Substances and Persons: on the Culinary Space of the People of the Centre
This paper refers to a cultural ensemble of groups of northwest Amazonia who selfdesignate as the People of the Centre (Witoto, Ocaina, Nonuya, Bora-Mirana, Muinane, Andoque). The production of food and the production of ‘true people’, in People of the Centre’s discourse, are referred to with a same set of terms; and the instruments and technical transformations of cooking (heating, pounding, filtering, combining and separating) are conceived of as bodily processes. The first section presents the main substances that constitute such a culinary space, both ritual and everyday. The second section, addresses the main technical processes that they undergo to transform them into foods. The third section discusses the meaning of the combination of different processed foodstuffs. It addresses these substances, processes and combinations—this alchemy—as the culinary and technical expression of the formation of true persons.
Documentación de las prácticas lingüísticas y socioculturales de la Gente de centro, Amazonia noroccidental
Ante el peligro de extincion de las lenguas originarias, el proyecto “Documentacion de las lenguas de la Gente de centro”, realizado a traves del programa DoBeS ( Dokumentatio Bedrohter Sprachen ) del mpi (Max Planck Institute) en convenio con el iiap (Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonia Peruana), ilustra la documentacion linguistica como medio para salvaguardar y proteger el patrimonio sociocultural amazonico. Ofrecemos aqui una rapida caracterizacion tanto de la Gente de centro —una de las auto-denominaciones de las comunidades con las cuales se ha adelantado dicho proyecto— como de algunos de los programas informaticos y formatos utilizados en la documentacion sociocultural; al final exponemos las proyecciones en cuanto transferencia de uso de estas herramientas metodologicas a la comunidad regional y nacional de hablantes de lenguas amenazadas y sus estudiosos.
Documentary and descriptive linguistics
Much of the work that is labeled "deseriptive" within linguistics comprises two activities, the collection of primary data and a (low-level) analysis of these data. These are indeed two separate activities as shown by the fact that the methods employed in each activity differ substantially. To date, the field concerned with the first aetivity — called "doeumentary linguisties" here — has received very little attention from linguists. It is proposed that documentary linguistics be conceived of as a fairly independent field of linguistic inquiry and practice that is no longer linked exclusively to the descriptive framework. A format for language documentations (in contrast to language deseriptions) is presented (section 2), and various practical and theoretical issues connected with this format are discussed. These include the rights of the individuals and communities contributing to a language doeumentation (section 3.1), the parameters for the selection of the data to be included in a doeumentation (section 3.2), and the assessment of the quality of such data (section 3.3),