Akawaio - Sociopolitical Organization

The Akawaio are a territorially based cultural unity, expressing interrelationships in the idiom of kinship and a conceptual and moral identity. There is no central indigenous institution; they conceive of themselves as a people against other, similarly organized peoples. They divide themselves internally by referring to river-valley settlements. Relations between river groups are marked by mutual suspicion, accusations of sorcery, and reference to former raiding, but marriage, exchange, and mutual feasting between families in different river groups also make for friendly relationships.

Social Organization. There is no class system. Status is relative to kinship position (with sex and age differentiation), individual competence, and prestige. Differences in possessions are slight and ephemeral and the society is an egalitarian one although, in the uxorilocal system, a son-in-law always retains a subordinate role with respect to his parents-in-law.

Political Organization. A village community consists of a number of allied extended and joint families, each family headed by the most active senior couple and autonomous in its own family settlement. Mutual aid, sharing, and frequent intermarriage characterize a village community. The traditional village leader ( epuru ) is a prestigious man, skilled, generous, hospitable, and a good speaker. He summons the village families for consultations and feasts, represents them to outsiders, and, today, is responsible to the government. He is addressed as "Father" (Papai) and allied family heads are his "assistants" ( poitorudong ). A formal elective system was introduced in 1958 whereby a captain, secretary, treasurer, and councilors are voted in every four years. Since councilors are often heads of families from the surrounding settlements, the traditional structure is maintained. Today's captain is a young, educated man able to cope with the government bureaucracy. Villages now have school teachers, a health officer, and party activists.

Social Control. Anger and violence are censored. The customary response to conflict is separation, and village conflicts are usually contained by the aggrieved parties dispersing to their family settlements. Village and Hallelujah church leaders (see "Religious Beliefs") lecture their followers on morality and remonstrate privately. Shamanic séances link illness to bad intentions and discordant behavior, focusing public attention on the source and consequences of dispute and bad behavior. This evokes declarations of good intent and ensures that the offender makes peace or leaves. Sickness and deaths in a village community are sometimes attributed to alienated and aggrieved families and, in rare instances, the deceased's kin may attempt assassination, both to avenge the dead and in self-defense. Mining activity has led to increased violence, owing to freedom from customary restraints and bouts of excessive drunkenness.