Wapishana
Narrative by the Wapishana José Antônio (Canauanim
village/ State of Roraima - 1988):
"There were no whites here, nor in Georgetown"
The whites [paranakuru – literally “those from
the sea”, “those who came from the sea” –,
term 
with
which the Wapishana designate the English, as opposed to karaiwa,
Brazilians] arrived a long time ago. There were no whites here,
nor in Georgetown. No. Everyone the same: Aruak, Carib, Wacawai,
the same, all caboco (from the Portuguese word caboclo, a person
from the backwoods). They didn’t know how to plant, it seems:
they had never seen axe, machete, steel file, matches, they had
never seen those things.They lived around, in the world, but they
lived. They made their fire with what is called izako, a small
red rock. The way that they made their fire was different. Yes,
but they had fire, they burned their planting fields, that’s
how they had always lived.
Then, one day, those called Colombos (Portuguese for Columbus)
– from England, it seems – they thought and thought...
Their chief, another white, said: there’s land over there.
They thought, it is said, until they got that wind boat; it didn’t
have an engine, it was moved by the wind.
So they loaded everything: machetes, clothes, hoes, axes, matches,
steel files, they loaded everything. Yes, they went, they went...
yes, they came towards here, by way of Georgetown. But there was
no city, oh, no. They came through the world. They brought their
people, five Englishman, with them. They were looking for land.
They went in the middle of the sea [tubaru’o parana, big
water], they came, they came, there was no place to rest. They
just came, no one knows for how many days, it seems. That England
is far away, yes! Then the others said to the other Columbus:
“Now, we’re going to kill you!” The chief said:
“No, wait a little longer, give me three days, if we don’t
find land then you kill me.” They agreed. So they came, they
came, and saw woods. With those eyes they put on, those white
Englishmen could hardly see just a little bit of wood. “Do
you see – they said – land over there?”. “There’s
people, then.” “We’re going that far.” Yes,
but those put on and take out eyes of theirs reached it. In three
days they reached the edge of the woods.
They arrived and found those Aruak there, Wacawai, real inhabitants.
Then, it is said, they had never seen that big boat. No way! They
wanted to throw arrows at it, they almost did it. But it seems
that those Englishmen waved with their hands: “don’t
throw arrows at us!” They arrived, and then they came to
the boat. But it is said that they didn’t know the language,
just their own. “We bring things – they showed them,
so, so – for work: machete, everything, axe – they showed
– matches... “Look here, that’s how you make fire...”
Until they were getting used to what they found, they already
knew the rock. They found those Aruak, Carib, Wacawai; yes, the
way we really are, Wapishana, true caboco. They were not like
the whites, oh, no: they lived in the woods, they piled up branches
and burned them, they dug with rocks, with a sharp stone they
made as if it were a hoe. Their house was in the woods, just inajá
(a kind of palm) leaves raised. It wasn’t like our house,
oh, no! That’s how they were. We were found, we were found.
That’s how we were found. That’s the end.
About the narrative
The narrative above was registered by Nádia Farage
(anthropologist, Unicamp) in 1988, when José Antônio,
resident in the wapishana village of Sawariwao, in Guyana, visited
his relatives in Canauanim village (State of Roraima, Brazil).
Originally transcribed in: N. Farage, 1987. As Flores da Fala:
práticas retóricas entre os Wapishana - The Flowers
of Speech: rhetoric practices of the Wapishana - (Doctoral dissertation,
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras, FFLCH/USP).
Translation into Portuguese by Allan Charles, Casemiro Cadete
and Nádia Farage.
A Wapishana narrative: whites arrived in the old days...
By Nádia Farage:
This narrative belongs to the genre the Wapishana call Kotuanao
dau´ao, "what is told about the old ones". Of
high thematic plasticity - which covers all human events -, the
genre is easily recognized under a strong convention of adequacy,
the exclusive reference to what is past and dead in the point
of view of those who are presently alive, Kainaonao. Thus the
Kotuanao dau´ao genre is based on a sophisticated conception
of history - in which past experience is a language experience
- as well as it makes it, rhetorically: the narrative creates
the past and, at the same time, its distance in relation to the
reality of those alive.
José Antônio, the narrator, is today about 80-years
old. Because of his old age, as well as his considerable repertoire
in the Kotuanao dau´ao genre, he is considered a Kwad pazo,
a wise man, which is where his socially recognized authority emerges
from.
