About splitters and thorns: tensive dimensions of hupd’äh and desano shamanic discourses

Abstract

 Sitting in a circle to eat coca, Hupd’äh and Desano blessers spoke in the Tukano language and they talked about the spell of the pathogenic thorn. Living in the Alto Rio Negro region – AM, the interlocutors tried to find a way to cure a sick man whose legs were very painful as he suffered from a disease caused by the patauá thorns. Taking into consideration the debate domain about multilinguism and the linguistic contact in the Alto Rio Negro region – AM, this study is based on the comparison set by the enunciators themselves between the shamans´ spell versions in Hup and Desano languages. The relation between ethnography of speech and tensive semiotics allows this study to evidence how formal and theme patterns seek to decrease the tensive weight in events revealing sociocosmic communication and interactions. The analysis makes it possible to describe the verbal genre “blessing” as marked by space-time frames which relate sociocosmic mobility, viewpoint translations and intercultural and interspecific communication with animals, plants and spirits. This study aims to show that considering the shaman discourse as a matrix for linguistic dissemination might be essential to better understand the dynamic and processes of linguistic contact and change in the Alto Rio Negro region.