The importance of systems of naming for an understanding of Amerindian society and culture is now widely recognized but information on this topic relating to the Tukanoan-speaking peoples of north-west Amazonia remains sparse and scattered. Using the Barasana and their neighbours as a point of reference, this article presents some basic data on Tukanoan onomastics and discusses points of similarity between Tukanoan patrilineages and the matrilineage-like groupings amongst the Gê and Bororo. In each case, names and ornaments are linked as aspects of corporate wealth, property and spirit. Through an examination of name transmission as one component of the rituals surrounding childbirth, the article also explores the relation between names, blood, bone and breath as aspects of personhood. Finally it sets Tukanoan onomastics in a wider comparative context, arguing that their combination of exonymy and endonymy and absence of inter-vivos name transmission sets the Tukanoans apart from the more 'pure' form of endonymy found amongst the Bororo and Kayapo.
Tukanoan; Barasana; Names; Birth; Ornaments