La poética del viaje en las canciones tradicionales del pueblo kakataibo

This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the verbal art of the Kakataibo people, which is expressed through a complex network of songs traditionally used by members of this community in various public and intimate spaces. This system establishes a fairly clear distinction between genres to be sung by men and genres to be sung by women. Our study focuses on a recurring motif in these songs: the journey. We describe here the poetic and discursive strategies employed by men and women to sing about journeys: the use of colors and metaphors, for example, but also the construction of a radically different poetic self for each case. The Kakataibo man sings of his journeys, portraying himself as strong, brave, and always a warrior. The man is the one who travels. The Kakataibo woman, on the other hand, appears fragile. She weeps, remembering those who have departed. She does not travel herself, but breaks down upon seeing her relatives depart. This is a duality that complements each other: the same journey seen from two different perspectives, sung from two different poetic selves. The indestructible man and the fragile woman are, in reality, two idealized characters constructed through verses.