“In those times she was strong”. Singing the grief among the Ayoreo from the Paraguayan Chaco

Abstract

In this article, I analyze the experience and consequences of grief among the Ayoreo from the Paraguayan Chaco through the study of mourning songs. As a methodological proposal, I suggest that the study of verbal art in conjunction with an ethnography of everyday domestic life can provide clues to understanding the experience of grief and its relation to expected behavior. This study shows that grief among the Ayoreo can be socially disruptive if not dealt with properly, as songs depict grieving Ayoreo as opposite to healthy people in terms of sociability and expected role fulfillment.

Notes

Acknowledgements

I want to thank Aurélien Baroiller for the invitation to the workshop “Towards an Anthropology of Grief,” at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Brussels) in March 2017, where I presented a previous version of this paper. I am also very grateful to all workshop participants for the engaging discussions and substantial feedback on this complex topic, and to the reviewers whose insightful comments helped me to improve this piece significantly. All remaining errors or shortcomings are my own responsibility. Last but not least, I want to express my deepest gratitude to the Ayoreo of Jesudi, who shared with me their lives and their songs.

Notes

1 Estival (2005, 2006) and Jürgen Riester and Graciela Zolezzi (Riester and Zolezzi, 1999) have also transcribed and published Ayoreo songs.

2 All the Ayoreo names in this paper are pseudonyms.

3 Jean-Pierre Estival’s exhaustive paper on Ayoreo musicology (2005) does not describe the uñacai category, although it mentions “mourning songs,” based on Bórmida and Califano (1978). Bórmida and Califano mention mourning songs, but they do not describe the laments at all (1978, p. 160). According to Higham et al., “uyacade” means “wailing; grieving, with mournful crying; mourning, with loud crying” (2000, p. 862); “uñacarãi: mourner” (op. cit. p. 830).

4 For collective ritual wailing, see for example the Warao from Venezuela (Briggs, 1992, 2014) or the Kaluli from New Guinea (Feld 1990).

5 Urban analyses the ritual wailing songs of the Bororo, the Shavante and the Shokleng in Amerindian Brazil (1988). The author finds regularities in the songs (musical line, line length, intonation contour and voice), showing an intra-cultural standardization as well as an intercultural diversity. Urban explains wailing’s two communicative ends: expression of sadness and feelings of loss through the icons of crying: cry break, voiced inhalation, creaky voice and falsetto vowels; and of the individual’s desire for sociability (as a manner of dealing with loss).

6 To cry-singing is a technique one learns to master. When Jnumi was a child she did not know how to cry-singing, she just cried “bisideque.” The learning process, as in the other song genres, consists in imitation.

7 According to the New Tribes Mission’s dictionary, “bisidei: adj m. free; without charge; for no reason; just for fun; of no value; of little importance (…). d.f. bisidec.” (Higham et al., 2000, p. 125)

8 Other authors analyze the relationship between laments and social structure in a different way. Feld (1990), for example, finds in the ecopolyphony of the voices in Kaluli laments a parallel with the egalitarian social structure. As the uñacai is an individually-performed lament, I cannot make this comparison between musical and social structure among the Ayoreo. Briggs (1992) explains how the Warao women use the sana songs to subvert the social subjugation they suffer from men in everyday life. I have not seen specific political implication in the uñacai, but an idealized depiction of expected social interactions. In addition, the Ayoreo make no accusations in the uñacai, not even when a shaman has caused the disease or the death. The Ayoreo focus rather on how nice the mourned individual was. The lyrics of the uñacai are mainly examples of Ayoreo sociality and conviviality.

9 Bromelia hieronymi.

10 Among the Ayoreo, every plant, animal or manufactured object has belonged to one of the seven “clans”—cucherane—since the times of the First Men. Besides, every human individual belongs to one of these clans, which are exogamous and transmitted agnatically (though clan adoption is also possible). Bórmida and Califano (1978) and Bartolomé (2000)—among others—have pointed out that the word “cucherane” does not correspond to the classic definition of clan (as in Murdock, 1960). Even though “clan” is not an accurate translation, I use it here for the sake of simplicity, and also because the Ayoreo themselves use this word when they speak in Spanish. I analyze the mentioning of clan possessions in the songs and the place of clans in everyday life in another contribution (Otaegui 2019).

11 Uñacai by Jnumi Posijñoro, dedicated to his deceased brother in law.

12 Based on my ethnography, I use in an interchangeable way the English terms of “grief,” “sorrow” and “sadness.” There seems to be a sort of continuity in Ayoreo. “Ducode” is the Ayoreo word they use to describe someone suffering the loss of a loved one, and also someone who lets herself or himself fall into that weakening state of inaction. When asked about an equivalent in Spanish, the elders from the first and second generation—who do not speak fluent Spanish—replied with the term “triste” (“sad”).