Xingu

The origin of Araweté names.

When Childhoods first stepped onto Araweté land, on the banks of the Xingu River, we encountered numerous surprises. The first came from the children. In Chief Kamarati’s village, girls and boys gifted us with Araweté names. So we set our origins aside, only answering to the names they gave us.

Later on, we learned from the adults that those names couldn’t be used because they were already taken by other people living in neighboring villages. The elders whispered, smiling: “Children’s games.”

Yes, games that helped us understand that for them each person’s name is unique and can never be repeated during Araweté life. Each child who is born can only be given the name of someone who already died or an enemy, or an Araweté deity, as explained in “Araweté – O Povo do Ipixuna” (Araweté – The People of Ipixuna), by anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, who studied this people extensively.

If a baby is a girl, from the age of 7 to 11 she will be called kãñî na’i oho, which means child-woman. Starting at the age of 12, they can marry. Later, when mature, they become kãñî-moko or big-women. For the Araweté, being an adult means having children. And when a couple has their first child, the parents abandon their childhood names  which are no longer pronounced  so they can have the same name as their child. If a child’s name is Ada, for example, her father will become Ada-no, and her mother, Ada-hi.

But what about the names they gave us? Out of respect for the Araweté, we won’t mention them here, but I can tell you they were all names of children. Nothing could be more fitting for a group for which the first and last word is childhoods.

Text: Marlene Peret

Photos: Samuel Macedo