Finnegans is the Tolstoy of the Uitoto

Abstract

The Word, as the creative principle of life, is a concept found in many cultures, from the Hebraic to the Uitotos (or Murui) of the Colombian Amazon. The author finds parallels between the immersion of Joyce´s Finnegans Wake in the Word as the key to unlocking different but interrelated dimensions of reality, and the cosmo-vision of the Murui. Finnegans Wake presents a panoptic view of practically the whole of life and history in the form of the dream world of a Dublin tavern owner. It deploys a complex use of word play, hidden meanings and mutations of language to depict both the conscious and subconscious perceptions of our primal humanity. Similarly, virtually every word of the Murui myths has multiple meanings and they embody a manual of correct thought and behavior ranging from spirituality to the practicalities of daily life. Their premier shamanic plants, mambe and ambil, derivatives of coca and tobacco, respectively, are the inspiration for the nightly colloquiums in their malocas (longhouses) where the meanings of their myths are teased out by the participants, guided by their medicine man, in a free-ranging conversation that, while it seems to be  digressive, adheres, as does Joyce, to the inner logic of the Word. The author ends with some reflections on his own struggles, as a writer to grapple with the Word, which, as it communicates, also mystifies. For the Murui, this urge towards omniscience may have arisen because their survival depended on articulating all of the interrelated nuances of their environment.