The local vernacular term for the Urarina is Shimaku,[3] which is considered by the Urarina to be pejorative, as it is a Quechua term meaning "unreliable".[4] The ethnonym "Urarina" may be from Quechua--uray meaning below, and rina referring to runa, or people. Urarina is rendered in Quechua as uray-runaorpeople from belowordown stream people.[5]
Urarina society and culture have been given little attention in the burgeoning ethnographic literature of the region, and only sporadic references in the encyclopedic genre of Peruvian Amazonia. Accounts of the Urarina peoples are limited to the data reported by Castillo,[6] by the German ethnologist G. Tessmann in his Die Indianer Nordost-Peru,[7] and to the observations of missionaries and contemporary adventure seekers.
The Urarina are a semi-mobile hunting and horticultural society whose population is estimated to be around 2,000.[8] Urarina settlements are composed of multiple longhouse groups, located on high ground (restingas) or embankments along the flood-free margins of the Chambira Basin's many rivers and streams. The embankments are bounded by low-lying territories (tahuampa and bajiales) that are susceptible to flooding during the annual rainy season (roughly November–May).
The Urarina customarily practice brideservice,[10][11]uxorilocal patterns of post-nuptial residence, debt peonage[12] and sororal polygyny. While men are esteemed for their hunting prowess and shamanic skills, Urarina women are likewise recognized for their craftsmanship: the women are consummate producers of woven palm-fiber bast mats, hammocks, and net-bags.[13][14]
The Urarina have a deluge-myth, in which a man saved himself from the deluge while climbing a cudí (amasiza, Erythrina elei) tree; the man's wife was transformed into a termites' nest clinging to that tree, while their two sons became birds.[19] Afterwards that man acquired a wife, a different woman, one who had at first summoned successively a pit viper, a spider, and a giant biting ant in an unsuccessful attempt to evade him.[20]
In another Urarina deluge-myth, a deluge was produced, on the occasion of a cassava-beer festival, by the urination by the daughter of the ayahuasca-god, "giving rise to the chthonic world of spirits".[21]
The Urarina continue to tell elaborate myths and stories about the violence that they experience from outsiders, which historically has included forced-labor conscription, rape, disease, concubinage, and abusive treatment at the hands of outsiders.[22][23] Portions of the Bible were first published in Urarina in 1973; however, the complete Bible is not published.[24]
^Dean, Bartholomew 2009 Urarina Society, Cosmology, and History in Peruvian Amazonia, Gainesville: University Press of Florida ISBN978-0-8130-3378-5[1]
^(in Spanish) Myers, Thomas P. and Bartholomew Dean “Cerámica prehispánica del río Chambira, Loreto.” Amazonía peruana, 1999 Lima, Published by the Centro Amazónico de Antropología y Aplicacíon Práctica. 13(26):255-288
^For more information, see Paz Soldan 1877:964; Espinoza Galarza 1979:305). Native inhabitants of the Chambira Basin have also been called various names, including: Itukales; Ytucalis, Singacuchuscas; Cingacuchuscas; Aracuies; Aracuyes; Chimacus; and Chambiras (Grohs 1974:53 fn. 4; Velasco 1960: 267; Jouanen 1943, II: 471-2; Figueroa 1904: 163, 177)
^Dean, Bartholomew. "The Poetics of Creation: Urarina Cosmology and Historical Consciousness." Latin American Indian Literatures Journal 1994 10:22-45
^Dean, Bartholomew. "Forbidden fruit: Infidelity, affinity and brideservice among the Urarina of Peruvian Amazonia," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute March 1995, Vol. 1 Issue 1, p87, 24p
^Dean, Bartholomew. “Urarina Society, Cosmology, and History in Peruvian Amazonia,” Gainesville: University Press of Florida 2009, ISBN 978-0-8130-3378-5
^Dean, Bartholomew. "Multiple Regimes of Value: Unequal Exchange and the Circulation of Urarina Palm-Fiber Wealth," Museum Anthropology February 1994, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 3-20 available online (paid subscription)
^"Múltiples regímenes de valor: intercambio desigual y la circulación de bienes intercambiables de fibra de palmera entre los Urarina," Amazonía peruana, Special edition: "Identidad y cultura", Lima, Published by the Centro Amazónico de Antropología y Aplicacíon Práctica. 1995, p. 75-118
^Olawsky, Knut (La Trobe University).『Urarina – Evidence for OVS Constituent Order.』 Leiden Papers in Linguistics 2.2, 43-68. available online accessed 5 July 2006]
^Manus, Ronald and Phyllis Manus. Text and Concordance of words in Urarina Datos Etno-Lingüísticos 65 series, SIL; 1979 available online accessed 5 July 2006.
^In Anderson, Myrdene (ed.) Cultural Shaping of Violence: Victimization, Escalation, Response. Purdue University Press;2004 ISBN1-55753-373-3 Chapter 21 reviewed online accessed 5 July 2006
^(in Spanish) Dean, Bartholomew."Intercambios ambivalentes en la amazonía: formación discursiva y la violencia del patronazgo." Anthropológica. 1999, (17):85-115
^Bartholomew Dean et al., 2000 “The Amazonian Peoples’ Resources Initiative: Promoting Reproductive Rights and Community Development in the Peruvian Amazon.” Health and Human Rights: An International JournalSpecial Focus: Reproductive and Sexual Rights François-Xavier Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University’s School of Public Health, Vol. 4, No. 2,
^Bartholomew Dean 2004 “digital vibes & radio waves in indigenous Peru” in Indigenous Intellectual Property Rights: Legal Obstacles and Innovative Solutions. (ed.) Mary Riley, Contemporary Native American Communities Series, 27-53 New York: Altamira Press, A Division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. [2] accessed July 9, 2006
^Dean, Bartholomew. "State Power and Indigenous Peoples in Peruvian Amazonia: A Lost Decade, 1990-2000." In The Politics of Ethnicity Indigenous Peoples in Latin American States. Chapter 7, David Maybury-Lewis (ed.) Harvard University Press[3]
^Dean, Bartholomew. "Language, Culture & Power: Intercultural Bilingual Education among the Urarina of Peruvian Amazonia," Practicing Anthropology Special Issue: Reversing Language Shift in Indigenous America, Published by the Society for Applied Anthropology. 1999, 20(2):39-43. See online cite, Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education[5]
^Dean, Bartholomew and Jerome M. Levi, Eds At the Risk of Being Heard; Identity, Indigenous Rights, and Postcolonial StatesUniversity of Michigan Press;2003 ISBN0-472-09736-9 (Chapter 7: Dean, Bartholomew. At the Margins of Power: Gender Hierarchy and the Politics of Ethnic Mobilization among the Urarina)[6]
Bartholomew Dean : "The Poetics of Creation : Urarina Cosmogony and Historical Consciousness". In :- LATIN AMERICAN INDIAN LITERATURES JOURNAL, Vol. 10 (1994)
