Abstract
By analysing a wide set of narratives on the origin of night found among the Indigenous people of the upper Rio Negro, in northwest Amazonia, this article shows how these people represent the alternation between day and night at different levels of meaning: in the sounds and colours of insects, birds and forest animals; in the material, texture and colour of their houses and objects; in the human body; and in ritual music and dance. This latter level allows us to understand ritual as a mechanism for controlling time. The article also investigates why, in many Eastern Tukanoan languages, the terms for 'sun' and 'moon' also mean, respectively, 'culm' and 'leaf'.
Keywords:
Myth; Origin of night; Ritual; Northwest Amazonia; Indigenous ethnology
