THE ARAWAKAN MATRIX: ETHOS, LANGUAGE AND HISTORY IN NATIVE SOUTH AMERICA

Abstract

The relationship between language and culture has been the subject of much controversy in Western philosophy and social sciences. Scholars have oscillated between supporting the notion of 'language family’ or that of ‘culture area’. In this article I assess the sociological significance of these notions through the analysis of ‘Arawak unity’ -which has been taken for granted but has been little studied- by comparing Arawakan cultural and social organization with that of their most meaningful ‘others’ in three tropical regions: Eastern Peru, Northwest Amazonia, and Northeastern South America. I argue that there is a connection between language and culture expressed in the fact that peoples belonging to the same language family share a common cultural ‘matrix’ and a certain ‘ethos’.