http://anthroling.wordpress.com/2007/11/08/how-we-became-white-people-a-tale-of-indigenous-onomastic-strategies/ Language and Society in Greater Amazonia Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:49:10 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 http://anthroling.wordpress.com/2007/11/08/how-we-became-white-people-a-tale-of-indigenous-onomastic-strategies/#comment-115 Simeon Floyd Wed, 12 Mar 2008 04:14:14 +0000 http://anthroling.wordpress.com/2007/11/08/how-we-became-white-people-a-tale-of-indigenous-onomastic-strategies/#comment-115 Do you know where the word "nahua" for white people comes from (what it was used for before white people got there - or what its cognates were used for in other languages)? These terms are of special interest to me because they are one of the ways we try to encapsulate social difference linguistically (or fail to do so, as you describe). Like for the X-nahua case, sometimes they go through really weird routes before they congeal. The Chachis use the term "uya" for white foreigners which is the name of their traditional cannibalistic enemies from the "kaspele timbu" (long ago time). In Nheengatú the term "kariwa" appears to come from the word for powerful shamans who were sometimes white-skinned, or perhaps for the cannibalistic foreigners to the north, the Car(a)ib(a) (not like the Tupis never had any anthro-gastronomical tendencies themselves). [Side note: The word for people from Rio seems to come from "kariwa/caraiba uka", "white people house": carioca.] The word in Waorani is "kowodi", aslo meaning something to do with "cannibal" (the Wao, as warlike as they are, were never known to eat the vanquished themselves). The Andean pishtaco story is also about white cannibals. As white people have never been known to eat indigenous Americans literally, why do they so often call while people cannibals? It seems to be a kind of indigenous way for indicating otherness or foreignness, but it may also be some kind parable about the cosmological dimensions of colonialism and capitalism. On more than one occasion I have been asked if people in the US eat indigenous people, and I want to say "Not literally, but there is this thing called the IMF . . ." Do you know where the word “nahua” for white people comes from (what it was used for before white people got there – or what its cognates were used for in other languages)? These terms are of special interest to me because they are one of the ways we try to encapsulate social difference linguistically (or fail to do so, as you describe). Like for the X-nahua case, sometimes they go through really weird routes before they congeal. The Chachis use the term “uya” for white foreigners which is the name of their traditional cannibalistic enemies from the “kaspele timbu” (long ago time). In Nheengatú the term “kariwa” appears to come from the word for powerful shamans who were sometimes white-skinned, or perhaps for the cannibalistic foreigners to the north, the Car(a)ib(a) (not like the Tupis never had any anthro-gastronomical tendencies themselves). [Side note: The word for people from Rio seems to come from "kariwa/caraiba uka", "white people house": carioca.] The word in Waorani is “kowodi”, aslo meaning something to do with “cannibal” (the Wao, as warlike as they are, were never known to eat the vanquished themselves). The Andean pishtaco story is also about white cannibals. As white people have never been known to eat indigenous Americans literally, why do they so often call while people cannibals? It seems to be a kind of indigenous way for indicating otherness or foreignness, but it may also be some kind parable about the cosmological dimensions of colonialism and capitalism. On more than one occasion I have been asked if people in the US eat indigenous people, and I want to say “Not literally, but there is this thing called the IMF . . .”

]]> http://anthroling.wordpress.com/2007/11/08/how-we-became-white-people-a-tale-of-indigenous-onomastic-strategies/#comment-63 Kampan Dilemma « Greater Blogazonia Tue, 15 Jan 2008 19:05:42 +0000 http://anthroling.wordpress.com/2007/11/08/how-we-became-white-people-a-tale-of-indigenous-onomastic-strategies/#comment-63 [...] outsiders to adopt the ethnonyms ‘Asháninka’ and ‘Ashéninka’ instead (see this post for some discussion of the politics of ethnonyms in Peruvian [...] [...] outsiders to adopt the ethnonyms ‘Asháninka’ and ‘Ashéninka’ instead (see this post for some discussion of the politics of ethnonyms in Peruvian [...]

]]>