iu 88 Denying Biology Tumer, V, 1964, “Witcheraft' and Sorcery: Taxonomy versus Dynamics.” Africa 34 (4): 314-25. Woodburn, J. 1968. "Stability and Flexibility in Hadza Residential Groupings,” In Man the Hunter (R. B. Lee and I. DeVore, eds.), pp. S2/f. Chicago: Aldine. In Warren Shapiro and Uli Linke, eds., 1996 7 Denying Biology: Essays on Gender and. Pseudo-Procreation Lanham, MD: University Press of America Chapter 5 COPING WITH THE DILEMMAS OF AFFINITY AND FEMALE SEXUALITY: MALE REBIRTH IN THE CENTRAL NORTH- WEST AMAZON! Jean E. Jackson Massachusetts Institute of Technology ‘This paper deals with rituals of male unisexual? rebirth among ‘Tukanoans of the Vaupés region of Colombia (also known as the Central Northwest Amazon). Tukanoan myth and ritual speak of a ic birth which is superior to physical birth, fi ; second, because process, boys become true humans, thereby allowing Tukanoan society to continue. Although many of the images and symbols used in this ritual derive from female reproductive processes, they are significantly altered in form, content, and intended effect. The essence of what happens is admirably captured by C. Hugh-Jones: {[Mlate ritual renewal [is] achieved by an imitation of female physical renewal manifest in menstruation and childbirth, Men only pretend to do what women activity in terms of female ancest val ious superior to the real thing (1979, 270) ttn lit0 Denying Biology elaborate male ceremonial complexes, instruments such as flutes, trumpets and bull-roarers, and often displaying marked sexual opposition and antagonism, including symbolic (and sometimes actual) violence between the sexes. Many features of these ritual complexes are kept secret from women,3 and they usually involve men's houses or a terrain forbidden to women (se, for example, Murphy 1959; Murphy and Murphy, 1974; Gregor 1977, 1985). mand. a preoccupation teats to male power y. and, often, 10 male accompany these complexes, This complex the Yurupart4 a spectacular are opened up to perm Ths paper examines the question of why were isa need forthe ‘male-produced rebirth rituals as they appear among Tukanoans. Many authors have documented the appearance of notions of second birth worldwide. Bloch and Guggenheim (1981) are especially insightful in this regard, and their suggestion that Christian baptism involves "the devaluation not just of nature but more specifically of birth, and of women as birth-givers" (1981, 380) applies with equal force to Tukanoan second-birth rituals. For the most part, their scheme of second-birth ideology resembles the Vaupés: I will suggest that the Tukanoan representatives of male-ordered sot for deny the discrepancy between their ideal world, built on a Male Rebirth in the Amazon 3 and contradictory real ical stance adopted is fone that assumes that symbolic forms reflect (although often in very oblique ways) social structure and process, in particular the contradictions, inconsistencies, and stresses that inhere in given structures and processes. This paper, then, explores how a specific Set of local structures and circumstances shape and condition (and, in ‘the Tukanoan case, exaggerate) certain universal themes pertaining 10 gender differences and concems about physical and spiritual reproduction. It explores the way in which symbolic forms represent (again, often indirect s between the genders, particularly with respect to certain features of Tukanoan social structure and to the ritual expression of gender opposition and antagonism. ‘The rebirth rituals are then described and analyzed, and concluding section shows why these rituals so strongly convey the necessity of controlling women, ‘The Vaupes’ Tukanoans are the riverine indigenous inhabitants of the culture area known as the Central Northwest Amazon, a tropical forest region straddling the border between Colombia and Brazil, on and above the Equator. Tukanoans number about 20.900 (Arango and Sanchez 1989, 36-7) and the population density is at most .3 per k° (PRORADAM 1979, I, 37; lements, consisting of single, patrilocal, . have been replaced in recent years by ‘nucleated the men hunt, fish, and clear swidden fields in ‘which the women grow bitter manioc and other erops. Tukanoans have developed an unusual marriage network. Each community belongs to one of sixteen different groups each with its own language, and individuals must marry someone not only from a2 Denying Biology different community, but with a different primary language. The jowy and ferred to somewhat misleadingly in much of the ethnographic rature as tribe) is composed of from six to more than thirty clans. Each is distinguished by: 1. anguage and name; 2. separate founding ancestors and distinct roles in the origin myth cycle; 3. the right to ancestral power through the use of certain roperty such as sacred chants; ‘manufacture and use certain kinds of ritual association with certain ceremonial objects; and iation with a territory whose boundaries (the Bard are a language group) ‘whom are mothers of Bari people the Bard, or when S. and C. Hug! speak of the Barasana {another language group, one which stands in an affinal relationship the married example, when myths are chanted or ‘The region can be likened to an orchestra: all the members agree on ‘Male Rebirth in the Amazon 93 interpret a composition together (i.e., This paper refers geographic regions Hugh-Ioneses worked in the Pird-parand region in the south; language groups found there inclu Other Bara (the communit tributary of the Papuri, and and Goldman with the Cubeo; both live on the Vaupés River and its tributaries, in the central and northern regions. The Tariana, an Arawak-speaking group also me in this paper, live on the ‘Vaupés River near and across the Brazilian border. Virtually all author mold of the classic nystique surrounds hunting, jion and cosmology: only men are thought of as true spiritual beings. Several authors have noted the ritual aspects of many female areas of and birth. ‘The agnatic Ionghouse us