A'i ymanhar ke kurumĩ rehe pynu ixo. 'A long time ago, an old woman farted on a boy'
Description
The theme of the narrative presented here is also found among other indigenous
peoples. The Bororo (macro-jê) version tells of the origin of disease and begins
with a grandmother farting on her grandson’s face after he refused to submit
to male initiation. The Kĩsêdjê (jê) version deploys a flatulent mother-in-law
(Nonato 2016: 1–2). The Kuikuro (upper xinguan cariban) version is very similar to that of the Kĩsêdjê (Franchetto, recordings and field notes from 1981).
While the Ka’apor and Bororo versions should be considered “serious” narra-
tives, for the Kĩsêdjê and the Kuikuro, the theme of the flatulent mother-in-law is
a feature of short and funny (“ugly”) narratives. It is interesting to note the structural correspondences of the relations between the protagonists: a grandmother
and grandson for the Bororo; an older woman and young boy for the Ka’apor; a
mother-in-law and son-in-law in the Upper Xingu.
This dataset contains the mediafiles. A glossed version with annotations is found in
On this and other worlds -- Voices from Amazonia
Edited by Kristine Stenzel and Bruna Franchetto