Wayãpi - Sociopolitical Organization

Social Organization. The traditional sharing-out system of Wayãpi society is egalitarian only in the economic sphere; politically, this system tends to perpetuate the leadership of those who have the most to share, in the form of cassava beer, collective lunches, and, more recently, ammunition, gasoline, and the like. Greater quantities of such goods accrue to men who have many daughters to marry but also manage to keep their sons close to them.

Women are not consulted on political matters, but a number of them are well versed in genealogical ties and are particularly consulted over matters relating to matrimony. Moreover, grandmothers bestow a secret name of female ancestors on a girl after the first year of her life.

In French Guiana, French citizenship and communal structures have been imposed on traditional order and leadership. Northern Wayãpi and the largest subgroup of Emerillon (another Tupí-Guaraní tribe) find themselves coresidents of a single commune, where the mayor is Wayãpi and his council is composed of Wayãpi and Emerillon. However, the indelible links between these elected offtcials and the traditional structure soften the disruptive effects of the new political system.

Political Organization. Communities are linked by kinship and marriage, but village endogamy tends to generate competition and factionalism. Formerly, this factionalism led to endemic hostilities, which are today expressed in shamanistic practices.

New intertribal organization through the Association des Amérindiens de Guyane Française (AAGF) is coming into being, but its influence is largely limited to young people who are concerned with bilingual education, access to the wheels of French administration, and collective control of ancestral territory.

Social Control. Rules for proper conduct between kin and affinal groups are important. A man has a relationship of dependency with his in-laws, of respect toward his father-in-law, and of avoidance toward his mother-in-law. Disputes are rare in traditional villages and are usually caused by intoxication from imported alcohol. During cassava-beer drinking bouts, subjacent conflicts are treated through oral contests, with a tone of grinding irony. Adultery is not common; discretion is the rule of conduct.

Conflict. As was often the case among Tupí tribes, ancient war, wanini, involved cannibalism and was triggered by the pursuit of revenge, -lepi. As this word also means "payment," war between communities was only one episode of an alliance based on exchange. Colonization transformed the basis of war: cannibalism disappeared in the eighteenth century because the Portuguese encouraged the barter of war captives for guns. Wayãpi suppliers thus came to be referred to as "Portuguese Indians" in early texts. Since the end of the nineteenth century, pressure from government agents, the demographic crisis, and the sorrow that followed in its wake have brought about the progressive disappearance of war.

Wayãpi are now warriors without war, because the feeling of immense frustration is always alive. The only way of continuing conflicts between communities is through the shaman's performances.