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Song on the Origin of the White-mouthed tamarin and the Yellow-handed squirrel monkey
The song Yurak Shimi Chichiku is testimony to the Kichwa/Shuar belief that all animals were once human and that the human past persists in the present animal form. This creates an expectation of discovering a hidden similarity in difference. It is this expectation that is at the core of the Kichwa/Shuar sense of humor and beauty. Skilled humor as well as art lies in heightening this sense of similarity while simultaneously heightening the difference. The fewer the lines the artist uses to evoke this sense of incongruity the greater the skill.
Beginning time humans became the species they now are not through design, but through small foibles or accidental acts that had momentous consequences. The incongruity between the triviality of the act and the momentous quality of the result is a source of humor and wonder.
White mouthed tamarin
White mouthed tamarin
She made white (manioc) chicha
From that day until now
She is the white mouthed tamarin
Yuraj shimi chichiku
Yuraj shimi chichiku
Yuraj aswara rurashka
Chimandami kunagama
Yuraj shimi chichiku. (kutin)
Yellow handed squirrel monkey
The Yellow handed squirrel monkey
She made chonta chicha
From that day until now
She is the yellow handed squirrel monkey
By the chicha storage vessel
By the chicha storage vessel
She stands dripping, dripping
She stands dripping, dripping
She is the yellow handed squirrel monkey
She kneads the chicha and serves it
Killu maki barisa
Killu maki barisa
//Chunda aswara rurashka //
Chimandami kunagama
Killu maki barisa
Aswamanga tinapi
Aswamanga tinapi
Shiuta shiuta shayarin
Shiuta shiuta shayarin
Killu maki barisami
llapishami upichiun
Each species is set apart from its human past by a distinctive food and a distinctive coloring. Yet in these differences there must be a similarity that ties them to their hidden humanity. This song focusses on the white mouth of the tamarin and the yellow hands of the squirrel monkey. What do these differences mean? At the core of the humanlike qualities that help people recognize similarity to animals is the sociability of serving aswa or chicha. Although we sometimes cannot recognize it animals are serving aswa to each other.
According to this song the squirrel monkey and the tamarin were once human sisters who received their coloring from the different types of chicha they made: the white faced tamarin from chewing manioc chicha; the yellow handed squirrel monkey from kneading yellow chonta chicha. The fact that this ordinary female act of preparing chicha for guests would turn them permanently into their respective species of monkeys is humorous but endearing
The song allows humans to feel the beauty of these two species by focussing attention on their distinctive coloring in a way that heightens their analogical similarity in difference to humans
Purun Indillama, 3 toed sloth. Photograph by Tod Swanson
