apakata

Wauja[edit]

apakata

(transitive) he/she/it causes a human or spiritual being to sing (esp., brings forth the voice of a spirit)
Umejo iyawi, iya kwakwoho onakuwi. Punupa kali, yuutapai ninyu wi? uma pa kai. Ninyu ... Ehn, ninyu apakatapai yiuwi. Nejo kala awatanatapai yeyawa han. Awatanata yeyawa ninyu, muinyakatama. Aitsa yuutapai hyan? uma. Hain? Nejokuma kalano? umakonapai ipitsi.
Her husband went, [he] went into [the] men's house. "Now see here, do you all know about my wife?" [Do you know what my wife has been up to?] He surely did say. "Well, my wife is causing [the Flute Spirit] to sing. She's [the] very one who has been playing [the sacred] flute in [the] middle of [the] night. She plays [the] flute at night, [and the] dawn merely returns." [She is brazenly playing all through the night until daybreak, without anyone putting a stop to it]. "So you all didn't even know about this?" he said. "What? Could she possibly have been the one [to do such a thing]?" they all said about it.

The verb apaka is used when one or more persons (or non-human beings) sings. When someone engages in a sacred ritual that causes the voice of a spirit to be heard, the verb changes to apakata. Note that Wauja uses the prefix –a, together with the suffix -ta, as markers that the subject is not merely singing, but also "causing another to sing."
The example utterance above, "Umejo iyawi," is taken from the traditional story, "Man Who Was Drowned in Honey" (Paitsyawalu). In this short excerpt, a bold young woman (who has disguised herself as a man) is causing the voice of the Flute Spirit to be heard when she plays the sacred flute. In this sense, she is "causing" the Flute Spirit to "sing." This is a grave sacrilege, since the mere sight of the flutes is forbidden to women, with severe penalties for infraction. In the excerpt above, her cruel husband publicly exposes her deception, and demands that she be killed. Later in the story, however, she escapes and takes revenge, causing him to drown in honey, and be transformed into a species of frog (Leptodactylus latrans), that the Wauja describe as particularly large and ugly. For more about this story, see "Man Who Drowned in Honey" under Appendix: Traditional Stories Referenced in Lemmas.

"Umejo iyawi" uttered by Itsautaku, storyteller and elder, recounting the traditional Wauja tale of the "Man Who Drowned in Honey," in the presence of his adolescent son Mayuri, adult daughter Mukura, and others. Recorded in Piyulaga village by E. Ireland, December 1989, transcript p. 5.