People of the Center

Since 2004 the Volkswagen Foundation supports the project “Documenting the languages of the People of the Center”, which was housed from 2004-2007 at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and from 2007-2009 at the Universität Regensburg. The partner organization in Peru is the Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonia Peruana (IIAP). The project focuses on the languages Bora, Huitoto, Nonuya, Ocaina, and Resígaro, documenting the use of each of these languages in different contexts, ranging from memorized ritual discourses to traditional festivals, hunting and fishing trips, to sport events and everyday conversation. The aim of this documentation is to provide a lasting record of the cultural and linguistic practices of People of the Center as they can be observed at the beginning of the 21st century. In order to ensure that members of the People of the Center themselves can access and make use of this documentation, all translations, descriptions, and metadata are written in Spanish. Copies of the entire documentation are stored in two physical locations, the central DOBES archive in Nijmegen and the regional archive in Iquitos.