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The more typical composition of Katukina villages
involves a domestic group formed by an older couple, surrounded
by their unmarried children, married sons and grandchildren.
It can be observed, then, that after marriage women go
to live next to their husbands’ families. This practice
inverts the residential rule which operated in the past,
since, as the Katukina themselves admit, it was the young
men who used to move to live next to their wives’
families. United by bonds of kinship and marriage, the
residents of the same domestic group cooperate in undertaking
day-to-day activities.
At the Campinas River village, the domestic
groups are made up of two to seven houses which are
scattered along the edge of the highway at intervals
varying from five to fifteen minutes walking distance
from the next. At the Gregório River village,
almost all the domestic groups are distributed on the
right-hand shore of the river, close to the landing
strip and the MNTB’s buildings.
The marriage rule among the Katukina determines
that a man should marry with a woman he calls pano,
a category that includes his mother’s brother’s
daughter and father’s sister’s daughter. In
cases of separation or widowhood, it is common for a
man to marry the sister of his ex-wife. Polygyny is
admitted and normally the wives of a same man are sisters.
The Katukina have a vast repertoire of myths
telling of the punishments awaiting those involved in
or desirous of incestuous relations. The Moon is the
head of Oshe, a boy caught having sexual relations with
his sister who was forced to escape death by taking
refuge in the sky. The morning star is also the head
of an incestuous boy, Oshe’s brother-in-law, who
met the same fate. All young Katukina men know these
stories, which were told innumerable times during their
childhood by their grandparents.
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