Jànà kɨ́áyì // Ahora contamos
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Almost home!
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Vamos abajo!
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Prep time
The second half of my Nueva Vida trip went very well: I finished transcribing a total of 2.5 hours of recordings (about 13,000 words) in Western Máíhɨ̃ki, and recorded several hours of new material with one of the oldest speakers of that dialect. Fortune also smiled on me in terms of Northern dialect data collection. I was able to do significant lexical work with a Northern Máíhɨ̃ki speaker who visited Nueva Vida for the MP's linguistics workshop, and I talked at some length to five more speakers who were passing through Nueva Vida on the way back to Tótóyà from the federation congress.
I also picked up a new hobby on the Yanayacu: the hula hoop! Since Nueva Vida is essentially a swamp, it's not possible to run or walk for exercise, so the only options are swimming and things that you can do inside. Chris Beier brought along a weighted adult hula hoop for just this reason, and by the end of the field season I was a pro with it. She was also kind enough to give me the hula hoop as a farewell gift - so it should see some further use in Estrecho! I wish I could provide photographic evidence of this development, but alas my stills camera was on the fritz for most of the field season.
Since the rest of the MP team went back to Berkeley on Tuesday, my hula hoop and I are alone in Iquitos for the week. I spent the first few days after we arrived wrapping up team work, and now I'm getting ready for the first solo phase of my trip - buying supplies, packing my luggage, preparing materials, and catching up with some of you :) - through Monday the 26th. Then early Tuesday, I fly to El Estrecho, where all the gnats are strong, all the scenery is beautiful, and all the subordinate clauses are above average.
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Jáímàìkìrò - El congreso
of some (net positive) changes to the program of the congress of the
Máíhuna indigenous federation, which took place yesterday and today.
Our participation in the congress was short and sweet: Lev and Chris
stood up, gave an update on the project's overall work, and introduced
me and my project in Estrecho. I gave a very short speech in Máíh+ki,
repeated myself in Spanish, and then sat down. Afterward I was able to
meet some speakers from the community of Tótóya, which is near
Estrecho, and talk to them about the possibility of working with me in
September and later. My Máíh+ki has improved to the point where I can
converse if everyone involved speaks relatively slowly and clearly, so
I was able to give those speakers some concrete evidence that I really
want to learn their language -- as I said several times, "jana ák+j+ki
j+kamáyi íko ñáméyí, máíj+ki j+kayi íko óíyí" ("now I don't want to
speak Spanish, I want to speak Máíh+ki").
Now, we're in the city for two days to take care of some logistical
matters, and then it's back to Nueva Vida for the speakers' workshop
and the second half of the field season. During that time I'll be
wrapping up the work that I've been doing on Western dialect texts
over the last month, tutoring writing and so on in the workshop, and -
most exciting! - working with a Northern dialect speaker who will be
at our field site starting tomorrow through at least August 6. I'll be
back to internet access again on August 16, and ciao (or, chíbayi)
until then!
Saturday, June 29, 2013
From Amalia, June 27th
Just a note by proxy to let all of you know that our research team has arrived safely in Nueva Vida and started work here! We've been in town and I've been collecting data for just under two weeks (I'm writing on June 27), but this is the first opportunity I've had to send a message with someone to Iquitos and thereby to the Internet.
My health has been good, the weather has been disgusting, and the work has been very productive. I'm about 20% done with the field season here and, I would estimate, 35% done with the part that will involve collection of substantial new data. For the last two weeks, I've been exclusively collecting and transcribing oral texts – mostly traditional oral narratives and descriptions of how people celebrated festivals, did subsistence tasks, and so on in the "old days."
I'm continuing with that data collection through July 23, with a four-day break in mid-July to go to the annual congress of the Máíhuna indigenous federation. Then I'll be working through August 7 at the project's linguistics workshop for Máíhɨ̃ki speakers, and after that I'll have one more week of data collection before we pack up and go back to Iquitos on August 16.
Look for a recap of the congress in mid-July, and goodbye until then!
Friday, June 14, 2013
El Estrecho sáíkò
just over a week ago, but there's already lots of news.
After leaving New Haven last Tuesday, I got into Lima midday on
Wednesday and Iquitos later that afternoon. Unfortunately, my checked
bags didn't come with me from São Paulo to Lima. I was not amused to
learn this, less because I was tired of having worn the same clothes
for two days -- although I was! -- than because I was going to be in
Iquitos for all of 36 hours before leaving for an
information-gathering trip to Estrecho. However, after several
inquisitive phone calls to the Irregularidad de Equipaje desk of my
airline in Lima, all of my suitcases arrived in Iquitos on Thursday
with time to spare for packing for Estrecho.
Besides the business of luggage, my Thursday was dedicated mainly to
meeting some of the other (non-indigenous) people who work with the
Máíhuna communities. These folks include ethnobiologist Michael
Gilmore and several staff from Nature and Culture International, a
conservation NGO. Although Cabeceras has substantial history with
Máíhuna people -- they've been in regular contact since about 2006 --
Michael and NCI have a lot more, about 15 years in Michael's case.
The next day, we arrived at the tiny military airport in Iquitos a few
minutes after 6am. Our 16-seat plane left for Estrecho an hour and a
half later, and we were on the airstrip outside of town at precisely
8:13am.
Our first encounter with the Máíhuna community in Estrecho came less
within 30 minutes of our landing, when a Máíhuna family who had met
Chris at previous years' congresos spotted us walking into town on the
street outside their house. We had to defer visiting them until we had
registered with the police and found a place to stay, but by 10:00 we
were back to the same house and beginning our social rounds.
That was how we spent almost all of that day and the next two: going
from one Máíhuna family's house to another; Chris introducing me to
the household and describing my project; hearing the family's
reactions and thoughts about the language; and making small talk about
farming, health, children's education, and so on. We also held one
community meeting to officially submit my proposal, and were invited
to another, which turned into more of a storytelling session (just as
important as the official meeting, at least for me!).
In the course of the weekend, we learned quite a bit of information
about the Máíhuna community in Estrecho. Here are some of the central
points:
- There are at least 60 ethnically Máíhuna people in Estrecho -- a
significant chunk of the ethnic population (around 400), and probably
the same or even larger than the population of Totoya, the nearest
Máíhuna comunidad nativa to the town.
- Most of the older generation of Máíhuna adults in Estrecho were born
in Totoya, and many of them have lived there for a significant amount
of time. There is still frequent traffic between Estrecho and Totoya,
and a few people have houses in both locations. The primary attraction
of Estrecho is that it has three high schools and a technical school;
most people seemed to have moved there for education.
- All of the Máíhuna adults over 50 that we met appeared to have at
least a passive knowledge of Máíhɨ̃ki. I heard seven people from
Estrecho actually speak the language and was told that another
speaker, who works as a teacher, was out of town. All of the speech
that I heard was clearly the Putumayo/Northern dialect, even though
one of the speakers is originally from the Yanayacu.
- We were repeatedly pointed toward one older man as the most expert
storyteller -- at least in town and possibly anywhere in Máíhuna
territory (since I did not discuss attribution with him I will not use
his name here). This man lives about one hour's walk outside of
Estrecho, but visits his daughter's house in town frequently -- he was
there every day that we were. He told us a vivid personal narrative in
Máíhɨ̃ki on the second occasion that we met him, and several more
traditional stories on the third. This speaker is very wealthy in
verbal skill and traditional knowledge, but less wealthy in teeth, so
I found it hard to understand him at first, but I think that he'll be
an enviable consultant (especially after the summer field season, when
my Máíhɨ̃ki will hopefully be better).
Chris and I also verified that Estrecho has all of the facilities that
we had thought -- hospital, market with acceptably fresh produce,
stores with dry goods, cell phone service, and internet access at the
local boarding school -- although, because of the town's remoteness,
prices are somewhat high for rural Peru. We even found a truly
outstanding hostal for me, located on the second floor above a
dry-goods store, with extra electricity (on from 8 to 3 as well as the
public hours of 6:30 to 10) and access to a kitchen.
All in all, I would appraise it as a long weekend very well spent.
Every Máíhuna family and definitely every speaker in the town has met
me, met Chris, and confirmed that I am a legitimate researcher and (I
hope) a friend to the community. And, I've gotten the financial and
logistical information that I need to be ready to return there, which
-- as I told the speakers and the hostal owner -- I plan to do on
September 1.
But between now and then, I have the team-based summer trip to the
Yanayacu to take care of. We don't have internet access at Nueva Vida,
although I may be able to send a post or two by email in the middle of
July -- so it's ciao for now to the world outside of Máíhuna country.
I'll be back to Iquitos in mid-August with much more to share!
Friday, May 31, 2013
T-4
If you're reading this, it's probably because you've just heard from me about staying in touch by email for 2013-2014. In just four days, I'll be leaving for a year of linguistic fieldwork in Peruvian Amazonia, funded by Yale's Parker Huang Undergraduate Travel Fellowship.
During the time that I'll be in Peru and have internet access -- roughly June 4 to June 15 and August 15 to December 5 in 2013, then Februrary 1 to July 31 in 2014 -- this blog will serve as an abbreviated version of my fieldwork diary, edited for relevance and to keep (some) research participants anonymous. I hope that it has some intellectual interest for the linguists, anthropologists, etc. among you. For everyone else, I hope that this blog helps you keep tabs on what I'm doing, and that it reminds you to write to me :)
Since many of you have asked what I'm doing in the jungle, this post will describe the three sites I'm visiting in Peru, and why I'm going to each of them. In my next post (before leaving), I'll also give some background on the nature of my research and why I bother studying endangered languages at all.