Potadie – Taboidie
Wooden Whistles and Blood Exchange
The blowing of the whistle introduces the Ceremony of Blood Exchange:
The Ayoreos blow the whistles (potadíe) early in the morning and hold them up for all to see.
When they have killed harmful animals or people, they sing a victory song about the killing. But they blow the large wooden whistle when they remember the blood that was shed.
When they thought about how dangerous their victims had been in life and how much harm they had done, they feared retaliation from their victims for having shed their blood. The ones they feared most among their victims were Ayoreos, or jaguars, or cattle, or cojñone (civilized people).
There was only one thing they could do now to free themselves of the blood guiltiness. They must do the Blood Exchange Ceremony, called taboidie, to confuse their victims concerning who was responsible for the shedding of their blood.
When the sun comes up they blow the whistle. It sounds like this, jóno-jóno. Just one Ayoré blows it.
They may have killed their victims in the past, but when they remember them, they must do the taboidie ceremony.
Young men and grown men all do the taboidie ceremony. They leave camp while the sun it still tender. It is so early that they haven’t eaten yet, so they suck honey as they go to hunt for more honey.
The older men who get tired easily stay in the camp. But they fast as well as those who go for honey. They each take two gourds full of honey with them to use in the ceremony. One is for them, the other for their male mates, called wives.
When those who have gone for honey come back, they may now begin the taboidie ceremony in the camp.
They call all their friends and they say: “Come, do the ceremony to remove the guiltiness for having shed blood.”
In preparation for the ceremony, they paint their bodies, rubbing them with coals from the fire, until their whole body is black.
They have hunted honey, and brought it back to camp, and now they take the gourds of honey out of their bags. They take them to their male mates and begin to exchange over and over again the honey among themselves.
Maybe they have turtles, if so, they give turtles to each other also.
They keep on exchanging honey gourds. They offer what they’ve brought to their male mates.
How one chooses his male wives:
If someone is of the Picanerai Clan then his male mates are from the Cutamúrajane Clan. (Cajoidé tells me that his male mates are Iboridé and Cadui.)
(Cajoidé didn’t explain the rest of the choosing of mates among other Clans.)
Ayoré royalty:
The Étacorone can’t eat the honey they bring back because they are uerate (pretty- royal). So they give it to all the others.
To be ‘uerate’ you must have no hair on your arms. And it appears that the ones who are considered ‘uerate’ are a sort of nobility.
The Étacorone don’t eat ‘beans’ because they are ‘pretty.’ And the Étacorone who are “pretty” do not eat the first fruits of the harvest.
The impure Clan members:
Chiquejnójna is what they call a man who is not a true Chiquenoi because he has arm hair.
Picanerajnai is what they call a man who is not a true Picanerai because he has hair on his arms.
Harvest celebration:
There is a celebration for the harvest of beans that lasts for one day.
On that day they give gifts to their male wives from the ‘rainy season crops,’ which assures them of having a plentiful harvest.
They prepare ‘pocáidode’ (a type of food made from beans) in celebration of the plentiful harvest they will have because they have given food to their male wives.
They say to their male mates: “I’m making ‘a living’ for my male mate.” They cook beans for their ‘male mates’.
They say: “We’ll do it tomorrow, also, we didn’t eat all of our food on the first day,” and so they do it again.
And in this way they exchange the blood of the one they’ve killed, whether an Ayoré’s blood, a cojñoi’s (civilized person’s) blood, or a jaguar’s. This exchange makes it impossible for the victim to know who is actually to blame for his death, because so many have exchanged his blood.
The women fear the blood of the harmful victims so they don’t eat any of the exchanges of honey. But if they do, their stomachs hurt.
When a man brings home the honey for the blood exchange he leaves one pot at home, but takes the other which is puyac (taboo) to his ‘male mate.’ The ‘male mate’s’ family can’t partake of it because it is puyac, dedicated to the *acotei (the male mate) and is considered holy (puyac).
*acotei – (pl. acotéode) Though the term is a masculine form of the word for wife it is a purely ceremonial relationship between men, and not sexual.
Cajoidé – Campo Loro, Paraguay – 1985.
Transcribed and translated to English by: Maxine Morarie.
