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TUKANO (Colombia)
More: Cubeo,
Embera, Alkatcho, Aritama, Zorcas, Kagaba,
Kogi
Da Silva
(1962:p592)[1], on the Colombian Vaupés:
“[…] the
precocity of the children, especially of the female sex, is remarkable. It
surprises us to see how individuals who on the outside still look like
children are subjected to the rite of the puberty initiation […]. How much
they appear to know is an even greater surprise. Children still quite young
know perfectly all the mystery of life, like any adult. The girls enter the
mission schools at seven or eight years of age, and at this age they not
infrequently reveal full knowledge of this subject. Sometimes the thought
that already absorbs and preoccupies them is that of marriage, a Missionary
Sister Superior revealed to us. They talk of that often, and perhaps they
might already even know whom they are going to marry, according to the
customs of the tribe and the desires of the parents”.
Da Siva also noted public mutual
masturbation by boys (p181), although officially, homosexuality only occurs
in the puberty rites for boys. The Vaupé “conceive
the sexual relations between the two sexes as a normal pleasure for the
individuals who have reached the legal majority by the puberty rite, and
therefore such relations are practiced publicly, in front of their own
parents of their own spouse […]”.
Initiation,
more than marriage, means “passage from the asexual world of childhood to the
sexual world of adults (Hugh-Jones, 1979a, 1979b:p110)[2], or “the beginning of the participation in the circuit of sexual
energy” (H-J [1971]). “The rite marks the start of the public sexual life,
because up to this time they can only practice it secretly” (Da Silva), which may also be true for girls (p671). However,
“[b]oys approaching initiation are sometimes
involved in homosexual teasing which takes place in hammocks in public [...]”
(H-J, 1979a:p160). Arhem (1981)[3]:
“Between the first and second
menstruations, a shaman performs protective magic for her. During this time,
she is also taught the role and duties of an adult and married woman. After
her second menstruation, the shaman starts to bless food in the usual
sequence. The girl gradually returns to normal life and eating habits. When
her hair has grown long again, she is considered an adult woman. She may now
have sexual relations with men and is free to marry”.
“The male initiate is taught that
physical strength, fierceness and sexual aggressivity
are the essence of manhood. In fact, the period following upon the main Jurupari ritual at the culmination of the male initiation
is considered the proper time for marriage among the Makuna.
It is also during this period that the young men learn the male skills and
crafts that are required of them in order to take a wife. In practice, young,
initiated men are not considered entirely adult until they are married”.
“Male sexuality is so very much
linked to ritual that it seems unjust to separate them. An example is the
ritual of Yuruparí, in which the initiates are
openly compared to menstruating women, ritually imitating the loss of
menstrual blood, dying, and being reborn (Hugh-Jones, 1974)[[4]]. Menstrual and initiation rites
are full of physiological sexual references. “The initiates’ potential role
in sexual reproduction is stressed, but the low position and small size of
their flutes emphasises the newness and immaturity of their adult physiology.
The flutes have a phallic aspect (shown both in myth and in the rite itself
where they are blown over the boys’ naked penises) and by using them the boys
are opening their own penises” (Hugh-Jones, 1979a:p147).
During
initiation, sexual intercourse is forbidden (Hugh-Jones, 1979b:p85)[5]. Girls should remain virgins till first menstruation and boys until
after initiation (p201).
In one myth, “[t]he Daughter of the Sun had
not yet reached puberty when her father made love to her. The Sun committed incest
with her at Wainambí Rapids, and her blood flowed
forth; since then, women must lose blood every month in remembrance of the
incest of the Sun and so that this great wickedness will not be forgotten. But
his daughter liked it and so she lived with her father as if she were his
wife. She thought about sex so much that she became thin and ugly and
lifeless. Newly married couples become pale and thin because they only think
of the sexual act, and this is called gamúri. But
when the Daughter of the Sun had her second menstruation, the sex act did
harm to her and she did not want to eat anymore. She lay down on a rock,
dying; her imprint there can still be seen on a large boulder at Wainambí Rapids. When the Sun saw this, he decided to
make gamú bayári, the
invocation that is made when the girls reach
puberty. The Sun smoked tobacco and revived her. Thus, the Sun established
customs and invocations that are still performed when young girls have their
first menstruation” (Reichel-Dolmatoff,
[1971:p28-9])[6]. “[…] the adults stimulate the
youths during puberty in their erotic games and are proud of their
precociousness even when this is not expressed in heterosexual acts” (Amazonian Cosmos, p245).
Janssen,
D. F., Growing Up Sexually. VolumeI. World Reference Atlas. 0.2 ed. 2004. Berlin:
Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology
Last
revised: Sept 2004
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