THE SACRED TRADITIONS OF KUWAI AMONG THE NORTHERN ARAWAK-SPEAKING PEOPLES: STRUCTURES, MOVEMENTS AND VARIATIONS

Abstract

The sacred traditions of Kuwai are a central part of the cultural and spiritual heritage of northern Arawak-speaking peoples of the Northwest Amazon region, living in an area from the upper Vaupés in Colombia, throughout the Içana River basin in Brazil, to the Guaviare and Inirida River regions in Venezuela. The purpose of this study is to discuss some of the most important dimensions of this religious tradition, concretely: by mapping the traditions and their variants; by discussing the tradition’s ‘mythscapes’ of the traditions, that is, the sets of sacred sites inter-related by narratives and shamanic chants shared by ethno-linguistic groups; by elaborating on the most important meanings associated with the figure of Kuwai, having to do with patrilineal ancestors, cultural transmission across generations, relations of identity/alterity, and shamanism; and by looking at the cross-fertilization of cosmologies at the frontiers between the Kuwai religious tradition and non-Arawakan traditions.

Key words:
Cosmology; Mythology; Shamanism; Petroglyphs; Amazonia