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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 10 



E6ko cut the cord. He paid no attention whatso- 

 ever to her but continued to lie in his hammock 

 and smoke his pipe. The mother of the infant 

 took no part in the proceedings but continued to 

 sit quietly on the ground with the child. Darkness 

 set in. The mother's female relatives continued 

 to put pressure on E6ko to cut the cord. Finally, 

 after about an hour, he got up from his hammock, 

 called for a calabash of water, and took a hasty 

 bath. He then stooped down, took the bamboo 

 knife from the mother, and severed the cord, 

 thereby recognizing the child as his. Before doing 

 so, however, he emphatically stated that the child 

 was not his and that he was only cutting the cord 

 to prevent the death of the child. 



E6ko's reluctance to accept the infant as his 

 was clearly reflected in his behavior during the 

 period of couvade. He acted as if he did not care 

 whether the infant lived or died. He paid no 

 attention whatsoever to the mother, and although 

 he was decorated with feathers like every father 

 of a newborn child, he underwent few of the other 

 observances designed to protect and insure the 

 life and health of the infant. He was not scarified 

 on the legs, for instance, nor did he observe the 

 rules of staying close to the house. He paid no 

 attention to the food taboos and took no part in 

 the rites terminating the couvade. He repeatedly 

 told me that he had "divorced" this woman and 

 that he would have nothing more to do with her. 

 This was borne out by subsequent events. 



NAMING 



The Indians' kinship with the animal world is 

 clearly reflected in the system of naming. At 

 birth almost everyone receives an animal name. 

 The most common method of securing such a 

 name is for the father to go in quest of an animal 

 as soon as the prospective mother begms to feci 

 the pangs of childbirth. He usually goes in search 

 of a particular animal, a valiant one like a tapir, 

 a jaguar, or a peccary, but if such an animal is 

 not to be found, the child is named for the first 

 animal that the father kills. It so happens that 

 in the cases of childbirth which I witnessed the 

 father never came home empty-handed from such 

 a hunt. 



A specific case will best explain the method of 

 nammg. A certain woman at Tibaera called 

 Eantdzi (Mother-of-Strong-one) felt birth pangs 

 in the early morning of August 28, 1941. Her 



husband, Eantandu (Father-of -Strong-one) , upon 

 being informed that the infant was soon expected, 

 picked up liis bow and arrows and left immediately 

 for the hunt. Before leaving, however, he told 

 me that he was going to look for a ydhwa (jaguar) 

 after which to name the baby. The infant was 

 born about 10 a. m. while the father was still out 

 on the hunt. He returned about 5 p. m., carrying 

 a young jaguar on his back. After he had cut 

 the cord, I asked him what the name of the child 

 would be, and he replied, "Yakwa," which was 

 the first animal that he had hunted that day. 



The above-mentioned method of naming is 

 practiced when the birth takes place during the 

 day. If a child is born at night, when it is im- 

 possible for the father to go hunting, other methods 

 are followed. In such cases, the infant may be 

 named after some unusual characteristic that it 

 possesses, such as a clubfoot, or after an animal 

 some characteristic of which it shows a remarkable 

 resemblance to. In the case of the twins whose 

 birth was described above and which took place at 

 night, the female was called Eata (Many) because 

 more than one child was born; the boy, EiCA 

 (Twisted) because one of his feet was markedly 

 turned inward. In another instance which 

 I observed, an infant was born about 3 o'clock in 

 the morning. Upon arriving belatedly on the 

 scene, I asked the father what the name of the 

 child would be, and he replied, "Yikina" (Owl 

 monkey). When I questioned him as to why this 

 name was given to the infant, he replied that while 

 the birth was taking place a troop of owl monkeys 

 passed by the house and were heard chattering. 



Although there are no formal ceremonies of 

 naming, an infant is usually given a name by one 

 of these methods. At Casarabe, however, where 

 the Indians were living under conditions of forced 

 labor and acculturation, the custom of seeking 

 a name for the infant before it was actually born 

 was supplanted by one in which it was named 

 after the period of couvade was over. 



Besides the name that one receives at birth and 

 the various names that one acquires by virtue of 

 having borne children, i. e., through teknonymy, 

 the Siriono are extremely fond of bestowing nick- 

 names on people. These are applied to individ- 

 uals because of some striking physical characteris- 

 tic that they possess or because of some outstand- 

 ing event that happened to them. A man who 



