Southeastern Rondônia

The project focuses on producing a lasting multimedia record of traditional culture, ethnohistory and language use among the indigenous peoples of southeastern Rondônia, especially the Aikanã, Kwaza and their immediate neighbours. The project has produced the following types of documentation resources:

Texts of different kinds

  • traditional mythology
  • direct and indirect personal histories (from both genders of all ages)
  • conversational dialogue (from both genders of all ages)
  • procedural texts

Traditional music and dancing

  • singing
  • sacred flutes
  • festive flutes

Aspects of culture and history

  • daily practices (hunting, cooking, building, etc.)
  • environmental knowledge (flora, fauna, climate, geography)
  • visits to culturally or historically relevant places in traditional territory
  • interviews (about culture, history, music, religion, ecology, etc.)

Elicited linguistic data

  • minimal phonological pairs
  • word lists (basic and specific, e.g. ethnobiological)
  • specific linguistic phenomena (e.g. demonstratives, classifiers, etc.)

Lexical and grammatical databases in FLEx

  • comprehensive Aikanã database
  • completion and inclusion of existing Kwaza database