The rapid disappearance of the tribe but a few decades after their discovery, which evidence suggests was linked to smallpox or flu, has meant that the Yualapeng’s culture remains largely unknown. In all likelihood we shall never know how they managed to survive so long in the same place: whether they had more advanced farming technologies than neighbouring tribes, or had developed a trading point for the exchange of goods. As for tribal customs and rituals, reports are equally fragmentary, and the few artefacts that remain are found dispersed in a very poor state of repair across the provincial museums of Bolivia.
By a tremendous stroke of luck, however, one of the few linguists to venture into South America in the nineteenth century, Gérard Valdès, a Frenchman of Catalan origin, made it to the Yualapeng valley. Between contact and their eventual extinction, Valdès was with the Yualapeng for five years, during which he learnt enough of their language to write a grammar and basic dictionary. Following the breakup of the tribe, he was also one of those responsible for encouraging the Yualapeng’s descendants to learn and pass on the language of their ancestors. Today it is estimated that around thirty-seven people in Bolivia and ten in Brazil speak Yualapeng. And the language only survives thanks to the dedication of these indigenous people in preserving it, almost a hundred years after the end of the civilisation it first came from.
Among the singularities of the Yualapeng language, Valdès mentions one in his writings that is particularly notable:
‘Of the basic notions of geometry that can be deduced from the study of Yualapeng, the absence of references to trajectory, such as ‘go’, ‘come’ and ‘return’, is striking. While the terms used to describe static spatial concepts (the cardinal points, front and back, left and right) recall those of other languages with similar roots, when a Yualapeng enters into motion he will never say he is going anywhere beyond his own home. When asked where he is headed, even if he has just left to work on the farm that morning, his answer will always be ‘home’ (tar awak), or, more specifically, ‘home, passing by work’ (sik peng tar awak).
‘In the same vein, when referring to a journey towards the valley, the village or one’s own home, the verb uok (the only one that expresses movement for the Yualapeng) needs no complement whatsoever, as if it can by definition be translated as ‘to return’, or to move towards the place of origin. Conversely, a journey to any other place will take the aforementioned form of uok sik peng, something like ‘to return, passing by work’, or even uok sik peng tar awak (‘to return home, passing by work’), even if the individual has just stepped outside his house. For this reason I like to describe uok as a word that has multiple meanings and is untranslatable in French, standing in at once for the verbs aller and revenir, as the Yualapeng do not seem to distinguish between the two.’
The lack of distinction regarding the direction of movement in Yualapeng caused the linguist considerable unease for the duration of his stay, and prompted one of the first known attempts to introduce European concepts into an indigenous language. Valdès is said to have spent many months trying unsuccessfully to disseminate a new word, uey, that would describe the act of leaving in Yualapeng, in opposition to the aforementioned uok. Such attempts, though carried out with the close collaboration of the tribe’s more enlightened members, such as shamans, healers, and interpreters, fell flat.
In order to introduce the concept of uey to the natives, Valdès used concrete situations that seemed to him clear examples of leaving or being banished. One of his favourites was ‘Siwathak lay uey singha lukluk ik nay uok’ (‘Grandpa Siwathak left for the forest and never returned’), referring to the legend of one of the tribe’s mythical founders who, driven mad by a curse, abandoned the valley and wandered off into the forest, never to return. But still the Yualapeng did not understand, describing his trajectory instead as ‘Siwathak lay uok sik singha lukluk’ (‘Grandpa Siwathak returned, passing by the forest’). And when Valdès argued that he never came back, the natives would immediately reply ‘of course not—a jaguar must’ve eaten him somewhere along the way’, as if the fact that his trajectory was cut short did nothing to prove that he wasn’t returning.
So Valdès tried another example: ‘Iriath kahn uk uakti ik uey Suyé kahne y malma tré tré Malmak’, or, ‘Prince Iriath betrayed the tribe and followed Princess Suyé of the enemy tribe Malmak’, which the natives again corrected by saying ‘Iriath kahn uk uakti ik uok sik Suyé kahne y malma tré tré Malmak’, or, ‘Prince Iriath betrayed the tribe and returned with Princess Suyé, passing by the enemy tribe Malmak.’ And when the linguist protested that the prince had deserted them for the rival tribe, provoking fears that he would mount an imminent attack of the Malmak on the Yualapeng valley, they simply responded, “Exactly, didn’t we say he was coming back?”
After many frustrated attempts, and bewildered by what he judged to be an astounding case of cognitive blindness, Valdès went to the gathering of tribal elders to put forth his opinion. To his mind, introducing the concept ‘go’ was vital to the Yualapeng’s development, especially for future colonising ventures into neighbouring valleys. The elders, already aware of Valdès’s unofficial attempts to introduce changes into the language, listened impassively to his speech. Eventually, the eldest of them responded with a single gesture; using his right hand, he signalled for the guards to tie up the Frenchman and detain him in a hut far from the village.
After a night spent in anguish, fearing that his civilising efforts would end up costing him his life, Valdès was woken early the next morning by an entourage, led by the elders and attended by many curious villagers. Once removed from the hut where he’d been held prisoner, he was taken to the clearing opposite the village, where a path led out of the valley. As they arrived, he was released and heard the chief elder utter a single word:
‘Uey.’
By which he immediately understood that the tribesman was granting an exception to his linguistic obstinacy and adopting for the first and last time the word Valdès had introduced, with the sole purpose of banishing him from the tribe. Irony had always been one of the Yualapeng’s most distinctive traits, so it was no great surprise that they cast him out in this way. Rejected by the people he had dedicated himself so earnestly to, and fearful of what awaited him once he was out on his own, the Frenchman donned his rucksack and set off without looking back. In little over ten minutes, however, having not yet left the valley, he was startled to see himself surrounded by warriors from the tribe, who detained and bound him once again. Without an inkling of what was going on, Valdès was taken back to the clearing he’d departed from and released again before the elders.
The linguist looked at the small crowd around him in confusion, wondering what they were waiting for. Behind him, he noticed a trail of red footsteps that went off in the direction he’d walked, and realised that before he left the soles of his shoes had been marked with urucum dye. While he tried to work out what was happening, he saw the tribesmen bring forward a heavy wooden instrument, which he recognised as a kind of primitive ruler and compass. The natives gave Valdès the instrument and waited for him to do something. As he was still at a loss, one of the elders made the first move, taking the compass and setting off in the direction of the footsteps.
The elder carefully worked his way back along the trail left by the linguist, who followed close behind, escorted by the guards. With the help of the younger men, he mapped the path that Valdès had taken on the forest floor and calculated the angle of the curves he’d formed, which were many—after all, the area was thick with dense forest and it was difficult to walk in a straight line. The old man’s skill in using the instrument was impressive, and before long he reached the end of Valdès’s journey, announcing, after a few mental calculations, the total angle of his trajectory. Satisfied, the elder gave the instrument to the Frenchman and proposed a challenge: he should keep walking in the same direction, but always respect the curvature of his initial departure.
When the linguist objected that leaving the track to walk in an arbitrary direction through the forest would be suicide, the elder promptly designated one of the warriors to accompany him. But Valdès was still mistrustful, unable to understand the meaning behind it, and was only convinced to follow the elder’s orders when met with the raised spears of the guards. With no other option, he finally took the compass and set off with the instrument in his hands, tracing his trajectory on its wooden notches with the help of his indigenous companion.
Valdès initially took this enigmatic challenge as an incomprehensible trial, proposed by the elders to make his journey more difficult. Not long after setting out, however, he began to realise what was happening. And when after two hours, having done nothing but observe the angle with which he’d started out, the linguist found himself climbing one of the mountain tracks that led to the valley, he knew he was right. Reaching one of the path’s vantage points, Valdès saw the tribe gathered together in the clearing he’d departed from below. The natives soon saw him too and, with roars of laughter, eagerly applauded his wide semicircular trajectory.
Slumped over with the wooden compass in his arms, the linguist finally arrived at the village’s central square, where the chief elder received him with a single word:
‘Uok.’
And that was it.
Valdès would later explain in his notes:
‘Given that the trajectory of beings in space is never straight, one can deduce that, by taking the curvature of any trajectory and prolonging it sufficiently, the line must eventually curve back on itself, so that one begins to walk in the opposite direction. The Yualapeng base their all-encompassing use of the term uok on this principle. According to the tribe, one can return in a so-called ‘closed’ circle (uok kah), which corresponds to the French term revenir or retourner, and which in a matter of minutes or hours arrives back at its point of departure; in a more open circle (uok lay), which takes days, months or even years before starting back on itself; or in a very open circle (uok phlau), which takes centuries to begin its return journey. The latter might seem nonsensical, as none of us could live long enough to complete a uok phlau. But if the question is put to a Yualapeng, his response will simply be ‘Ikh pah uok sehn’, or ‘it isn’t the circle’s fault’, which is an indisputable argument. Because if life is too short to see a circle completed, that does not stop it being a circle.’
The Yualapeng civilisation would disband just a few years later, after several waves of viral diseases had forced the valley’s remaining natives to flee what they believed was a curse inflicted by evil spirits. In Valdès’s last account, he describes how the Yualapeng continued to define their departure from the valley as uok mamat yuleyule pahl, or ‘returning in a wide circle to trick the ghosts’, thereby adopting the same verb they had always used for moving forward. As though it were natural to consider their flight nothing more than a new curve, albeit an especially open one, towards home.
After Valdès’s death, knowledge of the Yualapeng tribe became limited to fragmented reports written by the anthropologists who succeeded him, and today little is known of the whereabouts of the tribe’s remaining members. Nevertheless, recent ethnic surveys across the Amazonian Andes have shown that the influence of Yualapeng culture in the region is greater than originally thought. Furthermore, the tribe’s retreat from the valley caused its mestizo descendants to spread throughout South America, a fact that is now being proven with the study of genetic markers. And so, though today the Yualapeng civilisation may be nothing more than a distant memory, their legacy and spirit remain intact. And it is possible that their rituals live on within many of us, as we carry on returning through the far-flung corners of the earth, like our ancestors many times before us, to the green valleys of our homeland.
