NOMADS OF THE LONG BOW — HOLMBERG 



21 



promote the growth of an even longer beard. 

 Mothers sometimes glue a few beard hairs of the 

 paca into their boys' hair to insure that their 

 infant sons will possess a heavy beard like a paca 

 when they become adults. Hair from the beard, 

 like that from the head, is discarded in the bush 

 or buried. The same may be said of axillary hair, 

 which is removed when present. On the whole, 

 however, the Siriono possess little body hair, and 

 most of what they do have is rubbed off by the 

 brush of the forest. Pubic hair is never removed. 



PROPERTY 



The native concept of property may best be 

 expressed by saying that the environment exists 

 for the exploitation of all members of the band, 

 and that the society recognizes the rights of own- 

 ership only so far as this exploitation is pursued. 

 In other words, the preserve of the Siriono is 

 communally owned, but its products become 

 individual property only when they are hunted, 

 collected, or used. 



Actually, little real property exists. What does 

 exist is limited to the immediate possession, by a 

 family, of a garden plot, by virtue of having 

 cleared and planted it, or to the right to collect 

 from certain fruit trees, by virtue of having dis- 

 covered them. When a man comes across a new 

 fruit tree, he may mark it with a notch; this will 

 give him the right to exploit it (for one season at 

 least) while it is bearing fruit. Such rights, how- 

 ever, do not extend to hunting grounds, fishing 

 sites, stands of arrow reeds, uruku trees, or cala- 

 bash trees, all of which are regarded as public 

 property. The house is both communally built 

 and communally owned. 



Since the material apparatus is sparse, holdings 

 in movable property are few. As regards all of 

 these possessions, however, individual rights of 

 ownership are recognized and respected. Thus a 

 man is owner of his bows and arrows, the animals 

 which he kills, the maize or manioc which he 

 raises; a woman is the owner of her pots, cala- 



bashes, baskets, necklaces, feather ornaments — 

 in fact, all of the things which she herself makes 

 or collects. In some possessions, such as pipes 

 and hammocks, which are used by both the hus- 

 band and the wife, ownership, of course, may be 

 regarded as joint. 



The sparsity of material culture limits transac- 

 tions in property largely to exchanges in food. 

 However, these are not carried out on the basis 

 of barter, or buying or selling. Such notions are 

 foreign to the Siriono. Nevertheless, the giving 

 of food does involve an obligation on the part of 

 the recipient to return food to the donor at some 

 future date. For instance, if a man hunts a 

 tapir, which he is forbidden to eat for magical 

 reasons, part of the meat may be distributed to 

 members of his wife's family. The next tune the 

 recipients hunt tapir they will be expected to re- 

 turn meat to the original giver. This type of 

 exchange is about the only property transaction 

 that takes place in Siriono society. Marriages 

 and divorces, for example, are not accompanied 

 by an exchange of property. Borrowing or lend- 

 ing almost never occurs; one's neighbor rarely has 

 anything that it would be useful to borrow. 



As a consequence of not accumulating proper- 

 ty — a notion foreign to the Siriono — the problem 

 of inheritance is greatly simplified. Actually, it 

 hardly exists, for when a person dies most of the 

 things with which he has had intimate contact 

 are placed with the body or thrown away. Thus 

 one's pots, calabashes, pipes, and feather orna- 

 ments are left at the site where the body is aban- 

 doned. Exceptions include hammocks, necklaces, 

 cotton strings, and sometimes a man's arrows, 

 particularly if he has been a good hunter. These 

 may pass to his son or to his brother, while the 

 few possessions of a woman usually pass to a 

 sister or a cowife, though they may also be in- 

 herited by a daughter. Thus inheritance of 

 possessions may be either patrilineal or matrilineal, 

 depending upon the objects and persons involved. 

 Succession to chieftainship, however, follows 

 patrilineal lines. 



EXPLOITATIVE ACTIVITIES 



SEASONAL CYCLE 



In contrast to most other aboriginal peoples of 

 the area in which they live, the Siriono are semi- 

 nomadic forest dwellers who live more by hunting, 



fishing, and gathering than they do by farming. 

 All of their economic activities, of course, are 

 governed to a considerable extent by the seasonal 

 changes which take place throughout the year. 

 During the periodic inundations which last from 



