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Very little was known of Baniwa society and culture
until the beginning of the 20th Century, when
the German ethnologist Theodor Koch-Grünberg spent
several months on the Içana and Aiari and left
the first extensive ethnographic records on them. Before
then, several scientific travellers, such as Alexandre
Rodrigues Ferreira in the 1780s, Johann Natterer in the
1820s, and Alfred Russell Wallace in 1852-3, left a few
notes on their contacts with the Baniwa, as did various
missionaries and military. There is extensive documentation
on the messianic movements of the mid-19th
Century to be found in the Arquivo Histórico Nacional
in Rio de Janeiro, and in the Arquivo Público and
the Instituto Histórico e Geográphico Brasileiro,
both in Manaus. These documents were left by government
officials, military officials, and missionaries who were
in direct contact with the indigenous communities engaged
in the movements; they are extremely useful for reconstructing
this history and, to a certain extent, contain ethnographic
information. On the other hand, their value is limited
by the interests of their authors in suppressing the movements
and controlling the border region from presumed foreign
invasions. Besides these, various official commissions,
such as the First Commission for the Demarcation of the
Borders (archives in Belém do Pará), have
left valuable information concerning population. The informative
and sensitive ethnography written by the mayor of the
Venezuelan town of Maroa, Martín Matos Arvelo (1912)
refers to the Baniva people who, as mentioned in the introduction,
are distinct from the Baniwa and Kuripako.
Thus it was the pioneering work of Koch-Grünberg
that initiated Baniwa ethnography. Since then, in intervals
of nearly every 25 years, ethnographers have visited
or worked on the Içana and its tributaries, producing
the records essential for reconstructing the recent
history of the Baniwa: Curt Nimuendajú in 1927,
Eduardo Galvão in 1954, Adélia de Oliveira
in 1971, Berta Ribeiro in 1977. Since 1976, Robin Wright
has dedicated his anthropological work to the history
and religious ethnography of the Baniwa, mainly of the
Aiari River, producing numerous articles and a book
on their religion, history, mythology, warfare, shamanism,
prophetic movements, and conversion to evangelical protestantism.
The production of the anthropologist Jonathan
Hill on the Wakuenai of Venezuela includes articles
on social exchange, social organization and ecology,
ritual and cerimonial life, and a book on specialist
chanters. On the Colombian side, Nicolas Journet has
produced an ethnography of the Kuripako, focussing on
social organization, kinship, warfare, political and
economic organization, and ritual exchange.
Finally, there is a book of myths of the Baniwa
of the Aiari River, A Sabedoria dos Nossos Antepassados
(The Wisdom of our Ancestors), produced by the Association
of Indigenous Communities of the Aiari River, with the
collaboration of the anthropologist Robin Wright. The
book is the third volume of the series Indigenous Narrators
of the Rio Negro, published by the Federação
das Organizações Indígenas do Rio
Negro (FOIRN). The volume contains nearly all the myths
recorded by the anthropologist during his fieldwork
on the Aiari in 1976-7 among the Hohodene and Walipere
dakenai. The anthropologist organized a first version
of the collection which was then discussed in detail
with indigenous narrators, in order to clarify obscure
points. A second version was produced which was then
revised by several people, both anthropologists and
indigenous narrators, until all agreed on the final
version.
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