Alliteration and Rhyme in the Traditional Kakataibo Chants of Emilio Estrella

Abstract

This paper studies alliteration and rhyme in the traditional Kakataibo chants of Emilio Estrella Logía, one of the most important Kakataibo sabios of the present era. For alliteration and rhyme, consonants which are able to be in coda position according to Kakataibo syllable structure play a central role. Alliteration is sporadic and based on the repetition of fricative consonants in passages of indeterminate length. It occurs in syllable onset and freely within a line and across lines, the latter by adjacency. Kakataibo rhyme is also sporadic, its domain is the final syllable of the line and the nucleus of it; only the nasal consonant /n/ can occupy coda in end-line syllables. Kakataibo true rhyme, as opposed to rhyme in lists created by repetition or semantic parallelism, is by adjacency and within vowel passages of indeterminate length.

Keywords

• alliteration
• rhyme
• Kakataibo
• Amazonia
• verbal art