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Hands Around the World |
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Hands Around the World |
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Indian Cultures from Around the World
Tucano (Daxsea, Dachsea, Betoya, Beetaya, Dasea, Tukana)
Area: Colombia: Upper Papurí River and tributaries. Tucanoan, Eastern Tucanoan, Northern; Brazil: Rio Negro - Amazonas (Map); Tropical forest. Riverine, hills. Altitude: 200 to 250 meters.
Population: 2,000 in Colombia (1991); 3,500 in Brazil (1995); 5,500 total
Language Root: Tucano; Dialects: Yohoraa (Curaua), Wasona (Uasona). Used as a second language by many neighboring groups. Trade language.
First Contact: exact date unknown - early 16th century
Economy: Hunting and Fishing; Swidden agriculturalists
Today: Dominated by various religious mission groups bent on total acculturation for the Tucano. There are violent attacks against them and there are new strains of Malaria.
Father of a group of various sub-nations that live in the upper Rio Negro area called Tucano (Tukano). This group's culture is a virtual melting pot. It is common practice for the men to take wives from other groups. The mother will remain with her native language and children will learn as many as five languages living in a mixed community. The Tucano have been affected severely by their exposure to the national society. They are very involved in their self-determination, defense of their territory, and autonomy.
Ceramic design has developed into a precise visual language with which to communicate cultural ideas and values. They have two distinct categories of design. One is predominately abstract geometrical pattern, lines, dots, parallel lines, circles, circle spirals, triangles, and diamond shapes. There are also figurative motifs of frogs, birds, lizards, bats, fishes, and snakes, often repeated. At times They combine these designs together, producing a distinctive art which is both sophisticated and meaningful.
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For ecological, sociological and symbolic reasons, there exist in the region specializations in artwork (specialized production of certain artifacts for inter-community trade) that define a formalized network of inter-community trade. The Tukano are known for their wooden benches or stools, the Desana and the Baniwa for their baskets, the latter also for their manioc scrapers, the Kubeo for their funeral masks, the Wanana (some say) for their manioc squeezers, the Maku for their panpipes, curare and carrying baskets. In the case of the artifacts made from arumã, there are also specialists. On the Tiquié River, the Tuyuka and Bará are outstanding canoe-makers, which is a high priority item for all families and which has a high trade value.
Today many communities also devote a great deal of their time to the making of artwork for sale or trade for industrialized products. Through the Salesian missions, the women have come to spend their time making hammocks, mats, and tucum bags for sale, which they learned to make in the schools with the nuns, or with former students and indigenous teachers who gave classes in the communities. On the Içana there is at the present time an increase in the production of baskets and trays for sale, many Baniwa women are also participating in this activity. There are other places where specialists in the making of ceramics, ritual stools, and carved objects in Brazilwood (e.g., ritual cigar holders) are found.
Text from © Instituto Socioambiental. You can find their web site here: http://www.socioambiental.org/e/
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Additional Information
Tucano - Culture summary from the Ethnographic Atlas.
Museum of Natural History - Tucano introduction
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