Abstract
This work analyzes the cultural history of the Tukanoan family by attempting the reconstruction of 107 words related to the material culture shared by Amazonian peoples, especially in the Northwest Amazon. The analysis of the terminological system of words that can be reconstructed to Proto-Tukanoan, as well as words that can only be reconstructed to intermediate proto-languages or words that cannot be reconstructed at all allows for a set of cultural inferences regarding the historic evolution of Tukanoan family, which is accomplished along a dialogue with the ethnographic and archeological literature of the Northwest Amazon, as well as following in general terms the proposals for linking Historical Linguistics and Archaeology in different parts of the globe. It is concluded that there was a process of cultural differentiation between the two main branches of the Tukanoan family, as the reflex of distinct integration of each branch in different regional subsystems in the Northwest Amazon.
Highlights
This is a preliminary investigation about the pre-history of the Tukanoan family, whose languages are currently spoken in the Northwest Amazon
It is an attempt to describe in linguistic terms the cultural differentiation processes that occurred from Proto-Tukanoan, and especially between the two main branches of the family, Western Tukanoan (WT) and Eastern Tukanoan (ET). 107 vocabulary items related to the material culture items of indigenous groups in the Amazon, specially the Northwest Amazon, were attempt to be reconstructed
Items were matched semantically with one or more words in the Tukanoan languages, followed by the creation of cognate sets and reconstruction of lexical items into Proto-Tukanoan (PT), Proto-Eastern-Tukanoan (PET) and Proto-Western-Tukanoan (PWT) was attempted, following Chacon, which provides a reconstruction of the consonantal system of PT and classification of the Tukanoan family distinct to Waltz and Wheeler (1972), Malone (1987) and Barnes (1999)
Summary
This is a preliminary investigation about the pre-history of the Tukanoan family, whose languages are currently spoken in the Northwest Amazon (cf. Map 1 below). This paper aims at contributing to Amazonian ethnology by providing more specific and testable results that can be correlated with current and future findings in related ethnological sciences. As it will be shown, the society that spoke Proto-Tukanoan can be characterized by the following major cultural traits: i. Game animal as a more important source of food than fish. V. Evidence of technology for weaving, planting, ceramics and poisoning for obtaining fish and game. A limited use of utensils, mostly ceramics, hammocks, baskets, blowgun, but no clear evidence for axe, paddle, canoes or fish traps
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