Wichí

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The Wichí are an indigenous people in South America . It is made up of a large number of groups who live on a simple material basis in Argentina and Bolivia on the upper reaches of the Río Bermejo and the Río Pilcomayo .

Surname

The Spaniards referred to this ethnic group as “Mataco” when they were colonized, and they are still called that often today. The origin of this name is unclear (probably a Quechua word), various sources consider it derogatory, including the Wichí themselves, as it corresponds to the native name for the southern spherical armadillo ( Tolypeutes matacus ), which is native to the Wichí habitat . The name "Wichí" itself is pronounced / wi'ci / , the language of their people "Wichí Lhamtés" ( / wi'ci ɬam'tes / ).

In some areas of Bolivia the name “Wichi” is pronounced as / wikˠiʡ / , where the groups refer to themselves as “Weenhayek” ( / wikˠi / ), which Alvarsson translates as “the other people” (plural “Weenhayey”). Alvarsson further reports that, according to reports from his Weenhayey interlocutors, the original name of their people was "Olhamelh" ( / oɬameɬ / ), which translates as "we". Different names have been used in the literature for individual subgroups within the Wichí: “Nocten” or “Octenay” in Bolivia, “Véjos” or (perhaps more precisely) Wejwus or Wehwos for individual groups in the west, and Güisnay for individual groups in the east in Argentina. The latter correspond to the Tewoq-ɬelej , the "river people".

population

The individual groups of the Wichí are currently distributed over the countries Argentina and Bolivia as follows:

language

The Wichi language is one of the Matacoan languages. Since there is no reliable information on the number of Wichí-speaking people, their number can only be estimated. If you compare different sources, you can assume about 40,000 to 50,000 people. The Argentine Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos (INDEC) (National Institute for Statistics and Census in Argentina) gives a figure of 36,135 for Argentina. Alvarsson estimated the number for Bolivia at 1,700 to 2,000, a census came to 1,912, and Díez Astete and Riester estimated between 2,300 and 2,600 Weenhayek in 16 groupings in 1996.

According to Najlis and Gordon, three main dialects can be distinguished in the Wichí group: Vejós (Wehwós) in the south-west, Güisnay (Weenhayek) in the north-east and Nocten (Oktenay) in the north-west. In contrast, Tovar and other authors speak of only two dialects in the northeast and southwest, while Braunstein distinguishes eleven ethnic subgroups.

The Wichí language is mainly end-to-end and polysynthetic ; spoken words have 2 to 15 morphemes . A distinction is made between relationships that indicate ownership and non-ownership relationships. The number of phonetic sounds is extensive, with simple, glottal and breathy closure and sonorants . There are five or six vowel sounds, depending on the dialect .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jan-Åke Alvarsson: The Mataco of the Gran Chaco. An ethnographic account of change and continuity in Mataco socio-economic organization. Almqvist & Wiksell International, Stockholm 1988, ISBN 91-554-2251-9 (Uppsala Studies in Cultural Anthropology, 11).
  2. ↑ Matocoan , www.ethnologue.com, accessed July 4, 2014
  3. ↑ Elena L. Najlis: Dialectos del mataco. In: Anales de la Universidad del Salvador. 4, Buenos Aires 1968, pp. 232-241.
  4. ↑ Raymond G. Gordon Jr. (Ed.): Ethnologue. Languages ​​of the World. 15th edition. SIL International, Dallas 2005, ISBN 978-1-55671-159-6 .
  5. ^ Antonio Tovar: Relatos y dialogos de los matacos seguidos de una gramática de su lengua. Ediciones Cultura Hispánica del Instituto de Cooperación Iberoamericana, Madrid 1981, ISBN 84-7232-282-3 .
  6. ↑ José A. Braunstein: Presentación: esquema provisorio de las tribus chaqueñas. In: Hacia una Nueva Carta Étnica del Gran Chaco. 4, 1992, pp. 1-8.