Analysis of the first song, Indira ricusha iyarini: Looking at the sun I remember:
The first song (left) is an expression of a particular type of filial piety called “ayllura iyarisha” (remembering relatives). The Kichwa verb iyarina which means both “remembering” and “thinking,” consists of looking at the local land or some aspect of the local landscape (in this case the sun) and remembering the family history that occurred there. This memory then orients future action. By singing this particular song quietly or aloud each time she sees the sun rise or set the singer links the memory of her own departed mother with the sun.
The singer’s mother is said to have looked at this sun at the moment she was giving birth to the singer. Because of this her mother’s face, captured at that intimate moment, is there recorded in the sun. After the mother dies the daughter remembers her mother’s face every day when she sees the sun. The sun can function as a mother for her because it contains that motherly memory of the singer’s birth. The memory of that moment is so etched into the sun that the sun remembers the singer’s birth with the same intensity and intimacy that her mother would would have.
The song has a depth of generational memory because the singer’s Achuar great grandmother Nunguli is said to have sung the same song remembering her own mother. By singing this song habitually the singer becomes an “Indi Warmi” or a “Sun Woman” because she is the daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter of other Indi Warmiuna (sun women) who have similarly sung their family identities into the sun. The song illustrates the way in which Kichwa/Shuar/Andoan culture linked the memory of relatives and family history (Kichwa: yuyarina/iyarina) to objects in nature. Objects in nature (in this case the sun, but frequently manioc fields, or plant and animals species) served as pneumonic devices for remembering relatives because they are believed to contain the local past. (For an analysis of a similar practice among the Cibecue Apache of Arizona see Keith Basso’s essay, “Speaking with Names: Language and Lanscape among the Western Apache,” in Western Apache Language and Culture, Tucson: University of Arizona Press,1990, pp. 138-173.)
In the second song “I am a sun woman” the same singer uses this nature-embedded quality of memory to fix her own face in the sun so that a man who seeks to leave her will be haunted by her memory every time he sees a sunrise or a sunset. This second song is a form of love medicine or love magic. Once the song is sung each sunrise and sunset will flood the man’s heart with longing causing him to return to the woman he left. The power of this second is dependent of the first. The woman can identify herself as a “sun woman” and so use the sun to her advantage as love medicine only because the sun has been associated with her family, her mother, and her birth through the habitual looking at the sun and remembering her mother expressed in the first song. (Continued on the next page) 1, 2
In this essay I present two Pastaza Kichwa sun songs that mutually interpret each other. Both songs are expressions of a particular type of filial piety called “ayllura iyariina” (remembering relatives). The Kichwa verb iyarina which means both “remembering” and “thinking,” consists of looking at the local land or some aspect of the local landscape and remembering the family history that occurred there. This memory then orients future action.
In the first song (right), which is sung quietly or aloud to greet the sun rise the singer recalls both her mother and the moment of her own birth. The singer’s mother is said to have looked at this sun at the moment she was giving birth to the singer. Because of this her mother’s face, captured at that intimate moment, is there recorded in the sun. After the mother dies the daughter remembers her mother’s face every day when she sees the sun. The sun can function as a mother for her because it contains that motherly memory of the singer’s birth. The memory of that moment is so etched into the sun that the sun remembers the singer’s birth with the same intensity and intimacy that her mother would would have remembered it.
The song illustrates the way in which Kichwa/Shuar/Andoan culture linked the memory of relatives and family history (Kichwa: yuyarina/iyarina) to objects in nature. Objects in nature (in this case the sun, but frequently manioc fields, or plant and animals species) served as pneumonic devices for remembering relatives because they are believed to contain the local past. (For an analysis of a similar practice among the Cibecue Apache of Arizona see Keith Basso’s essay, “Speaking with Names: Language and Lanscape among the Western Apache,” in Western Apache Language and Culture, Tucson: University of Arizona Press,1990, pp. 138-173.)
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Notes on the translation: Songs are difficult to translate because of a poetic art called kinguchina. Kinguchina means to create a pleasant turn in the rhythm of the song. At times this is done by adding syllables that have no lexical meaning but which are homonyms of words or suffixes which can have lexical meaning. Examples in this song are chu, yan, or mi, ya. Since these syllables can have lexical meaning the translator must make a judgment call to rule out such meaning based on context and rhythm. The art of kinguchina can also shorten words by leaving out syllables. Sometimes these syllables are tense markers leading to potential ambiguity of tense that can only be determined by context. In this song I believe that the line Ricupangui,ricupan ya is a “kinguchistic” shortening of the word “ricuparangui, ricuparangui ya which occurs later in the song. In the first word the past tense marker -ra is dropped. In the second, both the past tense marker -ra and the person marker -ngui are dropped. The reason for this claim is that the style of the song is a minimalist contrast between two simple events: 1) the singers mother saw this sun while giving birth to the singer; and 2) for that reason the singer now sees her mother when she sees this sun. For this reason it is more likely that the song intends to contrast to temporal acts of seeing associated with two people. The mother saw then and the daughter sees now. The reverential or deferential suffix -pa is used with the past event because the daughter is remembering the actions of a revered mother who has passed away.
“When I see this sun I remember my mother.” Kichwa Transcription
Singer: Eulodia Dagua.
This sun, This sun
My dear mother
My dear mother
You saw, You saw
My mother you saw
This sun
When from inside your womb,
When from inside your womb
You were bringing me out
You were bringing me out
You saw this same sun
My dear mother, my mother
My dear mother, my mother
Now when you go away leaving me
When you go away leaving me
The likeness of your face
The likeness of your face
Every day I will see
Every day I will see
The likeness of your face
When I look at the sun
I will be here remembering
My dear mother, my mother
My dear mother, my mother