Tribe

Puyanawa

The Puyanawa suffered, as did many other peoples of the Acre, with the growth of rubber and rubber tapping activities in the region in the early 20th century. Since the first contacts with non-Indians, many have died in clashes or from diseases acquired in the process. The survivors were forced to work in rubber and quickly saw their way of life blighted as a result of the methods used by the “rubber colonels” to keep the Indians under their yoke. The Puyanawa were dispossessed of their land, catechised and educated in schools, which forbade the expression of any trace of their culture.

It was only with the beginning of the process of demarcation of their lands that the Puyanawa culture was once again valued by the Indians themselves, who have made efforts to recover their native language, a task that is being carried out with difficulty, given the small number of speakers.

Language

The Puyanawa language belongs to the Pano linguistic family.

Among the Puyanawa, the first person to raise for the first time the need for linguistic preservation of the group was Railda Manaitá, who even without external support or educational material, tried to instil this value in the other Indians, through classes where the language was taught. For these classes, he created an alphabet, based on Portuguese, and made a list of words and phrases in the native language.

The Puyanawa language is called by its speakers Ûdikuî, “true language”. The number of active speakers was, at the time of the field survey (July 1990), twelve out of a population of 385 people. It is interesting to note that the children, who would be the perpetuators of the language, are monolingual in Portuguese, which generates a process of language obsolescence or the possible extinction of this valuable cultural heritage.

[Aldir Santos de Paula, 1992]

Language under threat

The Puyanawa language began to disappear around 1910, when the Indians were kidnapped and enslaved by order of Colonel Mâncio Agostinho Rodrigues Lima to work in rubber tapping and other services on his hacienda. The first disposition of the rubber tappers was the prohibition of the use of the indigenous language and the creation of a school for all the natives to learn Portuguese. Those who spoke Puyanawa were severely punished.

In the last decades, almost all speakers of the language, who were children at the time of contact, died. After slavery, the Indians were ashamed of the language, which was almost forgotten.

In 2009, of some 500 Puyanawa Indians, only three spoke Puyanawa: Railda Manaitá, 79, the only one fluent in the language; his brother, Luiz Manaitá, 85; and former chief Mario Puyanawa, 65.

Despite efforts to revive the language, the results are still limited: no student can maintain a dialogue in Puyanawa.

[Luiza Bandeira / Folha de Sao Paulo, 2009].

Location

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Puyanawa inhabited the headwaters of the tributaries of the lower Moa River. After contact with non-Indians, they were forced to live on land belonging to a powerful landowner in the region, Colonel Mâncio Agostinho Rodrigues Lima.

The Puyanawa live in two villages, Baron do Rio Branco and Ipiranga, located in the municipality of Mâncio Lima in Acre. The main access route is the road, which is passable all year round. The distance between the Ipiranga Colocation site and the city of Mâncio Lima is 28 kilometres. The other option for access to the Puyanawa land is via the Moa River.

[Constant Tastevin, 1924; José Carlos Levinho, 1984.]

PHOTO DOCUMENT

PHOTOGRAPHIC DOCUMENTATION PUYANAWA AMAZONIA

Photography by Sébastian Fleury