Lessons from a Quechua Strongwoman

Using the intriguing stories and words of a Quechua-speaking woman named Luisa Cadena from the Pastaza Province of Ecuador, Janis B. Nuckolls reveals a complex language system in which ideophony, dialogue, and perspective are all at the core of cultural and grammatical communications amongAmazonian Quechua speakers. This book is a fascinating look at ideophones?words that communicate succinctly through imitative sound qualities. They are at the core of Quechua speakers' discourse?both linguistic and cultural?because theyallow agency and reaction to substances and entities as well as beings. Nuckolls shows that LuisaCadena's utterances give every individual, major or minor, a voice in her narrative. Sometimes as subtleas a barely felt movement or unintelligible sound, the language supports an amazingly wide variety of voices. Cadena's narratives and commentaries on everyday events reveal that sound imitation through ideophones, representations of dialogues between humans and nonhumans, and grammatical distinctions between aspeaking self and an other are all part of a language system that allows for the possibility of sharedaffects, intentions, moral values, and meaningful, communicative interactions between humans and nonhumans.