IDNO

P.9288.ACH1

Description

On Catalogue Card: “Okaina women”.

On Catalogue Card for duplicate image LS.26737.WHI: “N.W. Amazon. 175.52, 53.
Okaina group.
(note coca pestle & mortar)
- Okaina women, painted.
(2 slides).”

A group portrait of nine young Okaina women and girls standing in row. The group are probably participating in a dance and are holding hands at shoulder level. The women are wearing body-paint on their bodies and legs, and some also wear bead necklaces with discs and/or leg and ankle ligatures. In the background is part of a malokas (Indian communal house). [TC 09/06/1999, updated JD 02/10/2019]

Place

S America; Colombia; North West Amazon

Cultural Affliation

South American Indian; Witotoan; Okaina [Ocaina; Akaina; Dukaiya; Añuja; Okaine; Ibo’tsa; Dukaya]

Named Person

Photographer

Whiffen, Thomas William

Collector / Expedition

Date

1908 - 1909

Collection Name

Mounted Haddon CollectionWhiffen Collection

Source

Format

Print Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

Publication: Reproduced in Whiffen, T. W., 1915 as Pl. XXV with the caption “Group of Okaina women”.

Related Image: A duplicate print is at the RAI, reference 36175, and annotated by Whiffen in pencil on the reverse as "Dukaiya (Okaina)."
Photocopies of Whiffen prints at the RAI are in the UCMAA archive, reference W19/1/3. See Whiffen Collection record for further details on RAI collection. [TC 09/06/1999, updated JD 02/10/2019]

Bibliography Reference: The discs on the women's necklaces are probably coins. Whiffen explains that "smelting, or any description of metallurgy, cannot be looked for among the inhabitants of a country so singularly devoid of all metalliferous deposit or formation...their only method of working metal when obtained is to heat and hammer it into various forms and shapes for ornaments" (Whiffen, T. W., 1915: 93-94). He states that "the pendants ... are mostly coins, depreciated Chilean dollars as a rule...either given to the wearers by me or had filtered through from the Rubber Belt; a few ... through the medium of intertribal barter". He notes that "they are always the most rare and cherished possessions" (ibid: 80-81). [TC 01/06/1999]

Bibliography Reference: Whiffen discusses body-painting in the region (Whiffen, T. W., 1915: 87-89), noting that "if none tatoo, all paint". In a discussion of "the arts" (ibid: 91) he declares that "these people have no great use for colour and line beyond the ornamentation of their bodies". He goes on to describe the favourite colours of different groups - "as a rule the colours are red, yellow and black" and informs us of the different plants and minerals from which the pigments are obtained. He states that "a bright red, the commonest paint of all, is made from a prickly burr, or nut, that is for of seeds and red matter" (ibid: 87). He explains that "the women always paint themselves for a dance, and dances are so frequent that before the coat of paint is worn away another festivity will be in prospect, and fresh decorations have to be considered. They also paint on other occasions than a dance" (ibid: 88). He describes some of the designs (ibid: 88-89), noting that some Andoke designs are intended to be representational but among other groups vary in degrees of regularity. On gender, he notes that "the men are painted by their women before a dance, but never in the intricate patterns and variety of colour" (ibid: 89) used by the women, and that "painting is not a universal custom among the men as with the women". He notes, however, that a man is painted for a dance by his wife (ibid: 161). He also informs us that girls "learn to dance, to sing, and to paint themselves for festivals" at "secret lodges in the bush" (ibid: 157). He describes young women painting themselves for a dance, as they "squat in chattering crowds over the calabashes of vegetable dye, white, scarlet, black, or purple, with which they trace upon each other the cunning patterns ..." (ibid: 192). [TC 01/06/1999]

Context: In other Amazonian cultures, body-paints have a significance which goes beyond decoration. Guss, for example, discusses body-painting in relation to the Yekuana of the Venezuelan rain forest. In myth, a culture hero derives body-paints from "sacred trees ... brought to Earth specifically for this purpose" (Guss.D.M. 1989: 57) and "it is body paint, more than any other single object, which ... distinguishes the civilized from the wild" (ibid: 63). Body-paint marks the introduction of a newborn child, or the re-introduction of a young woman at menarche, into society (ibid: 65). Body-paints may also mark distinctions between groups of people - when the "First People left the Earth to turn into birds, it was their body paint that became the colourful markings distinguishing each species" (ibid: 65). In addition, the strength of a herbal medicine can be "enhanced by combining it with one of several paints which is then applied to the body" (ibid: 63). Whiffen does not mention the significance of body-paint beyond its decorative purpose. However, it seems unlikely that such significances do not exist, particularly as he notes that older women who assist young mothers at childbirth "have their faces painted red" (Whiffen, T. W., 1915: 149). [TC 01/06/1999]

Bibliography Reference: Witotoan body-painting is also mentioned by Steward (1963: 753, 758). Plates 85-88 depict people wearing body-paint very similar to that depicted in the Whiffen Collection photographs. Photographs in Steward and Faron's book also depict similar body-painting (1959: 354). [TC 01/06/1999]

Bibliography Reference: Whiffen discusses Indian communal houses (malokas) at length (Whiffen, T. W., 1915: 40-48). He notes that in the homestead "there is but one great house, thatched and ridge-roofed like a gigantic hay-rick ... this is the home of some three score Indians" in which "there are no divisions for each family" (ibid: 40). He notes that the house is a temporary dwelling which falls into disrepair and is burnt every two to three years, at which point the inhabitants move to new location (ibid: 41-42). He then discusses how the site is chosen and the building constructed (ibid: 42-44). He notes that "the far end of the house - where there is usually another small entrance - is the portion reserved for the chief and his family" (ibid: 46) and that "each family has its own fire" (ibid: 47), with their hammocks slung around it and possessions slung in the rafters above. He explains that "at ordinary times there will be possibly from fifty to sixty people in the tribal house, but on the occasion of any festivity as many as two hundred will crowd in" (ibid: 48). He also provides plans and diagrams of the house (ibid: 41, 43, 45,46) and an illustration of the type of palm used for thatching (ibid: pl. VI). Menimehe houses, he notes, are "more open" than those of other groups (ibid: 51). [TC 01/06/199]

Bibliography Reference: Steward also discusses Witotoan villages and houses, explaining that "the typical Witotoan community consists of a single large multifamily house, though some villages have several large houses" and that these are built on "a dry site ... some distance from the river" (1963: 752). Plate 81 depicts a "Witoto communal house" similar to those depicted in the Whiffen Collection photographs. Steward notes that "the sociopolitical unit is the exogamous, patrilocal community which usually occupies a single large house and is divided into family groups. Local exogamy seems to prevail even when the community has several houses" (ibid: 755). Steward and Faron (1959: 314) also discusses Witotoan houses. More recent analyses, such as that by Hugh-Jones on Barasana cosmology, demonstrate that the Indian house can be interpreted structurally as a significant metaphorical representation of the cosmos, myth and society (Hugh-Jones.S. 1979). [TC 01/06/199]