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The indigenous tribes of the Brazilian rainforests are on the verge of extinction. It was feared that the narratives which had sustained them over centuries might die with them. Betty Mindlin was determined to record these legends and the result is a startling piece of anthropology. Mindlin, inspired by the work of Claude Levi-Strauss, has shown that what often appears to be the creation of a fantastical, isolated imagination is just a fragment, part of a much larger whole.
The stories recounted in Barbecued Husbands are as old as humanity: love and hate, jealousy and revenge, life after death, totems and taboos, erotic solitude, romantic love, mothers and daughters, masculinity. All this is discussed with an openness that would surprise a Western psychoanalyst. Most of the stories were narrated by tribespeople in their own languages and the translations were carefully checked with them before they appeared in print. The collaboration between the author and the narrator is close throughout, making this book a unique document and an important reference work. Reading like a novel, this is an oral history suffused with magic realism.
| Introduction | 1 | |
| Macurap | 7 | |
| Botxatonia, the Women of the Rainbow | 9 | |
| The ghost lover and the girl with the giant clitoris | 14 | |
| Akake, a groom with three cocks | 19 | |
| The koman song (the frog song), or the women who barbecued and devoured their husbands | 30 | |
| The women without men, the Amazons, the Kaledjaa-Ipeb, the black women | 37 | |
| The great snake, awanda, the boa constrictor | 48 | |
| Akarandek, the flying head, or the ravenous wife | 54 | |
| The unlucky hunter, or the tree-lover | 57 | |
| The Txopokod's balls, the ashes of the invisible | 59 | |
| When children were born from their mothers' toenails | 62 | |
| The Pleiades, Watxuri | 64 | |
| The prick made of muiratinga wood and the frog, paapap | 66 | |
| Menstruation, the sibling lovers, the moon, and genipap | 68 | |
| The Tapir's wife | 70 | |
| The Txopokod orphan | 74 | |
| The offended wife, the flight to a macaw husband, and the height of Brazil nut trees | 78 | |
| The woman who made love to her son-in-law | 83 | |
| Wakotutxe pio, the mutilated lover | 86 | |
| Peniom and the winged bride | 88 | |
| Piron, the Blue Tinamou | 91 | |
| Tupari | 95 | |
| Pawatu, the headhunters | 97 | |
| The Pawatu massacre the Tupari | 102 | |
| Akia, the Tupari woman who was mutilated by the Pawatu | 105 | |
| Piripidpit, the maiden whom the men devoured | 107 | |
| Independence and torture | 110 | |
| The men's menstruation | 111 | |
| Kempai, the woman with only one breast | 113 | |
| The clay woman | 116 | |
| The ghost baby's nanny | 119 | |
| The young woman who took a ghost/epaitsit lover | 123 | |
| The old woman who ate young boys | 125 | |
| The Cobra-cega's lover | 127 | |
| The clay pecker | 128 | |
| The king vulture's rival, or the crazy horny girl | 130 | |
| The Cabure and the Musician Wren, or the deceived bride | 134 | |
| The dead husband | 138 | |
| The man with the long cock | 141 | |
| Ajuru | 143 | |
| The moon | 145 | |
| The brother and sister raised by the jaguar | 148 | |
| The enchanted girl | 151 | |
| The snake-husband | 154 | |
| The gluttonous wife | 156 | |
| Tororoi, the frog | 158 | |
| Nanguereta, the flying head | 160 | |
| The greedy wife | 163 | |
| Jabuti | 167 | |
| Watirinoti, the fox of olden times, or the revenge | 169 | |
| Kero-opeho, the castrated man, the man who turned into a woman | 181 | |
| Djikontxero, the flying head | 183 | |
| Tiwawa, the evening star and Kurawatin-ine, the morning star, or the brother-in-law's lover | 188 | |
| Nerute Upahe | 191 | |
| Nekohon, the Pico-de-jaca snake husband | 195 | |
| Pakuredjerui aone, the men who ate their own shit, or the men without women | 197 | |
| Bedjabzia, the master of the wasps | 200 | |
| Berewekoronti, the cruel husband, and the unfaithful wives | 203 | |
| The Tapir | 208 | |
| Arikapu | 211 | |
| Pakukawa Djeparia, the Macucao bird | 213 | |
| The woman-pot | 215 | |
| The woman who made love to a stick, and the land turtle husband | 217 | |
| The Tapir, Namwu Hoa, or the men without women | 220 | |
| Arua | 223 | |
| Wanzei warande, the women who went away | 225 | |
| The white anthill | 233 | |
| The severed head | 234 | |
| The monkey | 236 | |
| The queen of the bees | 239 | |
| Zakorobkap, the fly | 242 | |
| Djape, the arrowhead, the man who ate his wives | 244 | |
| Serek-A, the mermaid | 249 | |
| Love in the indigenous mythology of Rondonia: an anthology | 253 | |
| A commentary on Barbecued Husbands | 253 | |
| Seduction | 262 | |
| The eternal battle of the sexes | 264 | |
| The Amazons: women without men | 267 | |
| Women and excess | 270 | |
| The dead husband | 274 | |
| Dead before death | 274 | |
| Passion and transgression | 275 | |
| Bibliography | 281 | |
| Profiles of the narrators and translators | 285 | |
| The six indigenous peoples of the narrators | 297 | |
| The narrators' languages | 300 | |
| The language and style of the narratives | 301 | |
| Translator's note: sex and translation | 304 | |
| Glossary | 305 |
Overview
The indigenous tribes of the Brazilian rainforests are on the verge of extinction. It was feared that the narratives which had sustained them over centuries might die with them. Betty Mindlin was determined to record these legends and the result is a startling piece of anthropology. Mindlin, inspired by the work of Claude Levi-Strauss, has shown that what often appears to be the creation of a fantastical, isolated imagination is just a fragment, part of a much larger whole.
The ...