Baniwa Speculative Kinship

This article discusses the dynamics of Indigenous kinship in the Amazon, based on the autobiographical narrative of Mr. Júlio Cardoso, a ninety-year-old man of the Baniwa people. From his account, I develop an ethnographic discussion on the Baniwa, speakers of an Arawak language and inhabitants of the Upper Rio Negro, with a particular focus on the relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Júlio’s life is highlighted due to his extended period living with patrões from the regional aviamento system between the 1950s and 1970s. One of Júlio’s most recurrent formulations regarding these non-Indigenous bosses is that they were “as if” they were his fathers, a notion that is not considered either metaphorical or fictitious. I also analyze two important markers of the conversion of relationships: “getting used to” analogous to consanguinity, which allows the patrão to be conceived as a type of father – and “getting tired of,” which expresses relationships analogous to enmity. I conclude that a type of speculative kinship is revealed among the Baniwa through Júlio Cardoso, where “as if” becomes a mode of performing kinship operations. These operations allow for the ontological encounter and the comparison of worlds, creating possible relations, inverting orders between the visible and invisible, between the innate and the constructed.