The existential question of the Sharanahua people of Peru was, "Who will provide the meat for the household-of-five?" According to anthropologist Janet Siskin, “The crucial reality of Sharanahua life is the necessity for insuring a secure food supply and this fact shapes the interactions between men and women, old and young, kinsmen and affinals.”

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The psychological need for securing a steady food supply compelled the Sharanahua to restructure the nuclear family. This they did by replacing the covenantal “one flesh” principle of husband-wife set forth in Genesis 2:24 with the biological dyad of father-daughter. Sharanahua fathers treasured daughters more than wives because daughters were the means of gaining a meat provider. 

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Siskin precisely points out that “this [the father-daughter dyad” is the nonsexual relationship that is the building block of the household and a prerequisite for cooperation between men and women.”  Without daughters there would be no household-of-five and no security for the father in his later years of life.  As anthropologist Hsu pointed out, the dominant dyad “strongly conditions the pattern of thought and behavior of the individuals reared in the kinship system.”

 

Supporting the Sharanahua perspective as to what ought to be,  Siskin relates a myth about a careless Sharanahua father who was angered by his baby daughter’s crying.  In his anger, he throws the infant daughter out of the house and then realizes the consequences of his action. His irrational behavior destroyed all chances of gaining a son-in-law who can provide his family with food.

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The function of following myth on how the father retrieved his daughter is to support the cultural ideal, namely, that the most important relationship in Sharanahua society is that of father-daughter and that living among them are jaguars appearing as people who will remove the daughter and set up an independent household.

A Father Retrieves His Daughter 

A jaguar seized the baby daughter, and her father wept, believing the jaguar had eaten

her.  The jaguar, however, took care of her and married her when she became a woman. 

She gave birth to three jaguar babies.

 

One day the jaguar went hunting, and the father came to the house. The woman cried

and asked, “Father, why did you throw me out, now I am a jaguar’s wife.  The jaguar

returned from hunting with five peccaries [wild pigs] in a tiny basket and started to

growl at his wife’s father. “Don’t be angry,” she said, “It’s my father”. They ate the meat

and then slept.

 

In the morning the father started to leave and said, “I’m going daughter."  The jaguar was angry and threatening, but the father blew on his hands, and the jaguar died. Father and daughter went to the father’s house where the woman took a new husband, and her jaguar children died, and she bore a human child.”

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What, we must ask, does the image or symbol of the jaguar represent?  The symbol, we suggest, represents a universal “one flesh” principle of husband-wife that is threatening the cultural forms and norms of society. First, we note that according to the norms of Sharanahua society, “men must live in their father-in-law’s house.” But sadly, one of the primary attributes of such a living arrangement is jealousy triangle consisting of two men and a woman.

 

Both father-in-law and son-in-law are competing for the allegiance of the same women, the conflicted daughter/wife. The myth supports the position that a good daughter gives her primary allegiance to her father, not her husband. It represents a psychological and spiritual war regarding which dyad should be dominant, the cultural particular of father-daughter, or the universal husband-wife dyad as represented by the jaguar and his wife.  

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From a Sharanahua perspective, in-coming sons-in-law are viewed as dangerous assets because they may run off with the daughter and establish an independent household thereby undermining the Sharanahua economic security system constructed on the biological one flesh principle of father-daughter.  Such potential behavior is illustrated in the above Sharanahua myth in which sons-in-law are represented as being dangerous “jaguars.” As husbands, their desire is set up independent household free from father-in-law control. 

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According to Siskind, "the myth seems to suggest that a woman who marries outside of her father’s house lives with a dangerous stranger,” one who lives by a different set of cultural rules. Anyone who separates a daughter from her father simply violates normative standards of Sharanahua behavior. While the myth clearly supports the Sharanahua cultural operating system which has made the father-daughter the dyad dominant of the nuclear family, such a myth would not exist if removing of daughters for Sharanahua household was not a problem.

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As a symbol of the ultimate provider, the jaguar/son-in-law is merely trying to put into action the  "one flesh" principle of Genesis 2:24, a principle "woven into the very fabric of our creation. ...something deep within us that echoes God’s yes and no, right and wrong" (Romans 2:14 --The Message).   Whenever a society rejects the "one flesh" principle of husband-wife, it must restructure the nuclear family and replace the universal with a negative cultural particular. 

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In the above myth, any child born to a son-in-law who refuses to be reduced to a "meat provider" for the Sharanahua household-of-five and sets up an independent household will sire, according to the myth, non-human children. 

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To be “human” for the Sharanahua means accepting the duties and obligations that go along with marrying someone’s daughter.   A “human” son-in-law is one who hunts for his father-in-law who gives him conjugal rights to his daughter, a place to live, and a mother-in-law who will cook for him. To be inhuman is to be “jaguar,” one who rejects the norms of Sharanahua allegiance patterns generated by contextual pressures. 

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The message of the myth is clear: Any son-in-law who contemplates  setting up an independent household  is a "jaguar."  Jaguars must be destroyed and done away with because they are a real threat to a cultural operating system designed to reduce food anxieties over existence. The dominance of the father-daughter dyad must be maintained at all costs.  By a magical clap of the hands the jaguar is made to disappear and a Universal Principle "written on the heart" is magically erased. Or is it?

 

Convictions

1. Human culture is about creating defensives systems against anxieties. The number of defensives created are equal to the number of diverse environments that exist in the world.

2. Anxious about who was going to provide the meat, the Sharanahua ascribed this function to sons-in-law.  In exchange for conjugal right to one's daughter, a son-in-law forfeited his freedom and became the fifth member of the Sharanahua household-of-five. 

3. The function of the myth is to serve as a warning to fathers who fail to inform their daughters that their primary allegiance is to the father, not the husband.

4. Universal Principles for living have "been woven in the fabric of out existence."  They cannot be removed.