 | This article'stone or style may not reflect theencyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia'sguide to writing better articles for suggestions.(November 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
ye’pâ-masa | |
|---|---|
 Tukano welcome dances | |
| Languages | |
| Tucanoan languages | |
| Religion | |
| Traditional beliefs,Protestantism,Catholicism |
TheTucano people (sometimes spelt Tukano)(InTucano:ye’pâ-masɨ (m.sg.),ye’pâ-maso (f.sg.),ye’pâ-masa (pl.)),[1] are a group ofIndigenous South Americans in the northwestern Amazon, along theVaupés River and the surrounding area. They are mostly inColombia, but some are inBrazil. They are usually described as being made up of many separatetribes, but that oversimplifies the social and linguistic structure of the region.
The Tucano are multilingual because men must marry outside their language group: no man may have a wife who speaks his language, which would be viewed as a kind ofincest. Men choose women from various neighboring tribes who speak other languages. Furthermore, on marriage, women move into the men's households or longhouses. Consequently, in any village several languages are used: the language of the men; the various languages spoken by women who originate from different neighboring tribes; and a widespread regional 'trade' language. Children are born into the multilingual environment: the child's father speaks one language (considered theTucano language), the child's mother another, other women with whom the child has daily contact, and perhaps still others. However, everyone in the community is interested in language-learning so most people can speak most of the languages. Multilingualism is taken for granted, and moving from one language to another in the course of a single conversation is very common. In fact, multilingualism is so usual that the Tucano are hardly conscious that they do speak different languages as they shift easily from one to another. They cannot readily tell an outsider how many languages they speak, and they must be suitably prompted to enumerate the languages that they speak and to describe how well they speak each one.[2]
As mentioned above, the Tucano practice linguisticexogamy. Members of a linguistic descent group marry outside their own linguistic descent group. As a result, it is normal for Tucano people to speak two, three, or more Tucanoan languages, and any Tucano household (longhouse) is likely to be host to numerous languages. The descent groups (sometimes referred to astribes) all have their accompanying language; some of the most well known are listed below:
The Tucano areswiddenhorticulturalists and growmanioc and other staples in forest clearings. They also hunt, trap, fish, and forage wild plants and animals.
| |||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||
