New direction, again

My time in Iquitos since Wednesday has been dedicated to one more elicitation session with Omagua consultant Amelia Huanaquiri, and to continuing to write up and analyze our work from this summer.  The main reason for my delay here has been to wait for the arrival of Father Ángel Cadenas, a priest whose parish is Santa Rita de Castilla, on the Marañón River, upriver from my previous four-day home of San Regis.  (Father Cadenas' blog can be found here.)  I am hoping to get his blessing to visit the Omurano family that has recently been "found" integrated into Urarina communities on the Urituyacu River, a tributary of the upper Marañón.  A photograph of the community of Caymituyo on the Urituyacu is shown below.

Caymituyo, Urituyacu River

My original plan was that, if Father Cadenas did not return from his vacations soon enough, I would change course and head up the Tigre River to Intuto, the supposed home of the last speaker of Taushiro, Amadeo García García.  However, after a lengthy conversation with Lev this morning, we decided it is more urgent to find out additional details regarding the situation surrounding the Omurano family -- where they live, how old they are, what their levels of fluency are, etc.  Because of this, if Father Cadenas does not arrive in Iquitos by Monday, I will depart on Tuesday for the Urituyacu, either from Puerto Masusa in Iquitos, or from Nauta, farther upriver, depending on price and the length of the trip.  I cannot delay any longer, as I have to be back in Iquitos by August 26th, for a flight to Cusco on the 27th.  

There are three full Urarina communities on the Urituyacu, the indigenous group with which the Omurano have integrated: Progreso II, San Antonio de Bancal and Guineal.  Two additional communities are mixed Kokama-Urarina, but governed by the Kokama: Caymituyo and Ayahuasca.  I will first disembark at the mouth of the Urituyacu in the community of Nueva Alianza in hopes of locating someone there who can tell me the exact location of the Omurano speakers.  If not, I will hire someone who owns a pequi-pequi motor, and head upriver to various communities asking around.  Below is a map of the Departamento de Loreto (obtained from El Despacho de Planificación, Gobierno Regional de Loreto) -- at the middle left edge of the central brown section (La Provincia de Loreto), you will see the mouth of the Urituyacu as it opens up into the Marañón, just upriver from the distrito of Maypuco.

Map of the Department of Loreto

This new plan reduces a lot of stress for me, and is very exciting.  Although I do not expect to do any linguistic work on this trip, even a small amount of lexical elicitation would add volumes to the extant documentation on Omurano.  I will update you all upon my (hurried) return to Iquitos.