Future hope for Omurano

I just returned yesterday from nine days upriver, having visited the communities of Nueva Alianza, at the mouth of the Urituyacu, and Santa Rita de Castilla, on the Marañón proper between the Tigre and the Chambira. My goal was to locate individuals who still speak Omurano – however, I lacked the time to reach key communities farther up the Urituyacu where these individuals live. Nevertheless, I was able to obtain a good deal of peripheral situational data in Alianza and from neighboring villages, which gives me hope for future long-term work on the language, a surprising result in itself, given that the language has been assumed to be extinct since the 1950s. My time in Castilla was spent visiting the local parish run by Father Miguel Ángel Cadenas. Father Miguel works closely with indigenous groups (principally the Kokama and Urarina) in this region (and closer downriver to his base), treating health and ecological concerns, specifically as the latter relates to a large oil pipeline (Sp. oleoducto) that runs just around 300m from the center of Alianza.

Tuesday, 8/16

I departed from Puerto Masusa around 8:30PM on the lancha Linares IV. Masusa is the largest and most important port in this region, and handles all major trade in and out of Iquitos. The more industrial sections of the port are built up, in what might resemble an American port of sorts – however, the areas where passenger boats dock are considerably more ramshackle and incredibly filthy. These boats take cargo themselves, and are the principal means of transportation between Iquitos and Yurimaguas for all individuals who live along that stretch of river. Rural farmers bring anything from cows to plantains aboard, as each lancha has a large front end for storing such cargo. City folk bring on new cars and mototaxis, for which there are no roads linking Iquitos to Yurimaguas.

Puerto Masusa, Iquitos

Onboard I met three Argentine men who had met up together sporadically during their time in Peru. They were headed beyond Yurimaguas to the Morona River, up which they hoped to travel to Ecuador. The company made lancha life much more enjoyable, as I did not reach Alianza until Thursday morning. Two large decks strung with hammocks constitute passenger travel, and you bring with you some sort of envase (container) to eat out of, as meals are served from the kitchen three times a day. Depending on the boat, there may be a TV (Wednesday evening they were showing Titanic, of all movies). Otherwise, your time chugging upriver is dedicated to reading, relaxation and taking in the views of the numerous villages that dot the Amazon, Marañón and Huallaga. Pulling out of Masusa that night was a spectacular site – only then does one really get a sense of what a mammoth Iquitos is cut out of the jungle, throwing up lights into an otherwise pitch black night sky, just up the Itaya River from its confluence with the Amazon.

Thursday, 8/18

I arrived in Alianza around 10:30AM.  Alianza is shielded from the main portion of the Marañón by a large island directly in front of it, which is where boats dock to drop off passengers on the local sand bar, as the other route the Marañón takes directly by part of the village is too shallow this time of year. Getting off the boat I met a man named Emerson, who lives far up the Urituyacu in San Antonio de Bancal, though he is originally from Pintuyacu on the Nanay, and knew Lev and Chris from the Iquito Documentation Project! He inquired about my work, as he claimed I looked like Lev with my beard – he can join the crowd. I was able to cross to the village in a small boat he was also taking, and we parted ways.

I arrived at the radio center in Alianza inquiring where the residence of Gilter Yuyarima and Sonia Caritimari was – the hosts which F. Miguel had recommended to me. Alianza has two large megaphones fixed to the top of a large pole used to announce when individuals receive phone calls. This was used to reach Gilter to come fetch me, though in a somewhat embarrassing and overdramatic fashion. Both are extremely amiable, outgoing and welcoming. Sonia provided me with all of my meals, and insisted (somewhat to my chagrin) that I take over her sixteen-year-old son's bedroom – I protested that I had a tent and could sleep anywhere in the house, but she was uncompromising, which in the end was not a problem. Both Gilter and Sonia work closely with F. Miguel in his work in that area, and seem to respect him highly; that I was able to say I knew him and he was interested in my working in the area spead up introductions immensely.

Nueva Alianza, Loreto, Peru

That afternoon Sonia brought a woman named Florinda to the house to visit with me regarding my inquiries into Omurano – she is an Urarina from farther up the Urituyacu, but was unfortunately unable (more likely unwilling) to tell me anything regarding the Omurano. However, she took me and Sonia to visit her two elderly aunts, who remain quite “traditional”. According to Sonia, this accounts for the fact that they only speak when spoken to and live in open houses without walls (i.e., four posts and a roof). As such, it was extremely hard to converse with them, and they claimed (I believe truthfully) to not be relatives of some of the individuals I was looking for (i.e., names given to me by F. Miguel), though in an ideal world they would have been more willing to elaborate on the presence of at least one Omurano family in the area. This visit was for the most part wildly unsuccessful.

Soccer is played every night in Alianza by what appears to be the same two village teams, on the field between the school and my lodgings – I spent the rest of the evening watching them play, bathing and eating. Alianza, unlike San Joaquín, has almost no mosquitoes after dark, which makes me already want to go back!

Friday, 8/19

Sonia introduced me to a local resident Edubí Cuhuachi and her husband Jorge Aquiles Manihuari – she was under the impression that Edubí's mother Mercedes, who lives in another village Chanchamayo (about one and half hours upriver) may know Omurano. Seeing as Sonia had quickly taken me under her wing and seemed to have a sincerely vested interest in helping me locate individuals that may tell me more about Omurano or actually speak it, we decided it was a good idea to go to Chanchamayo in the morning – Jorge took us. Although Mercedes was unable to give me any linguistic information on the Omurano (as her parents were originally from outside the Urituyacu), she did remember larger populations of them as a girl (she herself is somewhere over seventy, though she does not know her birthday or exact age). She claims that there were decent-sized groups of Omurano in San Luis, a village on the upper Urituyacu, as well as an upper tributary called the Yanayacu, where her father also had his chacra (farm). Coincidentally, one of the individuals whose name was communicated to F. Miguel as a speaker of Omurano was born on the Rayayacu, which is itself a tributary of the same Yanayacu.

Chanchamayo, Loreto, Peru

Mercedes indicated that most of the Omurano died when she was young from an epidemic. Apart from these vague facts, the trip to Mercedes' house was my first opportunity to try masato, a widely consumed local beverage distilled from manioc – fortunately it's not that strong. Settings in which I am a bystander in an otherwise familial get-together are always fun for me, as they are a way for people to get to know me as not just the crazy gringo from Mars who dropped out of the sky – I can laugh and speak Spanish too, and talk about many of the same things that they do.

Saturday, 8/20

Late on Friday afternoon, Sonia called to Monterrico, the next village on the Marañón proper upriver from Alianza, where her friend Pastor Dahua lives, whose grandfather José Manuel Macusi, was reported by F. Miguel to remember some Omurano words – this was my most exciting prospect yet! They said they would come to Alianza to meet with me by 8AM Saturday, and as expected showed up around 1PM. I had promised to reimburse them for their gasoline, but it also came to my attention after the fact that Pastor had had to deceive his grandfather slightly as to the reason of the trip to Alianza, which may explain some of his initial disgruntledness at meeting me. Nevertheless, my connection with F. Miguel helped, and we were soon talking about what he knew about Omurano and the Omurano people.

Work with José Manuel Macusi Nuribe

José Manuel's (henceforth JM) family is actually Urarina, though his wife Antonia Macusi is of Omurano descent – JM claimed that his father-in-law Bautista spoke Omurano fluently (more on this below). For his part, JM, who was born in Triunfo in the middle Urituyacu, remembered around twenty-five words in Omurano from his boyhood – i.e., from listening to the speech of local Omuranos. He originally claimed to know only those words which he had already given to F. Miguel, which I did not myself yet have. I had a 1930 Omurano wordlist with me to refresh his memory if possible, and this worked to an extent. I imagine that with the time that we did not have at that moment he could actually be brought around to remembering much more, though this may not be an ideal focus for work if there are additional fluent speakers. My meeting with him constitutes the only linguistic data I collected on Omurano on this trip, but that amount already lets me confirm that the phonology of the language is not as crazy as the orthography employed by the German anthropologist Günter Tessmann would lead one to expect. Fortunately, JM seemed very amenable to meeting with me again at some point in the future, and his grandson Pastor seemed very intrigued by the work.

JM, like Mercedes, indicated that the Omurano died out due to an epidemic, which he identified as sarampión (measles). In addition to his own linguistic knowledge, he was able to give me additional names in his wife's family of individuals farther upriver who still speak the language fluently (according to him), some of which I had already gathered from F. Miguel, and others which I later found out were new to him.

Sunday-Monday, 8/21-22

Not having the time to reach the upriver communities where Omurano speakers live, I spent Sunday & Monday reading Kakinte language materials in preparation for my work in the South of Peru in the coming weeks.  During times like these I get extremely anxious to get back to the city, as there is not much to do in these villages when there is no work to be done.  I had been hoping to leave Monday, in order to stop in on Father Cadenas in Castilla, but the only lancha that had left Yurimaguas on Sunday had run aground, and would be passing Alianza until about 2AM Tuesday.  (One can "guesstimate" the timing of passing lanchas by not only calling the office of the company that runs particular lanchas in Yurimaguas, but also by calling to various villages and asking when a given lancha passed by their port -- there are only three main companies operating lanchas in this area, and everyone is attuned to their passing.  The latter strategy is often the more successful one.)  During this time, however, it was nice to be able to interact with the Yuyarima-Caritimari family in a non-work-based manner.  Since I didn't have to be in mosquito net by 5:30PM to escape mosquitoes, I was able to stay up later and socialize with them like a real human being.  During this time I was able to try a new delicacy I am now a huge fan of -- taricaya eggs (yellow-spotted Amazon river turtle, Podocnemis unifilis).  Otherwise, food mainly consisted of rice, plantains, manioc, doncella (tiger catfish, Pseudoplatystoma fasciatum) and noodles.  Fresh fruit was not in as great of an abundance as in San Joaquín, and I get the impression that farming on chacras is considerably less prevalent in Alianza -- given that it is located at the mouth of the Urituyacu, it sees a lot of passing trade of goods up and down the Urituyacu, and as such has become more a "commercial center", so to speak.

Tuesday, 8/23

I awoke at 2AM Tuesday morning to go in a botecito with my hosts to the beach area where the Linares IV had dropped me off five days previously, expecting to be on a boat soon.  However, it turned out that, not long after we had called around Monday evening to locate the Gilmer IV (the boat I was supposed to catch), it had run aground again on the Huallaga River (it would do so a third time before it reached Alianza).  Loreto is now in the heat of the dry season and it is not infrequent for lanchas to run aground, particularly at night when the visibility of large sand bars is reduced.  I waited with my hosts from 2:30AM to 5PM on the beaches that day, without any luck.  Later in the morning, I waited while they fished for passing palometa (Pygocentrus palometa, a species of piranha with smaller teeth), which along with some plantains, we cooked over a makeshift fire for breakfast and lunch.

Lunch of palometa and plantains

Unsuccessful, and exhausted from the sun, we returned to Alianza around 5PM, to find out by phone that the Gilmer IV had indeed gotten free and was on its way to Alianza, and that it should pass by around 9PM.  After some quick showering, we headed back to the beach, and sure enough the lancha arrived soon after our own arrival.  I thanked my hosts profusely for their guidance and hospitality and boarded.  After a short conversation with a literature professor from Yurimaguas while the crew loaded additional cargo, I went to sleep.

Wednesday, 8/24

Around 12:30PM I arrived in Santa Rita de Castilla, a considerably larger village, where Father Miguel Ángel Cadenas runs the local parish with Father Manolo Berjón and three sister nuns.  I was stopping in Castilla to update Father Cadenas on the information I had collected in Alianza, as well as to see about the possibility of his having a recording of a story in Omurano (which unfortunately turned out to be in Urarina).  In general, it seems that Father Cadenas is a very good contact to have, as he works frequently in many communities upriver of Castilla, and is known and well-liked by many people.  He is also a good conduit for communicating with locals.  Father Cadenas met me near the port and took me to his house (after we felt the tremors of a 6.8 earthquake that had hit about 50 miles north of Pucallpa, a more southerly hub of the Peruvian Amazon), which is a large two story structure that is well enclosed, has water that runs through pipes, real chairs, hallways and rooms where one doesn't have to sleep with a mosquito net.  We lunched with the sisters in their neighboring house, where they have a fully functioning kitchen with a gas stove, healthy water and a wide array of food groups not found in the homes of other residents.  One can see the advantages of the money and far-reaching infrastructure of the Catholic church in Castilla.  Father Miguel and I spoke at length about the situation of Omurano and possibility of future work (see below), and he is extremely thrilled about these prospects, albeit they are highly tentative, of which he is well aware.  He indicated that for a good time the parish had been seeking linguists from La Universidad Nacional de San Marcos in Lima to help with linguistic documentation in the area, but that these attempts had been futile.

Parroquia, Santa Rita de Castilla, Loreto, Peru

Father Cadenas left me to work in his office while he met with the nuns to plan an upcoming trip to the Urituyacu.  I had caught word from the local radiofonía (radio center) that the Linares IV had passed Maypuco at 9AM, and that it should arrive in Castilla around 6PM -- again, more false promises.  I spent the night in one of the guest rooms in Father Cadenas' house (of which there are many), after dining with him and the nuns in their very comfortable dining/living room (replete with flat screen TV and DVD player -- Castilla, unlike many villages of the area, is fortunate to have electricity every night of the week for four hours!), where we talked about everything from the craziness of the local Spanish (three out of the four of them are Spaniards) to the debt crisis in the U.S. to music.  They are very warm, easygoing and knowledgeable, and I hope to use them as a base for work in the future.  At 6:30AM I hurriedly caught the Eduardo IV, which had passed the Linares IV (which had run aground, lo and behold) along with Sister Nancy, who traveled with me to Nauta, on her way to Lima for a conference on human rights.  

Situation of Omurano

Unfortunately, the true status of Omurano as a vital language is still vague.  However, stories from José Manuel lead me to believe that there are speakers of the language who are not very elderly that still live in the upper Urituyacu.  That there are individuals who still identify ethnically as Omurano is in itself in stark contrast to the situation of Yameo I found in San Regis a few weeks ago.  More specifically, the generation of fully fluent Omurano speakers (if it no longer exists today, though I suspect it does), is that of of JM's father-in-law, Bautista Macusi -- JM is about 70, and his father-in-law lived well past the period when Omurano was rumored to have gone extinct anyway.  Bautista's son, Esteban, who passed away four years ago, was also considered to be fully fluent.  Fortunately, several of Esteban's twelve siblings are still alive (one of whom is JM's wife), as well as his children, who are also reported to be fluent in the language.  JM reports that his own lack of fluency is due to the fact that he left the Urituyacu region as a young boy to live in Monterrico, on the Marañón proper (interestingly, it seems that not long ago it was the Urituyacu itself that ran alongside Monterrico, not the Marañón, which appears to have changed course).  Given that I suspect that he retains a good deal more linguistic knowledge than he himself knows/lets on, I am inclined to believe (albeit tentatively) his reports about fluent (or nearly fluent) speakers who live up the Urituyacu.  Intriguingly, one of Esteban's grandsons, who is himself only around 30, is reported to speak the language, as he grew up with Esteban, and other grandchildren are learning it, though exactly from whom remains a mystery.  Other intermediate members of the family are also rumored to speak it to varying degrees.  

More generally, I spoke with F. Miguel about the possibility of taking another longer trip up the Urituyacu perhaps next year, when the river his higher and travel is faster and can better planned/executed.  I indicated to him that, if fluent or partially fluent speakers are found, it may be possible to apply for a NSF DEL Rapid Grant (National Science Foundation -- Documentation of Endangered Languages), though I clearly explained that this all lay in the future -- he was very understanding, but nevertheless excited with the prospect and willing to help in any way he could.  Any systematic documentation of the language by trained linguists would be a huge increase to the current documentation of Omurano, and I hope to be able to continue prospective work on it in the future.

Tomorrow I fly from Iquitos to Lima at 8:30AM and from Lima to Cuzco at 1:30PM, to do brief work on Kakinte reality status with speaker Miguel Sergio, a young Kakinte studying at La Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad Cusco (UNSAAC), before I head down the Urubamba River.  I am looking forward to some colder dryer weather in Cuzco (though am completely unprepared for it clothes-wise) and a change of scenery.  This is the last leg my trip before I end up in Lima to fly home, which I admit I am eager to do.  I will update on my time in Cuzco before I depart for the Urubamba around Sept. 1st.