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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 9 



leader of his moiety in the village, the leader at 

 moiety council meetings {itishovoti), and the 

 spokesman of his group in matters concerning the 

 village and the tribe. The moiety chiefs do not 

 appear to have had any judicial functions, their 

 powers being limited to advising and warning 

 quarrelsome individuals. The moieties were of 

 equal status. 



The succession of moiety chiefs was controlled 

 partly by heredity and partly by the will of the 

 people. When a chief died the son who resembled 

 him most in personal characteristics was selected 

 chief by the moiety-in-council. The people could 

 also select the cliief's brother or brother's son. 

 Women were not eligible for chieftainship. This 

 account of selecting chiefs is at variance with the 

 rather elaborate rules of succession described by 

 other writers (Metraux, 1946, vol. 1, p. 310). 



During everyday life there was nothing to dis- 

 tinguish members of one moiety from another. 

 Their houses were not segregated nor were they 

 set apart by differences in habits or everyday 

 clothing. During ceremonials, however, the be- 

 havior of the two groups toward one another 

 changed radically. The shummio began to play 

 tricks on the sukinkiono who, in a dignified man- 

 ner, suffered all the tricks and insults which the 

 shumono heaped upon them. Some of the tricks 

 played were the following: During daylight and 

 in the presence of others a shumono man would 

 carry on rough sexual play with a woman from 

 the opposite side; a shumono would paint the face 

 of a sleeping member of the siikirikiotw, later 

 giving him a mirror so that he could see himself : a 

 group of shumono would catch a member of the 

 other side and pull and push him about in the 

 center of the village; during feasts a shumono 

 would turn a dish of food over the head of a 

 sukinkiono ; sometimes a shumono would put the 

 contents of a butchered cow's stomach in a bladder 

 and go about squeezing the bladder over the heads 

 of the sukirikiono. License of this nature was lim- 

 ited strictly to ceremonial periods. A sukinkiono 

 was not supposed to get angry and tried to shame 

 the tricksters only by jokes and witty remarks in 

 an effort to make himself appear superior. During 

 ceremonies in which the moieties danced opposite 

 each other, the members were distinguished by 

 body painting; the shumono would paint their 

 bodies in horizontal lines of black and white while 



the sukirikiono would paint half their bodies 

 white and the other half black. 



SOCIAL, CLASSES 



In addition to the dual division, the Terena 

 were separated into four social classes: (1) Chiefs 

 {unati), (2) warriors {shuna'asheti), (3) com- 

 moners (ivahereshane) , and (4) slaves {kauti). 

 The chiefly class comprised the moiety chiefs and 

 their relatives. The tmati were the highest class 

 in rank and were supposed to marry within their 

 own group. As one could marry only within his 

 own moiety this often meant village exogamy to 

 members of this class. On coming of age the sons 

 of the unati went through an elaborate puberty 

 ceremony (fima) which amounted to initiation 

 into the chiefly class. In historic times the prin- 

 cipal part of the ceremony consisted in the boy ap- 

 proaching his father dressed in a light-red blan- 

 ket which he would take off and substitute for the 

 dark-red blanket worn by his father. Only the 

 sons of the wnati went through this ceremony. 

 The daughters of the chiefs also went through a 

 puberty ceremony {iyoti) much more elaborate 

 than the puberty ceremony of the daughters of 

 common people. 



All the living war chiefs and their children and 

 relatives made up the warrior class. Here, again, 

 marriage within the group was demanded. Com- 

 moners were free tribesmen who had not acquired 

 status through war or marriage into the two upper 

 classes. Slaves were young women and children 

 captured in raids, or the children of war captives. 

 Slaves performed services for their masters, fol- 

 lowed them in war and danced with them during 

 ceremonials. If a slave distinguished himself in 

 war by killing an enemy he could become a free 

 man. It is said that a slave could even become 

 a war chief if he were particularly successful in 

 war. On the other hand, a slave could be sold or 

 killed by his master. 



In war, moiety differences were disregarded and 

 the village acted as a unit. Every large village 

 had a war chief {shuna'asheti) who held office both 

 in war and peace and was the head of the war- 

 rior class. As an individual he had the highest 

 rank in the village and drank first at all cere- 

 monies. He, too, carried a cow's horn trumpet 

 as a symbol of rank. In addition, he wore a 

 jaguar skin shirt and a head band of parrot 



