draft manuscript - Linguistics - University of California, Berkeley

Roaya epeka 275 -ta =RaSi pantaleón upai =kana usu =aRi kawa =kate
neg be.open -caus =nass Pantaleón every =pl.ms go =impf forest =all
‘The governor is wicked, we want to flee. Don’t get angry, Father. If he doesn’t free
Pantaleón, everyone will go to the forest.’
original: ‘Éste es un mal gobernador; nosotros queremos huir; si no lo suelta del cepo
todos iremos al monte.’
(Uriarte [1776]1986:273)
8.4 Part III, Section 13
During the Spanish invasion of Portugal in the latter half of 1762 (part of the events of the Seven
Years’ War), the residents of San Joaquín feared reprisals from Portuguese soldiers in the western
portion of Brazil. 276 Word reached Uriarte via José Bahamonde (b. 1710 Quito – d. 1786 Ravenna)
(Jouanen 1943:726), resident priest at Pebas, located nearer the Brazilian border, that a garrison of
40 Portuguese soldiers was in fact stationed further east at Tauatini (modern-day Tabatinga). 277 In
these tense circumstances, an indigenous man named Simón Nicanor came to Uriarte with the news
that he heard a tremendous noise while fishing in the quebrada de Mayorunas (location unknown),
which Nicanor attributed to the soldiers’ drums. This rumor spread through San Joaquín, and many
residents fled into the forest to escape a possible assault. During their absence, those Omagua that
remained in the community snuck into the homes abandoned by those who fled and filled them with
shells of charapas and taricayas (two turtle species). 278 Uriarte reports that when the residents
eventually returned, the Omaguas who played the prank laughed, uttering (8.5).
(8.5) a. Tariqueja; yaua para suri.
b. Tariqueja; yauaparasuri.
c. taRikaya, yawapaRasuRi.
taRikaya 279
turtle.sp.
yawapaRa
flee
-suRi
-subj.nomz
‘Taricaya, fleeing person (i.e., coward).’
(Uriarte [1776]1986:315)
272 The word tuisa is not attested in modern Omagua, but it has clear cognates in other Tupí-Guaraní langauges, e.g.,
Tupinambá uBiSaB ‘chief’ (Lemos Barbosa 1951:155)), based on which we give it the same gloss here, although it
clearly denotes the governor.
273 In modern Omagua, this form has reduced to yaupaRa. This same reduction pattern has occurred with all words
beginning with the sequence yawa, when the second syllable appears in unstressed position preceding a stop (e.g.,
*yawakaRa ‘menstruate’ > yaukaRa).
274 In Uriarte’s Omagua passages, patiRi appears in both vocative and non-vocative contexts. In modern Omagua,
Spanish padre has replaced the vocative function of patiRi, and the latter is only attested in non-vocative contexts.
In the following examples we gloss patiRi as ‘priest’ but translate late it as a vocative where appropriate.
275 In modern Omagua overt verbal subjects are obligatory, but no subject appears before epekata ‘open’ here. Note
that otherwise, the same subject requirement appears to hold for Old Omagua.
276 See Uriarte ([1776]1986:312-316) for a more detailed account of these events.
277 Note, incidentally, the use of the Omagua toponym Tawatini (from tawa ‘clay’ and tini ‘be white’) and not the
later Nheengatú toponym Tabatinga.
278 Podocnemis expansa (Arrau turtle) and Podocnemis unifilis (Yellow-spotted Amazon river turtle), respectively.
279 We have chosen this transliteration of based on the modern Omagua reflex taRikaya. However,
we recognize that there are significant leaps implicit in our decision that may not be faithful to the phonemic
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