in the
constitution of social life. The ritual/ceremonial exchange of these objects turns
lournal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14,572-589

ordinary exchanges and relationships into socially reproductive exchanges and rela
tionships by ritually re-creating the creative exchange between men and women
described in the myths.
NOTES
I thank Dr Peter Rivi?re and Dr Stephen Hugh-Jones for comments and suggestions. I also thank my
colleagues at Brandeis University for feedback on this paper during the Colloquium Talks at the Department
of Anthropology, the attendees at the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America Meetings 2007
in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the anonymous reviewers of this article.
I See, e.g., Bamberger (1974); Jackson (1992); Overing (1986); also Gregor (1985); McCallum (1994).
21 speak of 'Amazon-like women in Amerindian representations to differentiate them from their
European counterparts. I use the term 'reproductive exchange' following Weiner (1980).
3 Pan? gave his manuscript to Columbus probably around 1498. The original manuscript has never been found
and survived only as part of Columbus's Account. I rely on Arrom's edition of Pane's account (Pan? 1999).
4 H?aguali is related to Hiali, the son of the incestuous relationship between a man and his own sister, who,
when discovered, fled the tribe and was transformed into the moon. This myth is widespread in lowland
South America and was recorded by Breton (1665) and Taylor (1952) among the Island Carib. Taylor translates
Hiali as it appears among the Island Carib as 'He-who-has-become-brilliant' (1952: 269). Guanin was the
name given to the place of origin of the gold alloy ornaments or guanin, hence a place associated with the
Island Carib. In some regions of Cuba and the Dominican Republic the hummingbird is called guan? (Pan?
1999:11, m. 44).
5 Cern? were figures representing the spirit ancestors of the Taino. They were owned and worshipped by
particular caciques and were believed to have control of the weather, fertility, crops, etc. (Arrom 1989 [1975];
Pan? 1999: ch. 19-24; also Las Casas 1967: ch. 20; Stevens-Arroyo 1988).
6 The association of frogs, rain, and fertility is widespread in lowland South America (see L?vi-Strauss 1973
[1966]: 66-7, 75-7, 224-5; L?pez-Baralt 1985: 94-5; Wass?n 19340; 1934fr).
7 This does not by any means deny men's role in the reproductive process. The role of male semen is, of
course, recognized. Ideas about conception and the development of the foetus are sometimes not clearly
defined: some groups see women just as containers and the foetus as the product of semen contributions,
while others recognize that the mother's blood also contributes to the foetus's development. Nevertheless,
regardless of the origin of the contributing substances, the creative mixing and transformation of these
substances can only occur inside the woman's womb, and thus the natural, creative process of transformation
is usually represented as a feminine one (C. Hugh-Jones 1979; S. Hugh-Jones 1979). Conversely, as Stephen
Hugh-Jones (1979) has argued, shamans, in their role of mediators, have an ambiguous quality, related both
to femininity and to masculinity. At the social level, shamans are usually male in Amazonia because they seek
to control natural and supernatural creative powers to render them socially beneficial, and control is a male
quality. Nevertheless, there are female shamans in Amazonia (Santos Granero 2007: 7).
8 Guanin was usually hammered into thin trapezoid plates, and is also found in the shapes of half-moons,
circular plates, and eagles. The Island Carib called it caracoli or karakoli; in northern Colombia and Venezuela
it was known as tumbaga (see Nagy 1982; Rivet 1923; Rivet & Arsandoux 1946; Siegel & Severin 1993; Vega
1979).
9 The story of the Women of Matinino has been interpreted as the introduction of exogamy, thus the
separation of sisters and wives (see L?pez-Baralt 1985; Sued-Badillo 1986).
10 In this section we have distinguished the role of the shaman from that of the leader in order better to
understand the significance of ciba and guanin in relation to these roles. Both ciba and guanin had political
and religious significance (Robiou Lamarche 1983:127; Vega 1979: 28,36). Santos Granero (1986) argues that
in lowland South America the roles of the shaman and the leader are intimately related.
II Stephen Hugh-Jones (in press) says:
In mythological terms, the Instruments of Life Transformation [ritual objects comparable to ciba and
guanin, see below] are not human productions at all but divine bodies existing as bone and crystal
substances, whose qualities of hardness, durability, scarcity, whiteness, purity, brilliance and lumines
cence all emphasize their otherworldly nature ... [They are] items of wealth and objectified forms of
shamanic knowledge whose value condenses labour, know-how and controlled power... In Andrello's
words, in the Tukanoan case 'objectification is the same as personification'.
12 Some exceptions should be noted: Chaumeil (2001); Erikson (2001); S. Hugh-Jones (in press) and others
in the same volume; Reichel-Dolmatoff (1979); Rivi?re (1969).

13 One should bear in mind that symbols are always contextual and polys?mie, a fact clearly shown by
Stephen Hugh-Jones's (1979) detailed analysis of the symbolic significance of the sacred flutes among the
Barasana. Nevertheless, at the cosmological level, these symbols share an essential quality that refers to their
creative potential, their power to transform.
14 The origins of the Taino have been traced through archaeology, linguistics, and ethnology to lowland
South America (Rouse 1992; Wilson 1993). Many authors have remarked on the cultural parallels between the
islands and the South American mainland (Alegr?a 1986 [1978]; Arrom 1989 [1975]; L?pez-Baralt 1985;
Stevens-Arroyo 1988; Sued-Badillo 1978).
15 On greenstones see Barata (1954); Barbosa Rodrigues (1899); Boomert (1987); de Goeje (1932); Koehler
Asseburg (1951); Wass?n (19340).
16 Several names have been recorded for these stones, among them buraquitas or muyrakyt? (Tupian
speaking Indians), takourave or tacorao (Kalina of Guiana), tacao?a (Island Carib), calicot or macuaba
(Lokono-Arawak of the Guianas and the Lower Orinoco). I follow mainly Boomert's analysis of the archaeo
logical and ethno-historical sources on greenstones (Boomert 1987).
17 The same version appears in de Sousa (1873: 99) and Heriarte (1975 [1662]: 180).
18 This seems to be European elaboration. There are no other stories in lowland South America that
mention this sort of arrangement. Nevertheless, as Stephen Hugh-Jones argues (1988: 148), new ideas are
incorporated into mythical narratives in culturally specific ways that make sense in the mythical context and
to the people in question (see also Gow 2001).
19 The relationship between softness, underwater/water, and femininity, and hardness, the sun, and mas
culinity is generalized in Amazonian cosmology (C. Hugh-Jones 1979; S. Hugh-Jones 1979; Reichel-Dolmatoff
1971; Roe 1982).
20 For a similar role of music in achieving transcendency - the playing of flutes - in ceremonial exchange
among the Wakuenai, see Hill (1987).
21 In the context of exchange, we might identify this transcendence that represents the creative potential of
all exchange as something similar to mana.
22 Tukanoans call these ritual objects Instruments of Life Transformation (ILT) (S. Hugh-Jones in press).
23 Shamanic training among the Tuyuka of the northwest Amazon involved the insertion of quartz crystals
called dupa into the body of the trainee (Koch-Gr?nberg 1995: II, 146-7).
24 Myths about the sacred flutes: for the northwest Amazon region see Biocca (1965: 269-81), Correa (1992);
Fulop (1956: 355-66); S. Hugh-Jones (1979); Jackson (1983: 188); Panl?n Kumu 8c Kenhiri (1980: 51-125);
Reichel-Dolmatoff (1996: 3-14); for the Mundurucu see R.F. Murphy (1958: 89); Y. Murphy & Murphy (1974:
88-9); Nadelson (1981); for the Canela-Ramkokamekra see Nimuendaju (1946: 248-9); for the Mehinaku of
the Upper Xingu see Gregor (1977: 255; 1985).
25 In the Barasana myths, menstruation appears both as something positive received from Romi Kumu and
as something negative (punishment) inflicted by men, reflecting the ambiguous character of female creativ
ity, which needs to be controlled so that it will lead to social regeneration. This tension or contradiction
constitutes the fabric of myth; two different and contradictory explanations account for the same fact
(S. Hugh-Jones 1979).
26 The story of the caiman lover among the Apinay? is related to the myth of Amazon-like women
(Nimuendaju 1939:177-9; Steverlynck 2003: ch. 6). Among the Barasana this tension is heightened by the fact
that two women kept the original flutes hidden in their vaginas, which leaves the possibility open to women
to regain their lost powers and abandon society once again (S. Hugh-Jones 1979).
27 These include: rattle lance, shield, stool, cigar/tobacco, tobacco smoke, forked cigar-holder, gourds,
gourd stand, coca, caimo and kana fruits/juice, adze, split-palm screen, maraca, Yurupari flutes, feather
ornaments (S. Hugh-Jones in press).
28 Similarly Vila?a points out that 'we cannot reduce the production of kinship to acts of sociability, since
we must recognize that cannibalism and pr?dation are equally effective means for producing kin (2002:359).
29 The analysis of such variations requires a detailed analysis of the social organization and the myths of
these particular groups, a task that would exceed the limited space available for this article. I have conducted
such an analysis elsewhere for the Taino, the Tukanoan groups of the northwest Amazon, the Mundurucu,
and the Apinay? (Steverlynck 2003). Also see Jara (1988) for an analysis of Kalina (Carib) and Xikrin (G?)
cases. Langdon argues that gender ideology is part of a larger ideological system that is
multifaceted, and even contradictory, with respect to the images of male and female ... [T]he aspects
that are selected to invest sexual relations with meaning are influenced by the social institutions that
bring the sexes together in various ways ... [Differences in community structure, kinship, marriage

patterns, and sexual segregation affect what a group selects and uses as part of its culture of gender
(1984: 22).
As noted at the outset, myths are polys?mie and embrace multiple, ambiguous, and sometimes contested
meanings even within the same social group. Thus, depending on the ritual or social context, the myths can
represent complementarity or opposition or both. Furthermore, the myths are not only about the relations
between men and women, but transcend them. This is clear in Stephen Hugh-Jones's (1979) analysis of the
Barasana myths and rituals.
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Les Amazones am?rindiennes : femmes, ?changes et origines de la soci?t?
R?sum?
Largement r?pandus dans les plaines d'Am?rique du Sud, les mythes am?rindiens ?voquant des femmes
comparables aux Amazones font r?f?rence ? l'?change primordial d'objets rituels particuliers entre
hommes et femmes : ciba, pierres vertes, fl?tes, haches... Ces ?changes primordiaux repr?sentent le
moment socialement cr?atif qui a d?bouch? sur l'?tablissement de la soci?t?, et donnent un mod?le g?n?ral
des relations sociales. L'?change ou la circulation rituels de ces objets dans d'autres sph?res impliquant une
relation d'homme ? homme transforme ces transactions ordinaires en processus socialement cr?atifs en
recr?ant rituellement l'?change d?crit par les mythes. Il d?place l'accent des relations femmes-hommes aux
relations hommes-hommes comme base de la soci?t?, et apporte un ?clairage sur la signification des
?changes et des relations sociales dans les plaines d'Am?rique du Sud.
Astrid Steverlynck obtained her D.Phil in Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford in 2003. Currently
she teaches Anthropology at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
F. Bardi 1256, Vicente Lopez 1638, Argentina, asteverlynck@comcast.net


Amerindian Amazons Women Exchange and The Origins of Society

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Amerindian Amazons: Women, Exchange, and the Origins of Society

Authors(s): Astrid Steverlynck

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14, 572-589

The Women of Matinino

Ciba and the shaman

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14, 572-589

Guanin and the leader

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14,572-589

The reproductive exchange of ciba and guanin

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14, 572-589

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14, 572-589

The Ikamiaba and greenstones

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14, 572-589

Quartz stones in the northwest Amazon region

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14, 572-589

The sacred flutes

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14, 572-589

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14, 572-589

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14, 572-589

diff?rent descriptions of social relationships: the political economy of control', the

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14, 572-589

lournal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14,572-589

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14, 572-589

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14, 572-589

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14, 572-589

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14, 572-589

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14, 572-589

Les Amazones am?rindiennes : femmes, ?changes et origines de la soci?t?

F. Bardi 1256, Vicente Lopez 1638, Argentina, asteverlynck@comcast.net

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 14, 572-589

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