Time and Memory in Indigenous Amazonia

An rhropological Perspectives

Edited by Carlos Fausto and Michael Heckenberger

University Press of Florida

Gainesville Tallahassee Tampa Boca Raton Pensacola

Orlando Miami JacksonvjUe Fc. Myers Sarasota

8

Bones, Flures, and the Dead

Memory and Funerary Trearments in Amazonia

Jean-Pierre Chaumeil

Amazonian ethnology has displayed considerable interest in recent years in forms of mourning among lowland South American societies. The region in face pres­

ents us with a puzzling contrast when we turn to this topic: the extreme complex­iry of representations and discourses relating to death appears to be balanced bya relacive simplicîry-nol: to say a real scarciry- in mormary practices. Cornmenta­tOrs have frequendy evoked the absence of cuIts, cemereries, or even visible places associated with the dead, as well as the shallow depth of genealogical memory among these populations, the widespread forgetting of the dead, or the taboos placed on rheir names, in order to refure the idea of any predisposition roward the

dead in the Amazonian region . This apparent disinterest in the deceased and the

lack of visibility at the level of practice is (hus seen to be compensated by a rare

complexiry in rhe meraphysica.l conStructions concerning death. Withour conœsring (his very ceal wealth of symbolism. a close examinarion

of the empirical data nonetheless raises a number of questions concerning the

supposed pauciry of .A.mazonian mortuary pracrices. The works available [Q us

on this cheme actually reveal a more nuanced and varied panorama, a face 1 in­

rend tO highlight by focusing on the marerial aspects of the funerary rimaIs and the mecbanisms for remember the dead. 1 shall therefore leave aside for now indigenous discourses on death- the tapie of another $tudy- as weil as practices

reserved specifically for the remains of enemies or strangers, especially in the fcrm

of trop hies, despite the eviclent difficulty in disassociating the two phenomena in

any caregorical fashion. Certain societies indeed rend co treat rheir dead relatives

(or sorne of them) as strangers, and perform apparently similar funerary rites for

them borh. While in a general fashion relies are thought ro perpetuare rhe con-

244 Jean-Pierre Chaumeil

tinuiry of the group, trophies exuacred from enemies were often invested with

anaJogous propenies, tO the point of appearing equaJly essential to social repro­duction (see the discussion below on "constitutive alterity" as an indispensable

element in the definition of self in numerous lowland cultures) . However, a dis­

tinction observable throughout Amazonia seems co separare relies from trophies

properly speaking. The latter, which are otten abandoned or even sold after use,

are rarely made the object of "double funerals," whereas relies are generaJly stored at home or reburied. This may help CO explain the relative ease with which cer­

tain nineceenth-century travelers were able to acquire enemies' remains through

simple rrading, while rhose of dead relarives were much more difficult to obtain. This said, it makes sense to adopt sorne basic precautions when talking about

funerary practices . lt is in fact rare ta encounter a uniform treatment of everyone

within a given culture. The dead are not all in the same boat: their destiny var­ies o-ready aecording co their age, sex j social statuS j place of death, and manner

of dying (at home/elsewhere, slow/violent, and so on). As we know, disposing of an encire body or one of irs parts modifies the performance of the funerary rimal irself and the rype of relationship that wi ll be established with the deceased. Certain kinds of violent death accentuate the rupture of this relationship, while others tend co minimlze ie. "When the whole corpse cannot be recovered j an en­

deavor will be made to take home a part of it or- should this toO prove impos­sible-some kind of subsritute in order to carry our the "funeral." !t can rhus be

. seen how difl1cult it is in sorne cases for one form tO prevail over another.

Relations between the Living and the Oead: The Question of Alterit)'

What do comparative srudies tell us in rhis respect' It makes merhodological

sense CO distinguish from the outset (wo phases in the approach co funera! modes in Amazonia. The firs! phase, from the 19205 ta the 19605, prirnarily strave to

compile an inventory of funerary processes j placing an emphasis on the diversity

of the pracrices and the possible links of cominuiry with rhe dead resulting from certain sociocultural features of the groups concerned. The second j from the 1970S

onward, involved a switch in perspective by posing an onto logical discontinuity

or rupture berween the living and the dead as the predominant monuary forrn in

che South American lowlands. Ler us examine these rwo sequences more closely. The first study available to us, by WaJrer Roth (1924), was dedicared to the

Guianas and provided a survey of the wide range of funeral modes in this re­

gion: endocannibalism, direct burial or burial in urns (primary or secondary),

cremation, certain forms of mummification, and preservation ofbones-whether

stored inside funerary baskets, deposited in rock shelrers, or distribured among

Bones, Plutes, and the Dead: Memory and FunmJ.ry Treatments 245

,he kin of the deceased in a mode recalling the pracriees of dividing up the flesh or ashes in exocannibaJism and endocannibalism. (Roth's work can be compared with the more recenr srudy by Rostain in 1994 on the same region.) A few yeaIS larer, Sigvald Linné (1929) focused more specifically on endocannibalisric prac­

tices in South America, a subject he maps out in detail. These pioneering works

were larer complered by Alfred Métraux (1947) in a now classic essaywhere he un­derscores the widespread diffusion of secondary burial in urns in South .America.

Guided by his research on the Guarani, Métraux pays special attemion to the treatmem of human bones. Adopting a more sociological approach, rhe larer studies by Luis Boglar (1958a, 1958b, (959) and Otto Zerries (1960) examine in particular the relations between funerary rituaIs and other sociocultural pracrices.

Thus Boglar associates endocannibalism with the practice ofburning clearings for

swiddens-an "agriculcural" treatment of the body. However, many present-day

swidden culrivators in the lowlands do not explicidy pracrice chis rype of funeral.

Zerries pushes the analogy even funher by linking endocannibal ism with rhe Yurupari rituaI familiar te Amazonianists. According te a version widespread in

the mythologies of northwestern Amazonia, Yurupari is the name of a culture

hero sacrificed by fire, then resuscirared From his ashes (calcined bones) in rhe form of ((sacred" flutes. These in turn are likened ta Yurupari's "bones." Subject

ta a variecy of interdictions, these flutes are utilized during initiation ri tuaIs, food

exchanges, or funeraI ceremonies in many societies of northwestern Amazonia

(Arhem 1980). Zerries's hypothesis thus suggests a link between an objecr (the '(bone-flure") incarnating a dead ancestor and the funerary practice of recovering

the bones, whether through double funerals (whole bones) or rhrough endocan­nibaJism (pulverized and ingesred bones) . lndeed, some erhnologisrs including Louis-Vincent Thomas (1980) have shown the close proximiry berween these fu­neral forrns at the conceptuallevel. This is a copie to which we shaH return larer.

Alrhough srimularing, these contributions did noc really provided an adequate response to the question of mourning in the lowlands at a moment when eth­

nological discourse as a whole was still dominated by a ffiodel-developed in

particular by Africanists- of society closed in on itself, possessing an intrinsic idemiry, and turned to irs ancestors. Erhnology had to awair the works of Hélène Clastres and above all those of Manuela Carneiro da Cunha on the Jé in order to break wirh rhis mode!, one of lirde applicabiliry in Amazonia, and pose the rela­tionship to ,he dead in other rerms. Amazonian studies have in facr revealed the determining weight of affiniry-in derriment tO genealogical ties-and the struc­

turing function of alterity in rhe construction of Amerindian identit.ies and social

systems, a mechanism denominared by some as "constirutive alreriry" (Erikson

1996) or "familiarizing predation" (Fausto 2001). These expressions desi2:na,e the

process, typically Amazonian, of incorporation of the other- the affine, enemy, or stranger-as a necessary condition for the construction of the self This has

given cise to a problematic of funeral s in the lowlands that associates the dead

with this figure of the $tranger, a kind of "anti-ancestar" excluded from the sphere of the living, as Hélène Clastres (1968) showed in her study of Guayaki funelal

rituals. W hether they eaI ,he Resh (rather ,han the bones) of dead relatives or bury them, the Guayaki adopt a common atritude vis-à-vis the dead: they tteat them as enemies. Based on her analysis of the Krah6 materials, Cunha (1977, 1978)

confirms this separation berween the living and the dead, and proposes its ovetall dominance in the Amazonian world. In this conception, she wriLes (1977:292),

"chere exisrs no place for the ancesrors in the society of the living." The wide1y revealed absence, at leasr in canonical farm , of ancestor cuIts in Amazonia would

thus find verification in the character of alterity acquired by the deceased. For his pan, Pierre Clastres (x98o) returns to [he notion of ancestrahry in order to

explote the distance separating Andean thought Iinked ta the cult of rhe dead and Amazonian thought seeking above ail ra abolish the dead-an analysis taken up tecendy by Claude Gélinas (1996). A specialise in the Guarani, Clastres does,

however, make a couple of exceptions: rhe corpses of the ancient Tupi-Guarani chiefs, which were subject to double funerals in ums, and above ail the bones of great sharnans, apparently the objects of very daborate cults in the past. Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (1992) likewise qualifies the equation of the dead with enemies among the ancient T upinambi by showing rhat it applied only ta a single c1ass of death: that of deaths at home, adorned moreover with attributes otherwise used

for enemies. Deachs elsewhere, "among che enemies of their enemies" in Casuo's

expression, wcre veneraced as heroic since they alone had achieved the "beautiful"

death-wruch is ta say, in the stamach o f enemies. The interpreration of canni­

balism as a central element o f the funerary system among the Tupi-Guarani is no

longer in any doubt. But is it necessary ro establish a Iink, as Combès does (1992),

berween the cannibal act and the theme of "lighrening" the corpse-conserving the skeletan unencumbered by rhe weight of the Resh-as a condition for the voyage ta rhe Land-without-Evil? The sources do nOt allow us ta make such a daim with any certainty. though we do know the importance of [he [herne of re­

covering the bones as a potential form of resurrection in the cosmological thought of these peoples (A1lard 200 0; Fausto 2001) . Whatever the case, exploring the parallels berween cannibal and funerary practices as alrerity en dev(nir can only stimulate analysis of these cultural phenomena in nonsubstantivist terms-that

is, in terms of relations or of the acquisition of positions rather than substances.

Wirness rhe widely reporred desire of these peoples to forger or efface ail material

traces of the dead, ro avoid all direct contact with corpses converred inro "part-

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Rones. Ffuw. and the Dead: Memory and Funaary Treatmnlts 247

ners," slighrly unusual ones since they theotetically occupy the position taken by

enemies. Anne-Christine Taylor (1993) illustrates this idea in a study dedicated ra Jivaro mourning as a mechanism for forgetting the recen t dead. Here the physical treatmem of the deceased appears secondary to their spiricual "macerialîzation"

in the form of arZltam, the vision of which, for the Achuar, is supposed ta reveal the destiny Ot trajecroty of an individual's life. The author argues chat the arutam

transmit nothing concrete of a "substantial" !Und, but rather virtualities of exis­

tence. (See, however, the discussion in Fausto 2001:465- 466 on the transmission

of the arutam among the Achuar as a possible recycling of life potentials and iclentities within the same kindreds; Descola 1993:r85 sees continuiry comparable

to a "true principle of exofiliation.") According ta Perrin (1979:119), the Guaj iro think that the dead whose remains are mixed with ancient bones in the collective

urns serving as cemeteries lose a11 individuality in returning În the form of rainfall

and sickness. Many other contemporaty exarnples would confirm the thesis of

the radical alterity assigned tO the dead (see among others Coffaci de Lima 2000,

Fausto 2001 , and Vilaça '992 on the Katukina, Parakanâ, and Wari' respectively). Still, the figure of the deceased-enerny expelled from the mernoty of the living

as a gener.l paradigrn of mouming in the South American lowlands does not really 6t with a range of practices still observable today. Indeed, although speak­ing of a predominant funerary model in AmazonÎa on the basis of an examina­

tion of contemporaty situations is fully justified and its use has proved highly productive, this procedure also has a downside: it tends ra Ratten the diversiry of the funerary pracriées, juSt as ir fails ta cake sufficiendy into accoune those of

the pasr revealed by recent developments in Amazonian archaeology (see below). For exarnple, the global interpretation given by Philippe Erikson (1986) of Pano endocannibalism as a formula fo r retaining the deceased (only close kin ear the pulverized bones) seems tO co nrradicc the notion of the dead person's radical

alteriry. See also Cecilia McCallum's interpretation (1996) of Cashinahua "can­nibalism" as an act of compassio n and hornage toward the dead: according tO her,

the body's consumption constituees kinship rather than involving a question of

alteriry and predation-an argument disputed by Aparecida Vilaça (1998, 2000).

Etikson moreover notes the far from negligible ideological function accorded co the "ancescors" among certain Pano groups who do not necessarily assign a

dangerous character tO their dead. ln his contribution ta the present vo lume,

Erikson speaks of "mediated ancestrality" or "ancestars by alliance" in relation to the Matis mariwin spirits, an idea indicating that ancestraliry in Amazonia, if it exists, does 50 only by means of a detour via affinity. Nonetheless, the deeper

question is-as Thomas (1980) proposes- wherher endocannibalism should be

treated as a rire of destruction, effacing ail traces of the deceased, or as conserva-

248 Jean-Pierre Chaumeil

tion of the remains, rhrough absorption of the deceased's att:ributes. Viveiros de

CastrO (1992) for rus part observes that although the Araweté, of Tupi origin. as­similate theic recent dead co the enemies, chey feel no desi re tO forget rnem, nor

even co efface lhe malerial traces---lhe graves and ske!econs-thal cou Id recall lhem co lhe memory of the living. Their names are evoked, while their personal be!ongings are nOI destroyed bUI inherired. In lhis case, we could suggesl lhal lhe remembrance of the deceased, achieved via the permanence of the name and 10-

herired goods, lessens the rupture conferring the condition of stranger or enemy.

Kaj Àrhem (1980) observes, in tum. thal while lhe Makuna are supposed ta forget lheir dead, lhe dead are in realiry remembered many years after lhe funerals. He establishes a principle of spiritual continuiry between lhe living and the dead in

lhis sociery- and in a dassic fashion in the T ukano sysrems- for the recyding of the souls of the dead, in the form of names, in the second-generation descen­

dants. The Xavante, aJê people of central Brazil studied by Laura Graham (1995), fully incorporale rhei r dead, called "immortals," in rhe sysrem of life-cyde age classes. Xavante society mus integrares the living and the dead wirhin irs who le.

Furthermore. the dead are not feared, in apparent conrrast co the prevailing mood among oeher Gê groups. In addi tion, the individual mernory of certain eminenr

"immortals," lhe grealleaders, encounters a form of perpelUalion in the Xavante crealion raies. 1 have also shown the double movement of the dead taward mn­iry and ancestraliry among the Yagua of Peru depending on rhe kinds of death and burial (Chaumeil 1992). Ir seems ta me to provide evidenee of a process of

"ancestralizadon" reserved in this society for important figures, notably the great warriors whose names are immortalized in a particular genre of epic tale still oc­

casionally raid today. The notion of ancestraliry mUSt be raken here in a flexible sense insofar as the permanence of these beings from the past does not necessarily

imply rhe recognition of precise genealogical links. In any event, lhe funerary rrearments of these individuaJ.s contrast srrongly with those of common people,

who are subm itted tO a recycling of their vital elements and destined for a sort of

anonymiry. Heckenberger (2005 and this volume) equally shows lhe importance of anceserali ty in the riruals of homage paid (Q great leaders and in certain funer­

ary ceremonies of lhe upper Xingu. Taking all the above ineo accoune, the panorama appears more complex and

diversified rhan usually postulated, and does not real ly conform, ra pur ir mildly, ra the single mode! of a radical discontinuiry between che living and the dead.

1 shall atrempt ra account for this in the remainder of the chapter by reexamin­ing several types of funerary practice, past and present- each of which may be potentially combined with one or more other types in the same society-in order

to teveal mote clearly the practiees left unexplained by this mode!. Abandonment ' .

.1 "

Eanes, Nutes, and the iJead: Memary and runerary Freatments 249

of the corpse as the main funerary mode has been amibuted to very few groups; il applies more wide!y ra those individuals accused of sorcery. For example, as France-Marie Renard-Casevirz tells me, the Matsiguenga of Peru often abandon

rheit deeeased on flimsy skiffi left ta Boal downriver, bU! lhey also pracriee di­rect inhumation. In any case, we can assume chat abandon ment of the corpse

expresses a radical break with the dead. Immersion of the body, practiced al the end of complex funerals by the Bororo and the ancienr Saliva, otherwise seems co be lirrle represented in rhe South American lowlands.

Inhumation

A funerary procedure extremely widespread in the area that concerns us, inhu­

mation may be single in kind (burial in earth or in urns) or double (a fifS( burial followed afler a lapse of time by a second and definitive burial) .

Direcr inhumalion in earth, wilh lhe body usually wrapped in a length of fab­rie or the deceased 's hammock, is reported among a number of Tupi and Carib

groups. Ir lakes place in the house (orren bur nOI always abandoned), on rhe village plaza, or in the forest, where a mînîature hut sometimes marks the site of

the 10mb. The anciene Tupinambi combined rwo modes of buria!, one directly in the earrh, rhe orher in urns. In the first case. a funerary chamber was bullr to

prevent the earth weighing directly on the corpse, thereby evoking the principle of um burial. When they abandoned their villages, rhe T upinambâ had rhe habit,

according ta Jean de Léry (['580] 1992), ofleavingpindo palm leaves on the tambs so that the site would be recog~izable and the memory of the dead conserved:

"les passants, par ce moyen, y reconnaissent forme de cimetière, ... aussi quand les femmes s'y rencontrent, ... si ell~s se ressouviennent de leurs feus maris, ce

sera, faisant les regrets accoutumés, à hurler de teUe façon qu'elles se font ouïr de

demi-lieue" (,86) [the passers-by can thus recognize the location of a cemetery, and when rhe women meet there, ... if they remember their dead husbands, they will break our into their customary lamentations, and howl ta be heard half

a league away]. Ir is equally possible to argue, as Fausto does of lhe Parakan' practiee of remporarily abandoning lheit village si le when one of their own dies (2001:4°7- 408), [hat this comprises a way of maintaining a distance from the

burial spor. a place rhought of as porentially dangerous. at least until the flesh has completely decomposed.

The custom of direct burial in urns is common [Q the Guarani, a people often

said co lie at the origin of this funerary mode. This Custom is equally frequent in

rhe Chaco and arnong numerous groups of Amazonia (Nordenskiold '920; Bo­glar '958a). The Chiriguano of the Chaco bury their dead in this fashion inside

dwellings that they continue to inhabit afterward. Ir may be rhought that peoples who bury their dead inside inhabited houses cultivate a very different relationship from those who destroy or definitively abandon their dwellings afrer inhumation.

We should note, rhough, thar residential permanence mer inhumation need not

indicaœ links of continuicy with the dead: certain groups, 5uch as the Parakanâ,

who do not share this conception, used [Q reoccupy their past dwellings an er rem­

porary abandonment once the corpse was deemed "inoffensive," chat is tO say, rid

of its flesh (Fausto 2001). According to CUrt Nimuendaju (1952), until the end of the ninereenth century the Ticuna of the Amazon used to pracrice primary buriaJ

in urns- sometimes decorated with necklaces of human reerh, [rophies tuen from enemies-which chey visited regularly. N umerous funerary urns have also

been discovered on the Japurâ River. These are likely rem ains of ancient cemeter­

ies (Métraux 1930) . The Cocama of the upper Amaron combined direct butial in urns with secondary funeraIs in smaHer urns, containing the banes of cerrain

classes of dead people (Figueroa [1661] 1986; Maroni [1738] ' 988) . Othet peoples, sucb as the Cubeo of northwescern Amaronia, have progressively abandoned urns in favor of coffins made from old pirogues. Although the nature of the comainer has changed, the principle of protecting the corpse remains idencical.

Double Funerals

Double inhumation in urns is rypical especially of Arawakan groups-Antilles, Orinoco, north and south of the Amawn, Jurua-Purus, Mojo-but is also found with numerous variarions elsewhere (Métraux 1947). The bones, whole or reduced ro ashes, are either reburied or deposited in urns or funerary baskets. In the latter

twO cases, they are generaUy kept in the house of the deceased or placed in com­munal cemeœries. Like many other ancestral practices, the domesric conservarion

of the bones of che deceased has become increasingly rare, replaced by Christian burial in individual graves. Funerary baskets have been reported among the Warao

of the Orinoco delta and the ancient Carib (Gumilla '758). Certain Arawakan and Cari ban groups of the G uianas preferred ro disrribme the bones among the

kin of the deceased in order for them to be kept separacely. The conservation of booes in urns or in wrapped bundles was alsa very widespread, in particular the

long bones and the skull, which were ofœn painted with annatro dye, for instance

among the Guahibo of the Colombian savanna. The Yuko, Caribs of the Sierra de Perija, have a complex funerary ritual detailed by Reichel-Dolmatoff (r945): the corpse is firsdy mummified over a fire , then buried in the house, whîch is aban­

doned. The body is exhumed sorne ~o years later, when the mummy is cleaned,

wrapped in new SHaw matS, and rransporred with great pomp into the village.

Eones, Fluus, and th~ Dead: Memory and Funerary Treatments 25I

There a dance is celebrated in its honor, with the deceased's kin dancing with

the mummified cotpse. The day aftet, a close kinsman suspends the mummy in

the roof of his dwelling, stoting it there for several weeks: it is then passed on to another member of the family, and so on. At the end of this familial "voyage," the mummy is deposited in a cave-cemetery where hundreds of other mummies rest.

The presence of cave necropolises in this part of northern 50mh America aroused

the interest of the first European travelers-but 50 toO that of grave robbers.

Cemeteries

Contrary to popular opinion, the existence of indigeno us cemereries predating

the colonial period is less rare ,han supposed and will probably become even less so after numero us archaeological sites, particularly in the Guianas, have been

subjected tO systematic excavation (Ros tain ]994)· In addition (0 the Yuko case

mentioned above, ancient "necropolises" have been documented along the coasts

of the Guianas and Amapa, on the shores of the Maraca River (Guapindaia 2001),

on Marajo Island (Meggers and Evans 1957; Roosevelt 1993: Schaan 2001), in the region surrounding Manaus (see the Anthonay collection, ]897, Musée du quai

Branly, Paris), on the Japurâ and Atures rivers (Scaramelli and Tarble 2000), along the middle Ucayali , among the Guajiro, among the Karaja of the AIaguaia River, and finally, furthet south, among the Caingang (Métraux 1946) , the Mbayâ, and

the Guaicuru of the Chaco (Métraux 1947). The use of caves as funerary sites was extremely common along the middle

Orinoco throughout the eighreenrh and nineteenth centuries, and probably at much earlier dates (Scaramelli and Tarble 2000). In 1800, at the time of his fa­mous exploration, Humboldt visited the Ataruipe cavern near Atures, where he

counted numerous skeletons painred with annatto dye or coaœd in resin and

stored in baskets and urns. Jules Crevaux, followed by Chaffanjon (1889), Iarer examined other necropolises in the same region and ascribed them to the ancient

Atures. Not far fro m there, the Piaroa also until recently followed the custom of deposiring thdr dead in caverns or rockshelters d istant from their dwelling places

(Mansutti 2002). However, abandonment of the sites was compulsory-less , it

seems, tO Bee from memories of the deceased than to elude the much more men­

acing reprisais of their aggressors, often idenrined with enemy sharnans.

ln addition ta the presence of cemereries discovered on Maraj6 Island and

in the regions around Cunani and especially Maraca. (containing tubular urns

representing imposing human figures: see G uapindaia 2 00]), severa! Arawakan

groups were acquainted with this mode of collective buria!. In the middle of the

nineteenth century, Paul Marcoy (1869) described the site of ancienr open tombs

252 Jean-Pierre Chaumeil

close ra the modern ciry of Manaus that had belonged tO the ancient Manao and

Baré. These same cemeteries were visited sorne years later by Keller-Leuzinger

(1874) , who counted several hundred ums buried in alignment at a shaUow deprh

and containing whole skelerans placed in a crouching position. Métraux (1930)

rhought that all these funerary remains of the middle Amazon were rhe work of

Arawak populations. (Conceming the Manao and the circuits of Arawak expan­

sion on the Rio Negro at the start of the colonial period , see Vidal 2000.) The

chain of urns extends as far as the upper Amazon wüh rhe Omagua and Cocama,

Tupi peoples, while it is broken in the direction of the lower Amazon at the height

of Santarém where, despite Nimuendaju's excavations (Linné 1928), no presence

of ums has been found, suggesting thatthe Tapaja practiced endocannibalism as their main funerary mode. Further ra the north, the Palikur of the Oyapock River

maintained clan cemeteries untiI reeent times. The ben es were prepared either by boiling or smoking, or by putrefaction in a first buriaI, then depesited in a second

um after a period of srarage with the deceased 's family (Grenand and Grenand 1987) .

Like many of their neighbors from rhe Jê fumily, the Bororo of central Brazil practice double funerals but, as far as we can tell , following rwo di/ferent mo­

d.lities, depending on the status of rhe deceased. The relies of important ligures,

especially bari shamans, are immersed ar the botram of a lagoon, while those of

common folk are buried in the ground (Viertler 199'). There is evidence that dur­

ing an earlier period the funerary baskets eontaining riehly decorated bones were stored in cave-cemeteries beneath cliffs, but their constant profanation by grave

robbers undoubtedly led ra their abandonment, forcing the Bororo ra modifY their funerary practice (Albiselli and Venturelli '962). In 30y event, Bororo funer­

als are performed following a very elaborate rimai, one of whose specilic features involves the practice of "substituting the deceased." Buried in the village's central

plau, the corpse is submitred ta rapid putrefaction by being soaked copiously in

water. The bones are then exhumed. cleaned, painred, decorared with feathers. and placed in funerary baskets, first exposed and then immersed according ta

curtent practice. The end of rhe funeraty cycle is marked by incinerating all rhe

goods belonging tO the deceased-who, by contrast, does not disappear from the

world of the living since s/he is subjecr [Q a dtua! substirucion in rhe shape of

a formai companion or friend who, after the funeral and for life, represents the

deceased in this world. Belonging ta the moiery opposite ta the deceased's, he

must, among other tasks, hunt down a replacement animal, generally a jaguar, ta serve as a metaphoric equivalent of the dead person, and prepare the funerary

basket (Crocker '977; Viertler 1991). According ta Renate Viertler, the replace­

ment animals' hi de and teeth, strung in necklaces, represent a repayment sent by

Bones, Flutes, and the Dettd: Memory and Funerary Treatments 253

Fig. 8. 1. Decorated Baroro banes (after Enciclopedia BOTOTO, vol. 1, 1962) .

the dead ta their kinsfolk for the heavy investments occasioned by their funerals. H ere, rather than being feared, the dead appear as a sOurce of peace and harmony for the living, the Bororo's greatest fear being precisely mat no "substitute" from

the other moiery will take care of their bones after death.

Still in Brazil, the Karaja of the Araguaia performed their entire funerary cycle

in cemeteries located, in precontact rimes, outside rheir villages (Ehrenreich 1948;

Pétesch 2000 ) . The funerals were carried Out in t'NO phases under the responsi­

biliry of the deceased's aflines-a procedure nowadays abandoned. According to

N athalie Pétesch, rhe relationship berween rhe living and the dead is not broken here, since [he dead inaintain a consranr presence in the day-ra-day life of [he

Karaja, especially du ring hunting. In approaching th is theme, Pétesch makes a comparison between Jê, Bororo, and Karaja funerals. Whereas sorne Jê peoples reintroduce rhe bones of the dead buried outside the village back imo social space,

the Botoro in e/fect practice the inverse, with the bones circulating from the vil­lage plaza ta the rivers or rocky shelrers. As for the Karaja, they maintain a close parallelism between the social space of the dead (the cemetery) and that of the

living (the village). In the IirS[ case, we could ptopose that the principle of rup­

ture with the community of the dead is lessened by the "rerum" of the bones, in

254 Jean-Fierre Chaumeit

the second by the ritual representation of the deceased by a living member of the

other moiety, and in the third by communication with the spirits of the dead.

The Kaingang, a Jê people of southern Brazil, aiso interred thdr dead in kinds

of cemeteries made up of several tumuli in which funerary chambers were erected.

Such tumuli have been reported since the eighteenth century among the ances­

tors of the Kaingang. The extreme care with which they construcred these conical

tombs testifies to the importance accorded to the dead in their society (Métraux

1946; see Crépeau I999 on the complexiry and central character of the funerary ritual among the Kaingang).

Incineration

Beyond the partial incineration associated with endocannibalism, simple crema­

tion was practiced predominanrly to the norrh of the Amazon river, particularly

among the Carib of the Guianas. A funerary procedure that has nowadays be­

come exceptional, it was once commonplace among the Wayana except for rheir

shamans, who were buried. Other societies proceeded in precisely the opposite fashion. Among the Aparai, for example, cremation was the exclusive privilege of

shamans and chiefs (Linné 1929). Only the bodies of the most renowned shamans

were incinerated among the Cashinahua, the other dead being either consumed or, if they were without close kin, simply buried (McCaUum 1996). The ashes

were most often inrerred, piled on the ground or placed in a small hut specially

built on the cremation site, or alternatively kept with the remains of the calcined bones in pottery or baskets stored in the houses, enabling them ta be transported

when rhe people relocated. Ir may be seen that cremation, like endocannibalism,

is a procedure in perfect congruity with the theory of double funerals. It is above

all an antiputrefaction process, diametrically opposed ta the exposed or aban­

doned body. For Thomas (1980:179), burning is centered less on destruction than on conservation, since the fire sim ply accelerates the dissolution of the bodys soft parts so as ta be left with the "remains."

Mummification

A very important aspect of Andean cultures, mummification was a funerary procedure likewise practiced in the lowlands, essentially on the Amazon and ta

the north as far as the Darien peninsula in preconquest times and duri.ng the colonial period. Thereafter it became more infrequent. More than any other fu­

nerary mode, it involved a selective procedure applied primarily ta eminent fig­ures-chiefs, great warriors, shamans. Mummification could be achieved through

Bones, Flutes, and the Dead: Memory and Funerary Treatments 255

drying in the sun or by fire, or through embalming using plant resins. Ir was

often combined with urn burial or raised exposure. The desiccation of corpses

by means of smoking is practiced or was observable until a relatively recent date

among several indigenous societies both of Venezuela (see the Yuko above) and of Brazil, including the Maué, the Apiaka, the Mundurucu, the Puri-Coroado,

and the ancient Tapaj6. Concerning the latter, Nimuendaju (I949) turns ta the

missionaries Joao Felipe Betendorf and Joao Daniel for reports made during the second half of the seventeenth century-we may presume that Father Daniel,

whose mission was larer in the second half of the seventeenth century, refers ta

these same events-about a supposed "cult of dried corpses." According ta the missionaries who set fire ta this "tribal sanctuary" in 1682, some of the mummies

had been venerated for many years and were honored by dances and offerings.

These practices of mummification reserved for important persons may have been coupled with funetary endocannibalism, a hypothesis put forward by Erland

Nordenski61d (1930) in part to explain the absence of any evidence of tombs in the region. On the other hand Denise Gomes (2001), noting the visual aspect

of the mummified bodies, establishes an archaeological paraUel with the Maraca

funerary urns. These were not buried, but were deposited on the ground at sites

relatively close ta the places of habitation, thus destined ta be seen and visited,

probably indicating the closeness of the ties uniting the living and the dead in

these cultures (Guapindaia 2001).

According to Debret (1834~39), the ancient "Puri-Coroado" of Brazil stored

the mummified remains of their chiefs in impressive urns buried at the foot of certain large trees. Decorared with the most beautiful ornaments, of which charm­

ing specimens were still to be found at the start of the nineteenrh century, these mummies present a striking likeness ta those of the ancient Peruvians-though this is undoubtedly due ta Debret's artistic talent.

Dtying corpses by fire was also practiced by the Maué of the Amazon until quite recenrly (Pereira 1954). The Mundurucu in the same manner conserved the

mummified heads of enemies and those of their kin killed in banle-or, lacking

the head, an arm or leg-which they kept for a petiod of five or four yeats re­

spectively; in contrast, those dying at home were given an urn funeral (Tocantins

1877; Ihering 1907; Menget 1993). Nevertheless, once the years had gone by, the heads taken from the enemy were abandoned, while the others were buried at

home. The analogy between the treatment of kin kiUed among enemies and the

enemies themselves is therefore not absolute. The final inhumation reintroduces

the former within the sphere ofkin, while abandonment places the latter outside kinship. The direction taken by the dead is inverse. While the figure of the dead

person as an enemy cannot be applied in full ta the Mundurucu case, we can still

256 Jean-Pierre Chaumeil

Fig. 8.2. Mummy conserved in an urn (after Debret 1834-39).

observe a correspondence between the active phase of the recovered remains and

that of enemy trophies. The reader will have been reminded of certain funerary mechanisms of the ancienc Tupinambi, with the difference chat here it is chose

dying in warfare, and not those dying at home, who are endowed with attributes reserved for enemies.

Bones, Flutes, and the Dead: Memory and Funerary Treatments 257

Raised Exposure

The exposure of corpses on raised platforms is a practice closely akin to natural mummification. Generally combined with other funerary modes, aerial tombs

have been reported among numerous peoples, including the Warao, the Yukpa, the Siriono, several groups from the Chaco (the Mataco, for example), and the

Jivato. Among these last, the raised exposure of a corpse is achieved with the aid of a platform, or in a hollow trunk suspended from the roof of a house, or beneach

a shelter at sorne distance ftom the place of habitation. Today the dead are mote usually buried in the dwelling, which is abandoned only after the death of its

owner. The use of urns 1S confined to the corpses of chiidren, although it is not

implausible that this funerary mode was more widespread in the past, especially if we take into account the hollow trunk-urn association. The great warriors

received a specifie funerary treatment closely akin to natural mummification:

dressed in his most beautiful aclornments and his weapons, the warrior was left

on his own stool, his back supported by the center pole of the dwelling, ptotected

from predators by two palisades. If these facts are accurate, the Jivaro were famil­iar with at least MO funerary modes: single burial, either in earth or in urns, and

raised exposure, the latter sometimes accompanied by double buriaI, according

to Stirling (1938) and Eichenberger (1961) on the Aguaruna. Hamer (1977) on the

other hand notes the possibiliry for a great Jivaro warrior ta communicate ta his

sons his wish ta transmit to each of them one of the arutam souls forming at his

death. (See Fausto 2001 on the transmission of arutam among the Achuar as a kind of internal recycling of life principles.) A host of elements that do nOt really lend credence ta the idea of a radical rupture with the dead and contrasting with

rhe recent works of Taylor (1993, 1998). If raised exposure was the main funerary mode of the Jivaro before the impact

of missionaries, it was doubtless not the most efficient means of lessening the

physical presence of the dead. The treatment of the deceased among the neigh­boring Candoshi, belonging to the Jivaro-Candoa complex, would seem ta con­

firm this impression (Surrallés 2000). Their mortuary platforms are buile in the immediate vicinity of the dwelling houses. Over the first weeks, the body drips

with the liquids exuded by putrefaction of the flesh. This fails, though, to prevenr

kin from taking care of the deceased, visiting daily in a display of affection and

speaking with the corpse to provide assurance that he or she is weIl there. The

second funeral takes place after one or several years with the burial of the bones in

a pit under the floor of the house. Surrallés notes that the force of a great warrior can be recuperated by his descendants at the moment of his demise so that they

themselves may flourish, a mechanism recalling that describecl by Hamer apropos

of the arutam among the Jivaro. The attitude shown to individua!s struck clown

by a male-mort, or violem death, is very differem: such people are avoided and

feared as purveyors of sickness, thereby consriruting a category apart.

Funerary Cannibalism (Flesh and Bone)

The funerary mode of endocannibalism, involving the consumption of aH or

pact of the bodies of the deceased-sometimes coupled with exocannibalism or

"warfare cannibalism," the ingestion of the Resh of killed enemies-has been the

abject of several comparative studies attesring ra its antiquity and its great dif­fusion in South America (see Zerries r960; Conklin 200r). It has been reporred

from the Atlantic coast and the Caribbean islands in the norrh as far south as

Paraguay and, in che rwentieth ceorury, particularly in western Amazonia along

the border be(Ween Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia among Panoan and Chapakuran

groups (Conklin 2oor:xxiv). We should note, though, that the c1assical distinc­

tion made by eth nologisrs between exocannibalism and endocannibalism Jases ies

pertinence here if we accepr the general rhesis of the dead persan as an eoemy. In

this sense, funerary cannibalism dosely resembles a kind of warFare cannibalism

(Vilaça 2?oo)-which does not mean, however, chat the actions implied in either

of the (wo cases would be equivalent from the point of view of the interested par­tles-as Beth Conklin aptly remarks (200!:xxiii).

Generally speaking; funerary cannibalism may cake rwo forms in Amazonia:

consumption of the Ilesh or of the calcined bones (osteophagy), distinct proce­

dures that may however be combined in cerrain societies such as the Cashinahua or the Wari'.

Of the t\Vo practices, osteophagy is incontestably the more widespread in the

South American lowlands. Its area of distribution covers the norrh of Brazil, the

upper Orinoco, and the northwest and upper Amazon. The rite consisr$ of re­

ducing co powder the calcined bones of the deceased-and sometimes the hair implying in (his case phanerocannibalism (see Erikson, this volume)-so (ha;

they may be absorbed subsequemly in. the form of a drink by more or less close

kin. The bones are generally obtained by partial cremation, though they may also

be garnered rhrough decomposition of the Resh on a platform, or by single butial iffollowing the principle of double funerals. Ingestion of the ashes may take place

immediately or may be delayed for several years, in which case the bone powder

Îs kept in baskets or funerary gourds, as is done among the Yanomami of Braûl and Venezuela.

The second rype, Resh cannibalism, is Jess Frequent in South Americ~. Ir can be found primarily arnong the Guayaki of Paraguay (see above) , arnong sorne Pana

groups in Peru, such as the Cashinahua, who practice it ooly for certain individu

Bones, Flutes, and th~ Dead' Memory and Funerary Treatmmts 259

als (McCallum I996), and among the Wari', who until recendy combined all three

form s of cannibalism. In the case of the Wari', the cooked Resh of the deceased

was panially consumed in small morsels, while the calcined bones were mixed

with honey co be ingested by the deceased's entourages, generally composed of

their affines. This being said, Amazonian studies have supplied (wo different inrerpretations

for funerary cannibalism , construing ie ci mer as a mechanism for absorbing cer­

tain atrribures of the dead or, conversely, as a procedure for eradicating them. The

first position has been moS! notably defended by McCallum (r996), for whom

Cashinahua endocannibal.ism is primarily an act of compassion toward the dead, aiming te rerain them in sorne forrn within the bodies of the living-effectively a

way of conserving or memorizing the dead by consuming mem. Adherents of the second interpretation, notably Vilaça (r998, 2000) based on her analysis of the

Wari' mat:erials, concend mat concepeions of death in the lowlands are primarily

a question of predation, underscood here as a relationship between predator and

prey in which eating is an ace of depersonalization/dehumanization and transfor­

mation of the deceased into a preylike condition. The recent study by Conklio (200r) on the same Wari' qualifies this position

by assigning to funerary cannibalism a double function, bath destructive and gen­

erative, necessary ta the perpetuation of the group. The aurhor cakes the notion of

cannibalism as an act of respect and compassion for the dead and their fumilies.

Making corpses disappear by eating them is indeed a way of eliminating them

from the living's mernory, with the aim oflessening the latter's suffering. Yet it is

also a way of reproducing a cycle of transformation and exchange between the liv­

ing and the dead via the spirits of animaIs: the Wari' ho Id, in fact, that their dead

join the domain of the animal spitits, where they " ansform inta white-lipped peccaries. These in (Urn will become the game of hunters. In Conklin's view, the

members of this group thereby enact a double endocannibalism in consuming the Resh of their dead, firstlyas a human body (funerals), secondly as game (hum­

ing). The Kulina, an Arawa people studied by Donald Pollock (r993), possess an

analogous system of reciprocal predation between the living and the dead: here

the Resh of peccary-ancesrors forms the souls of the oewborn. Endocannibalism

in (his case is perceived te be less an incorporation of the qualities of the de­

ceased {han a transfotmation of bodies and souls between the living and the dead

within the parameters of a wider sociocosmological dynamic. At the same rime,

it amounts tO a process of forgetting aimed at the dissolution of the dead person's

social idenrity. This would imply chat it is attachment ta the dead, not rejection,

that forces the Wari' to eradicaœ them from memory by consuming them. Either

way, death is not seen here juS( as a discontinuiry: it is also a transformarion essen-

2(JO jean-Fierre Chaumeil

tial forthe continuation of social life (Conklin 2001). Furthermore, this process of

forgettJng the dead and inserring them wirhin broader cosmological conceptÎons has numerous parallels in Amazonia (Oakdale 2001).

The Yanomami, who practice osteophagy exclusive1y, also suive co efface all

material trace of the dead (Clastres and Lizot 1978; Albert 1985). Nevertheless, the memory of the dead seems to survive the disappearanee of their bodies, especially If the dead person was highly skilled or a courageous warrior killed in combat. The pulverized bones are kepr in funerary gourds and gradually absorbed by the person's relatives, induding affines, over periods that, Bruce Albert tells me, some~ times exceed ten or fifteen yeatS, depending on the duration of revenge prepa­r~tlons. Thus, far from being a tOtal effacement, the rite attemprs to achieve a dl/1icul< balance between rememb<;hng and forgetting (Clastres and Lizot 1978).

Funerary Substitution

Occasionally we find that the dead are represented by parts of the body (tufts of harr, teeth, nails) , by objects (figurines, posts, trunks of wood), or even by living

person~, as 19 r~e Borora case where a formaI friend belonging to the other moiety

serves Irfelong In the condition of rituaJ substitu te of the deceased (Vierrler 199r). Theexistence of statues that had ta be "fed" or anthropomorphic figurines con­rammg mortuary remains was apparenrly cornmon among (he Arawak of the is­

lands and Coast ar the rime of conquest (Rouse 1992). Such objects have also been reported at differenr periods in severaJ lowland regions-unforrunateJy without

artracting much attention from the researchers involved. Today there are few

possibilities of observing these forms of funerary subsdtution. Ir seems the Uni) a Cashibo people of Peru, still fabricate wooden starues represenring the dead dur­

mg a ce~emony for lifting mournin& celebrared when the nostalgia experienced

by certam persons for the dead proves too intense (Frank 1994) . Bundles of hair belonging to rhe dead, usually kepr in pendanrs around rhe necks of kinfolk, are draped at th is point on the statue, which is carried in procession ta the village and

then desuoyed. The "rerurn" of the dead person or dead people (depending On rhe number ofbundles arrached) can rherefore be inrerprered as a form of double fu­

neral: once rhe funerary subsritutes are destroyed, the memory of rhe dead is felt ta diminish in inrensi ty. The Guahibo also resorred ta rhis kind of funerary sub­Stltutlon. Nalls and clumps ofhair were carefully kepr-not this rime by kin but by the shaman, who regularly consulred the relie bundJes ra discover the origin of the deeeased, an indispensable prelude ra rhe performance of second funerals in urns the following year (Chaffanjon 1889). Ir has been hypothesized rhar the nee

trunks used in rhe famous log races connected to funerals in certain Jê societies

l 1

,

1

l , 1 l "1

Banes, f<lu!(s, and. the Ueaa: JVlemory ana rum:rar.! J.n:aum:ll ....

. represent the dead (Srahle 1971-72; Pétesch 1983, 2000) . Among rhe eastern Tim­bita, the logs are acrually called "lags of the deceased." According ro Vera-Dagny Stahle, the log races had an initial funetion of piacing the living in regular contact

wirh rhe dead. Finally, we can evoke rhe k"amp funerary complex of the upper )(jngu, celebrared in honor of dead chiefs. The term kuarup-ofTupi origin, wirh a Carib equîvalent in egilSi~may designare a tree or, as hereJ a section of trunk

or pOSt, decorared and planred in the graund. that is supposed ta represent the

spirit of dead chiefs (Carneiro 1993; Heckenberger 1999)· According ra Michael Heckenberger (1999 and this volume), rhe Kuikuro conceive rhe kuarup nunk as a representation of (he past, which links (he living not only with recendy deceased

leaders whose power has passed to current ones but, through them, with ancestral

chiefly lines extending meraphorically back ta rhe "divine" ancestors, sinee the wood flom which the divine mother was originally carved was the kuarup nee.

A number of Kalapala myths also tell how the illusuious dead represenred by the POSts rransform in the course of the ritual into "living persons" whom the

shamans must contain rhrough abundanr fumigations of robacco (Basso 1973)·

The difficulty here lies in comprehending the indigenous concepr of representa­tion. Carlos FauSto tells me thar the Kuikuro term for designating the trunk is hutoto, "image," preceded by the name of the commemorated person. This terrn

is applied to certain types of pÎcrures or ta photos. and can indicare a relation

of figurarive resemblance between an image and its referent. A more generic and

"musical" form of representing the dead by rimal objects may perhaps be found in the complex of scared liures, which we shall examine larer on.

Bones and the Memory of the Dead

The present exercise has brought (Q lighr rwo series of funerary trea(ments. While

sorne groups make efforts ta erase all traces and memory of the dead, others seek to conserve their mernory and mainrain a continuiry between the living and the

dead, notably rhrough the use of bones. Little examined by Amazonian ethnol­

ogy, (his second series commands OUf attention here. Ir may be noted, however,

that the (wo series are by no means exclusive and may perfecdy well coexist wi(hin

rhe same group, as Olivier Allard (2000) endeavors ta show in the case of rhe

Guarani. The cusrom af preserving the bones of the dead for more ar less lengrhy peri­

ods is in face connrmed in many Amazonian soeieties fro m the Guianas and the

Chaco. Among these groups~ the Guarani displayed a very specifie inceresr in the

relies that they occasionally rransported, assembled in bundles, on their seasonal

migrations (Vignati 1941-46). Dabrizhoffer ([1783J 1822) c1aimed ro have seen

non-Chrisrianized Guarani carrying on (heir rreks small boxes eontaining (he

bones of their shamans, in which they placed many of their hopes. The M byâ also preserved the bones of thdr dead-no( just their shamans-over periods lasting

many years. These remains were kept in wooden containers placed in the center of

rhe rirual house and were not disposed of until a message from the gods declared they would not come back to life (Cadogan 1950; H. Clastres 1975:570). Various aurhors have mentioned the cheme of potential resurrection via bones among

rhe Tupi-Guarani. These different rituals recall another that Ruiz de Montoya observed in the sevenreenth century among the Guarani of Paraguay. In deep

forest the missionary discovered kinds of "te\1lples" housing the dried bones of great shamans, which were consulted as oraclis, Sometimes extrernely ancienr and

tichly adorned, the relies would reply, and complete trust was accorded to their prophecies: they were rhoughr ro assure good plan ring and a ferrile and prosper­ous ycar ahead. As Métraux rcmarks (1928b:93), "These illusrrious dead would resuscirare and live in flesh and blood on cerrain occasions." Combès (1992) 10-

cates mis cuIr within the Tupi-Guarani tradition of resurrecting the flesh from the

bones. The antiquity of th is rire can be questioned, of course, sinee it oecurred at

a üme when the rivalry berween shamans and missionaries was rife, and we know

all toO weil the imporrance of rhe theme of bodily resurrection in Christianity and

the power of attraction ffiissionary sanctuaries were able (0 exercise on incligenous leaders in order ta eliminare completely the latrer's influence (Menget r999b). Nothi ng proves, though, that these conceptions did nOt preexisc in the indig­enous cultures and that there hacl not been rather a convergence beeween two sets of betiefs and practices (Fausto 200 2 and this volume). Concerning this \'war of relies" beeween missionaries and Indians. we may also recall [he case of the

Jesuit Franciso Pinto described by Casteinau-I:Estaile (2000). Father Pinto's bones, carefully preserved by the Tupi ofIbiapaba, broughr rain or sunshine on demand. \Vhen the Portuguese sent an expedition co rerrieve them. the lndians

eategorically refused ra relinquish the remains o f this "mas ter of the rain /' as

they had baptized him; exhuming and hiding rhe missionary's skeleron, rhey obliged the Porruguese ro return empry-handed. Among sorne other societies. such as the J uruna and the Apiaka or certain Arawakan groups of rhe Purus, the practice of conserving th e bones applied, it seems. to the majoriry of the deceased.

Far from being reserved for shamans and leaders. the use of bones equally ap­plied ta anorher c1ass of the dead: warriors kiUed in batde, even those who had died far from home. A very widespread procedure in the lowlands, the rec~very of a part of the deceased's body underlines the importance accorded to rhe natal

rerritoryas a place of return for those dying in foreign lands. Ir is quite diflîcult

·1

1 J ;

1 1 .)

1

1 1

.]

·1

\ J ;j

1 :j ,

Bon~s, Flum, and the D~ad: Memory and Funerary Tr~atmerJtS 26]

to see any manifestation of a radical rupture with the dead in mis practice. Father

Fauque ([1736J 1843) in the middle of the sevenreenth century left an imporrant resrimony on the modalities of recovering remains among the Palikur of Guy­ana. We find an identical usage at the other end of the subconrinent, among the

Abipones of Paraguay, who carried the bones of the dead by horseback over great distances in order to deposit them in family combs. The Mundurucu likewise

used tO pay funera! homage to warriors killed among enemîes by retrîeving at least the head or the humerus when unable to recover the whole body. Responsibiliry

for this operation feU ra a compatriot belonging to the opposite moiety: he would take great care of his charge, sleeping with it "as if it were a child" (Murphy 1958). Subjecred to natural mummification, the remains became (he fecus of ceremonies

honoring the dead over the next four years , During these manifestations, where

sacred Bures were played, ,he widow or mother or sister of the deceased displayed the remains around her neck. These were linally buried in the house of the de­

ceased , differentiating them from the war trophies generally abandoned after a period of live years. Thus the relies of warriors were kept by the opposire moiery and then buried at home, while the war trophies were kept at home and then exte­riorized. The first case involved reconsanguinizing a temporarily "affinized" dead

kinsman, while the second case involved expelling a previously "consanguinized"

dead enemy. The Ipurina of the Purus River used to perform an e1aborare ceremony dur­

ing which a kinsman recalled the warrior exploits of the deceased while bran­

dishing one of his bones. The case of the Siriono of eastern Bolivia provides an even better illustration of this relation of quasi~intimacy between the living and the dead through the interposition of human bones. According ra Alicia Fernandez Discel (1984-85), the Siriono have employed tliree successive funer­ary modes: (1) transportation of rhe skeleton duri ng their seasonal nomadism (rhe most ancient procedure), (2) double burials in earrh, and (3) di rect burial (a recenr introduction). In the first case-of primary interest tO us here- the

body was exposed ta a low fi ,e on a funeraty plarform, follbwing a number of modalities that varied according to the StatuS of the deceased. The eneampment

was deserred but the platform regularly visired so as ra rend the 6re. Afterward the dried skeleron was placed in a large basket. Thenceforth the bones shared, so to speak, the life of the members of the group, who spoke ra them and transporred them during their seasonal treks. The bones of the dead brought good iuck in hunt­ing, while the skulls-especially those of important people, inherired by the oidest son-healed the more serious illnesses. Pur sim ply, the dead ensured protection for

the living, while the living repaid the dead wi th marks of respect and trust. With

rhe introduction of the practice of double earth burials, only the skull was kept for

2()4 ) t!an-FterTt! ChaumeiL

Fig. 8.~. Siriono relies u aJ1sported during seasonal migrations (mer Femândez. D istel 1984-85).

its therapeutic virrues. The other remains were burned and interred. If che data are

accurate, the Siriono had perfected an original system of relations wim the dead,

based on reciprocal protection and noc on the idea of ruprure.

The "Sacred" Flutes Complex

At the start of this chapter, if the reader recalls, 1 raised the possibil ity of a CQn­nection between che trearment ofbones and the Amazonian complex of «sacred"

Butes whose blowing, musical sound or even visual appearance aione sometimes

has, Iike Siriono skulls, che power CO attract game or co cure serious afflictions.

POrtO (1996) provides several hisro tical tefetences co these rituals, notably the Yurimagua cult of Guaricaya where we find the key elements of the rituals coday known by the name of Yurupari. (See also Gomes 2DOl for tteatment of this

theme and the association of flutes with certain topoynms.) In this part 1 shall therefore seek to explain the link beeween possession of these instruments , the conservation of bones, and the memory of the dead.

The Amazonian liretawre uses the rerrn racred flutes-called Yurupa~i in norrh­

western Amazonia-to designate a variety of musical instruments played exclu­sively in a ritual contcxt: male initiation, seasonal rituals of food exchange, thera­

peudc or funerary ceremonies. These flutes may represent eimer ancestral entities

Bones. Fluw. and lht! Dead: ManOT] and Funrrary T reatmenlS 265

(mythic or clanic) or nonhuman entities (bird spirits, for exampIe), and incarnate

their voice and bones, or sometimes a part of their body. Among most of the T u­kano and Arawak groups of norrhwest Arnazonia) the Hutes represent the bones

of eponymous ancestors of the dans, who are rreated on these occasions as though

they were living beings. In other cases, as among the Yagua and Mundurucu,

they shelter or symbolize the voice and bones of certain categories of anceStral spirits associared with garne. Although not amounting ta a generai rule as such,

the frequency of such associadons allows us to posrulate, 1 thînk, the existence '

of a relationship between these Hutes and bones. Furthermore, the instrumental

ensemble they form is subject [0 a heavy visual interdiction of women and the noninitiared under penalty of death, rape, or serious illness. The prohibition may be [Otal or partial depending on rhe case; for example, certain details of the fabri­cation of Aures may be banned to view. Defined in this way, the sacred flures can be compared with another very ancient instrument in Amazonia, the bul1roarers.

Allard (2000) has suggested that these aerophones, present especially in the east of Brazil and in che sub-Andean region ofPeru, occupy an "inverse" position co the

Bures that many societies make from the bones of enemies: while the first type of Bute involves the ancestors «giving voice," the second type involves dead enemies

being "made tO sing." Today the area of distribution of this musical complex is concentrated in west­

ern Amazonia, the middle O rinoco, and centtal Btazi!, notably the upper Xingu region. In rhe pasr it exrended along the length of the Amazon, [0 the Colombian llanos and the vast region running from the Purus ta the Mojos savannas (see

map, figure 8-4). Amona Arawakan aroups-to whom the origin of this complex is generally at-

" " tributed-these însuuments may be found among the Curripaco (associated with male initiation and food gathering rites) ) the Yukuna (male initiation), and the

Achagua of Colombia (funerary ceremonies) . Over in Venezuelan and Brazilian territories, they are present among the Warekena, the Wakuénai, the Baniwa, and

rhe Baré of the upper Rio Negro, where they are associated with initiation and food exchange rimais. In the upper Xingu region, the Mehinaku, the Waura, and the Yawalapiti keep these sacred flutes with the bullroaters in rhe men's house. Ac­cording ta much older documents, the "Mojo," Bauré, Manasi, and Paressi-all

once powerful and hierarchical Arawak societies-used ra keep their sacred in­

struments in ''temples.'' The sacred Autes complex also occupies a cenual place in the religion of the Tu­

kano of the Va~pès-Desana, Barasana, Makuna, Cubeo, and so on- although it is absent among the western T ukano. Here the pairs of instruments are placed in

Cottespondence with the different levels of clan-type social segmentation (Hugh-

~ a.ure MOJo

Fig. 8.4. Area of the "sacred" Hures.

Bones, Flutes, and the Dead: Memory and Funerary Treatments 267

Fig. 8.5. Saliva funerals (afœr Gumilla I758).

Jones '979; Arhem I980). The Maku may have lent the Tukano their flures along with their system of social segmentation. Such Butes were also signaled among the Yurimagua and Omagua, ancient Tupi of central Amazonia, by the first

chroniclers, and they are still in use among the Mundurucu of the Tapajôs, who employ them during hunting to seduce the spirits of game, somewhat in the

manner of head trophies. The Piaroa of Venezuela, in the Saliva linguistic fam­ily, possess one of the most complete panoplies of sacred instruments, played at

the performance of the great sari or warime rimals, an instrumental ensemble

Fig. 8.6. Sacred instruments of the Saliva usd in funerary ceremonies (aftel:" Gumilla -1758).

i i ·1 l "

i 1

l 1

j , !

Bones, Flutes, and the Dead· Memory and Fuyurary Treatmmts 269

recaUing ,hat of the ancient Saliva described by Farher Gumilla in the middle of ,he eighteemh century,

O n ,he Amazon, the Ticuna and the Vagua also manufacture these kinds of instruments În connection with initiations and large collective hunts. Construc­tion of the large communal houses among the Witoto, Bora, and Ocaina, may

also give rise to the celebration of a ritual of ,he same kind. Among the Carib, in contrast, the complex of sacred Butes seems tO be litde developed except by

rhe Carijona, who were exposed to the double inHuence of the Tukano and Wi­toto, and by the Kalapalo and Kuikuro, who belong to the upper Xingu cultural nexus.

At an organological level, this musical assembly comprises several classes of wind instruments (trumpets, pipes, and Hures) generally played in pairs follow­ing different formulas (older/younger, male/female, long/short) and sometimes placed in hierarchical relationship (rrumpecs superior ta Butes, or vice versa)

dependîng on the importance of the enddes being represenred. Their fabrica­

tion is the responsibiliry of initiated men according to their clan affiliation, al­though they may also be the work of specialists, as among the Mehinaku (Gregor 1979:255), In such cases the Hutes fetch a high priee, and theit acquisition requires

the supply of high-val ue exchange goods. The instruments are then kept in the "Rute house" or placed in the care of a guardian. Elsewhere, the instruments are

descroyed or abandoned once the rimaIs have been held, except for one part, usu­aUy the imperishable wooden tip of the trumpets or rhe body of rhe flures, which is carefully kept from one ritual to the next, wrapped in bark and concealed in· deep forest or at the source of srreams, a li ede bit as though Ît were a relie. The

guardian, "he who rakes care of the Hures" in the expression of the Desana ofBra­zil as 1 am told by Dominique Buchiller, will then periodically rem ove rhe "body" of the instrument from the water or earch ra ensure ies perfee! conservation undl

rhe day when it will be used again to make new Hures for the approaching ritu­als. This pracrice evokes the principle of successive double funerals-and recalls

the proposed relationship berween the Butes and the bones of rhe ancient dead, The fairly widespread cusrom of "feeding" rhe Hures with drinks or tobacco can be inrerprered in rhis conrexr as a way of giving back flesh to the "bones" of the ancestors; in other words, it is a means of bringing them tO life, as though th is

periodic "resurrection" is roeant ta mark a link berween the living and the dead, a

condnuiry across the generations. As it happens, many of the societies possessing

the sacred Hute complex perform, or used co perform, double funerals in urns (whole bones) or endocannibalism (pulverized bones)-rwo funerary modes in perfee! harmony, 1 believe, with the theory of conserving remains. The myths

from western Amazonia on the origin of Rures moreover echo these rwo funerary

270 jean-l'.eTTe Chaumeil

forms. According to the most common version, it was the calcined bones of the

mythic hero that gave birth to the paxiuba palm (Iriartea sp.) used ta make the

Hutes, his relics in this world (Hugh-Jones 1979). This episode ofhis resurrection via ashes is found in more or less transmuted form in numerous flute origin myths

and suggests an association with the practice of osteophagy. In other versions,

though, such as those of the Yagua, the episode with the ashes is missing; instead,

the hero reaches the sky by extracting a liana vine from his navel and immediately

sends his bones ta earth for people to make the Hutes. Additionally, the Yagua say

that in the past the instruments were made from bones and not wood as today.

In the mythology, the first Hutes acquired by the twlns came from the bones of their dead kin, in particular their father. Such instruments were distinct from

trophy Butes, which the Yagua once fabricated from the humeri of enemies killed in combat and which served exclusively as weapons of war (Chaumeil

2001). In fact, as far as we know, the Yagua did not practice endocannibalism

but favored double funerais in urns, at Ieast for important figures. We could

thus risk the hypothesis of a double correspondence between (a) the "bone"

versionof the myth and double funerals, and (b) the "ash" version and endocan­nibalism.

As a link between generations, the sacred Hutes also bind the living and the

dead, a relationship strengrhened by the materiai entering into their fabrication. Several species of palm with very hard wood (Iriartea sp., Bactris sp.) are used for

both the body of the flutes and the tip of trumpets. These same species also serve in the manufacture of arms among a large number of Amazonian peoples. Bactris

in particular-which has been domesticated by indigenous peoples and is the re­sult of crossing tvifO wild species-grows very slowly and reproduces on the same

site over many generations. In order to harvest the fruits or exploit the wood, the socîeties cultivating it must therefore return periodically ta the old clearings close

to the places occupied by the dead. Moreover, certain groups such as the Yagua or

the Mayoruna explicitly associate the Bactris palm wirh the "ancestors." Erikson

(1996 and this volume) has underlined the almost consubstantiallink that unites this palm with the ancestral spirits of the Matis, guardians of the fallow grounds

where the Bactri, grows. This observation provides the basis for his hypothesis that the groups culrivating the Bactris palm or proximate species have "a relation

of ancestraliry very different from that of the majority of groups in Amazonia,

for whom death alienates, provoking an abrupt shift into alterity" (1996:188-189).

Laura Rival (1993) develops a parallel argument about the Huaorani of Ecuador: for this indigenous group, the colonies of Bactris express slow growth, genera­

tional continuiry, and the memory of the dead. Far from being a gift of the forest,

the palms racemes are in fact seen by the people as the product of the work of

1

Bones, Flutes, and the Dead: Memory and Funerary Treatments 271

past generations. When they cross zones populated by Bactris palm, the Huaorani

remember particular people who have died, related ta the members of the group

who exploited these partieular palm stands. Ir seems, then, that the sacred Hutes make up part of a broad western Amazonian cultural complex, linking together these palm trees, ancient groves, and the "ancesrors."

Moreover, we can note that most of the groups of western Amazonia pos­

sessing sacred flutes aiso have a system of lineage-type social segmentation,

clanic or similar, with an emphasis on patrilineal filiation, in contrast with

the cognatic kinship prevalent elsewhere in Amazonia. With the exception of

Reichel-Dolmatoff (1989), the authors focusing on this question have unani­mously associated the Hures with a "male cult," sorne of them going as far as

to speak of an "ancestor cult." There is no reason te conclude, though, that the

Yurupari rituals are performed only in connection with filiation: they also pro­

duce full-scale alliance through ceremonial exchanges. In this sense, the sacred Butes undoubtedly achieve the articulation of the principles of filiation and alli­

ance in equal 'measure, although the filiation side is more explicitly pronounced

(Àrhem '981). With this in mind, Hugh-Jones (1993) proposes the introduction of the notion "house society" te characterize (his type of social organization,

much closer in his view to indigenous practices and conceptions than reference

te the notion of unifiliation alone. True, but what then to make of the Piaroa

or the upper Xingu societies that possess the flutes but not, as far as we can tell,

any form of social segmentation of this kind? An intriguing point in the Piaroa

case concerns the existence of morruary clans, a therne developed by Overing (1993): Although operating littIe in daily life, they are still used today in dassieal fashion in the actions involving territorial claims. Furrher back in the past, it

seems, these funerary clans, each reuniting dead members of the same "filia­

tion group" in the next world, were linked to precise local geographic referents

that could indicate porential rights over using space. In a recent thesis, Alex

Mansutti (2002) has shown the crucial role of taponymy in the construction

and appropriation of space among the Piaroa and how this code of concrete

reference points can serve as a suppOrt for producing hisrory in this society.

The possible association of the flutes and the dead is even more enticing here since the ancient Saliva associated the sacred instruments with their funerary ceremonies. In the case of the upper Xingu, the institution common to the

area of "men's houses"-where the Hutes were and still are stored-may also

provide an interesting lead for further exploration. Egon Schaden (1959) had already emphasized the potential inrerest of studying the "Yurupari religion"

in conjunction wirh the institution of men's houses in South America. Future

research will say whether these remarks are pertinent. For now, rhe indications

272 Jean-Pierre Chaumeil

are that there is indeed a strong link between the possession of instruments, the

conservation of bones, the memory of the dead, and a "unilinear" conception of society.

Memory and Cumulative Historical Knowledge

The expression of a continuity, of a permanence beyond the succeeding genera­tions, through mortuary remains and sacred flutes (with their successive «double

fùnerals" after each ritual) prompts us to consider the production of a form of

memory in th~se societÎes elearly somewhat different fro~ that present in those other Amazoman groups more concerned with erasing all reference to the dead.

Perhaps these contrasting forms of relationship to the dead allow us to discern

a shift from a cyelie temporality to a more cumulative conception of time-not

truly historical in the sense we commonly understand, but one where the ele­ments layer on top of each other. An indigenous kind of "chronology," in other

words. In fact, it has often been elaimed that Amazonian societies show Htde

concern in establishing a chronology of past Events, Even relative, that would lead

from a point of departure to the present, whether through oral rradition-which

more often utilizes the forms of mythic narration-or the mostly rare transmis­

sion of abjects and attributes (Menget '999a). Symbolic abjects as important as the trophies were seldom kept, but were rather abandoned because their value was

held to decrease over time. Yet among the Yagua exacdy the opposite took place:

the trophies of human teeth were almost the only items the warriors passed down before their death to their male descendants. This was done in the hope of assur­

ing them prosperity, srrength, and longevity; at the same time they comprised

a kind of living memory of killed enemies, as such necklaces were sometimes

kept within families for three or four generations. Apparently similar procedures were reported on the Amazon in the middle of the eighteenth century by the

missionary Joâo Daniel (Chaumeil 2002). It 1S aIso known that many societies

of the Guianas, the middle Amazon, and the Rio Negra used or still use various

mnemonic systems, especially in the shape of knotted cords, which sorne authors

have likened ta rudimentary quipus. These were used not only to transmit mes­

sages, as Vidal (2000) indicates of the Warekena, but as marks or "calendars"

for determining the daces for celebrating partieular rituals or fixing the chronol­ogy of certain events (Chaumeil 2002). Much research remains ta be conducted

on these different indigenous systems of computation and memorizarjon, which

seem ta imply a particular idea of chronology. Other societies have sought to preserve their historical memory by inscribing it in the landscape by way of myths

and rituals (Santos-Granera 1998; Mansutti 2002; Wright '993; Vidal 2000). AlI

Eones, Flutes, and the Dead: Memory and Funerary Treatments 273

these authors have in fact stressed the importance in various groups including the

Piaroa, Wakuénai, Warekena, Yanesha, and Paez of toponymy and particularly

specifie places-the famous "sacred spaces" or "ropograms" in Santos-Granero's

expression-in fixing and transmitting historicaI memory. Writing more specifi­

cally about the Yanesha, Samos-Granera has shawn that the epic "voyage" of the

solar divinity Yompor Ror retraces in close detail what we know roday of the

historical migration and setrlemem: ofYanesha populations; equivalents may be found in the mythic "journeys" ofWajari among the Piaraa or Kuwai among the

Baniwa. Such "topographic writing" shared by several Amerindian societies may

be seen, then, as an important means of preserving historical memory in these

oral cultures-in sum, a specifically indigenous mode of manipulating the past.

Santos-Granero, however, detects an Andean influence in this process. This makes

perfect sense in rerms of the Yanesha, living at the base of the Andean mountains,

but is less clear for me groups of me Rio Negra. These examples in any case tend

ta show that me idea of a chranology applied to certain facts of the past is not

perhaps as absent in Amazonian as was thought. Returning to the "sacred" musical instruments of more direct interest to us

here, Robin Wright (1993; see also Vidal 2000 on me Warekena and Baré, and Hill '993 on the Wakuénai) has explored a very similar idea in relation to the

Baniwa of the Rio Negro in an article describing the mythic journeys of the cultural hero Kuwai in search of lIutes (which incarnate his own body) stolen

by women. In his quest, the hero geographically describes an immense territory

based around a place of emergence common to numerous Arawakan groups in the region: the Isana River. Wright argues that these "journeys," punctuated by the Butes, retrace the ancient migrations and networks of intertribal exchange

typical of the Arawak of northwesrAmazonia at the time of contact; the Manoa,

for example, were inserted in exchanges connecting the upper Rio Negro and the

upper Amazon, an inrermediate position that the Achagua similarly occupied between the Colombian llanos and the Antilles. The sites of the flutes may in this

sense indicare territorial marks or legitimacy, serving as a topographieal memory

of ancient circuits. At a wider level, the journeys of Kuwai (or Wajari) perhaps

express a form of cumulative historical knowledge, registering past experiences

while remaining open ta Events. This explains why the Baniwa consider the old Brazilian capital of Rio de Janeiro a site of the hero Kuwai, since the chimneys

of nuclear power stations they saw close to the ciry were for them a representa­tion of Kuwai's Bures! (Wright I993:24). Resumption of the sacred Butes ritual

after a partial abandonment-a phenomenon observable among several groups of northwestern Amazonia as an emblem of ethnocultural revivaI-doubrless arises

from this logic of reilYing ancestrallines by legitimizing a presence or a rerrirory.

This is also the case with rhe Asurini (Müller 1992). Confronring the construc­tion of a hydroelectIic planr on the Xingu that threatened ta Rood parr of their

rerritory, (hey inrucaœd the presence in the acea of a number of "cemeteries," the

ancient graves of warriors, evoking for them the memory of the dead. Among the

Mapoyo of Venezuela, a Carib group once thought ra be on the brink of extinc­tion, ir has likewise been shawn (Scaramelli and Tarble 2000) thar the change

in funerary modes-reoccupation of the ancient cave-cemeteries---corresponds

ta theic return in force on the Venezuelan policical scene at the moment of the

discovery and exploration of a deposit of bauxire on (heir territory. The use of

the past [0 defend or jusrjfy cultural or terricocial rights is, as we know, a general

phenomenon in Amazonia (and elsewhere) and probably exiS\ed well before the present (Vidal 2000). With this in mind, it would certainly be intriguing ra srudy the numerous messianic rnovements that have convulsed the Arawak cultures of

the Amazon and Rio Negro From rhe middle of rhe eighteenth century onward, invariably interpreted as a farm of resistance againsr colonial domination. These

complex questions and rhe different processes rhey imply would obviously de­mand a study in itseiE For now 1 sim ply wish ra underline the idea that relations ra time and history among societies that conserve their dead or reembody them

in ritual abjectS are different from those relations among societies (hat suive to

make the dead vanish as quickly as possible. In place of an exocentric definition of society, where alrerity acts as a strong encompassing value, we find anorher definition, centered much more on the self, on generational continuity, and on

telations berween rhe living and rhe dead, where rhe cult of sacred Rutes occupies a cenrral role. (See rhe centrifugallcenrriperal distinction proposed by Fausro 2001

as a way of characterizing rhese two sociocosmological regimes, as w eU as the logical and historical possibilities of shifting From one ro the orher.) If the above lS correCt, this instrumenta! ensemble would not only have an ultimace function

of incarnating rhe dead but also perhaps the primary function of perperuating memory over the generations. More than a ritual object of substitution. the flute

complex would comprise a cognitive operamr allowing society co be imagined in eontinuiry with its own dead.

Conclusion

Our rapid examination of chese tapies does not, therefore, provide total confirma­

tion of the thesis that the archerypical form of mourning in the Sourn. American

lowlands rests essentÎaHy on a relation of exclusion vis-à-vis the dead, transform­ing the larrer within paradigms of altetiry whereby no one would dream of con-

DontS, rm.f!S, ana /nt uet1a: I Vl.tmOry ana runrrary lrtatmmts 275

secrating a specific place to rhem or of fixing them in rheir memories. Although a large amount of empirical dara can be cired to suppOrt rhis rhesis, an equally large amount conrradicrs it-a fact borne OUt by the rwa series of funerary treat­

ments highlighted in (his text. Rather than the socius being collectively defined in

relation co the exrerior by treating its own dead as scrangers, the aim is to avoid

losses by conserving the dead "ae home." However, far from exduding each other,

the ewo scenarios may perfecdy weIl eoexist within the same culture. The majority of Amazonian groups possess several funeeary modes, depending, among othec

factors, on the rype of death involved or the status of the person who died. The present text has particularly sought (Q emphasize the importance of the conserva­tion ofbones in various different forms (as relies, substitutes, Buees, and so on) the

question of osteophagy remaining open) as part of rhe process of conrinuiry and remembrance of the dead---or ae least sorne of them, generally che mûst eminent

persons: the chiefs, shamans, great warriors, or combatams felled in foreign lands. In su ml ie is more a question of ereating an adequace distance from or relation

to the dead (han of systematically oblirerating mem via a collective amnesia. At

the same rime, analysis of these marerials forces us ra reBeer on the production of

different forms ofhisrarical memory in these societies. Questioning the degree of complexiry of funerals in rhe lowlands is one thing;

inquiring inro the type of memorization put into action in these contexts is an­

other. Everything depends on whether rhe mortuary memory concerns the indi­viduality of the deceased, set tO become an "ancestor," or the anonymous collec­

rive represenred by rhe communiry of the dead, wirh no prospect for individual survival. In this case roo, the rwo scenarios coexist , but with the detail that, as a

who le, explicit genealogieal references are maintained only for important dead

figures, whose names and exploits are often immonalized in partÎCular genres of biographie or epk tales, as reporred among the Xavante, the Yagua, or certain

groups of the upper Xingu. Moreover, ir perhaps makes more sense to qualify these figures as "immortals" (han as "ancestors." In any event, (he "sacred" Butes

chat have retained much of our attention in chis work may perhaps oceupy an

intermediary position bervveen these two poles, berween the "ancestors" and the

anonymous collective representing the communicy of the dead, One thing in any case seems certain. The differential or selective treatments

reserved to the dead in numeraus Amazonian societies imply the existence of

forms of internaI social differenriation much more pronounced than previously rhoughr-a facr corroborared by recent archaeological research. They also reveal

funerary practices (hat are infinitely more varied and elaborare than those more

generally presented to characœrize Lowlands societies.

Acknowledgmenrs

This article is a modified and updated version of "Les os, les flûtes, les morts:

Mémoire et traitement fun éraire en Amazonie," published in Journal de la Société des Américanistes 83 (1997). 1 warmly thank Carlos Fausto for his comments and

valuable suggestions.

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