The Stories of Siko and Yowao

Alan Vogel

Forthcoming: The Stories of Siko and Yowao: Jarawara texts

Alan Vogel

Synopsis

The Jarawaras are a small Amerindian community in lowland Amazonia, in the state of Amazonas, Brazil. Their language is one of half a dozen languages of the Arawan family. Yowao and Siko, both now deceased, were elderly Jarawara storytellers. Their stories are valuable from several points of view. First is their literary value -- some of the stories are quite humorous, for example. Secondly, they are a window into the life of the Jarawaras -- their social relations, history, and traditional religion. Finally, the interlinear presentation of the texts will be of interest to linguists. The volume contains an introduction which gives some background on the language and the culture. This volume has English translations, but a version with translations in Portuguese for Brazilian readers is also being planned.

Author Biography

Alan Vogel

As an undergraduate anthropology student, Alan became acquainted with the approach of Franz Boas to the investigation of a language, which emphasizes the collection and analysis of texts, along with the production of a dictionary and a grammar. He implemented this approach to the study of Jarawara, an Amazonian language, as the director of SIL's Jarawara project, from 1987 until his retirement in 2024. His PhD dissertation at the University of Pittsburgh was on Jarawara verb classes. Subsequently he published Jarawara-English and Jarawara-Portuguese dictionaries (several editions), four online Jarawara text collections, and one monograph and several papers on aspects of Jarawara morphology, syntax, and discourse features. He also assisted R.M.W. Dixon in preparing his grammar of Jarawara.