November 15, 2021
โJamaya Puโlapuin?โ (โHow was your dream?โ) are the first words with which the Wayuu greet each other daily. In contrast, when people from industrialized societies meet, they may say, โHiโ, โHolaโ, โHow are you?.โ The greeting of โHow are you?โ does not exist in the Wayuu language. An initial comparison of the greetings between these two groups of people may reveal the following: the Wayuu emphasize the primacy of the aaโin (soul) in life, which gets manifested in dreams, as well as the individual caring for the soul in another personโs life. Given the daily forgetfulness of the existence and subjective experience of the unconscious in the industrialized people, the word โYouโ in their greetings may be referring to the โEgoโ and, less so to the integrated whole of the conscious and the unconscious. From a Jungian perspective, the Wayuu seem to be, initially, more interested in unconscious processes than โcivilized peopleโ are.
Therefore, Jungian analysts could learn, from the Wayuu aborigens, that the first question to be asked, when an analysand comes for the first time and to subsequent sessions to analysis, is โHow was your dream?โ (โJamaya Puโlapuinโ). This is congruent with Jungโs writings and clinical practice where the centrality of dreams, as revealing the wisdom of the Self, was fundamental. There are exceptions, of course.
The Wayuu (โThe People of the Sun, Sand, and Windโ) are an indigenous tribe that live in the desert of La Guajira Peninsula, which borders Colombia and Venezuela. They live in small settlements called โRancherias,โ which consists of five or six houses made of branches, corrals, and mud houses. Because their societal structure is matrilineal, each Rancheria is composed of people belonging to the same matrilineal clan. Some of these clans are, for example, the Aspushana (โSour with Somethingโ), the Epieyu (โWhere Sleepiness is Feltโ), the Jayaliyuu (โEyes without Headโ), etc. Furthermore, Wayuu children primarily bear their motherโs last name (and not the fatherโs), and each clan is identified with a symbolic drawing (โKanaasโ) that usually has a geometric shape that alludes to an animal, a plant, or a geographical place.
Therefore, the importance of images in Wayuu’s cosmology is comparable to the primacy of images in Analytical Psychology.
According to Paz (2017), Lapu refers to a deity that, through dreams, conveys messages to people. Dreams help the Wayuu to prognosticate many of outer events, such as death, health, adversities, etc. The Wayuu seek signals in dreams on how an adverse event can be prevented. At night, the aaโin (soul) of a Wayuu wanders, and such travel is aptly described in dreams. In recent decades, and within the field of Analytical Psychology, there is a greater tendency to see dreams as a comment, primarily, of the โanalytical fieldโ and, less so, of the intrapsychic life of the individual. The Wayuu perspective that dreams are helpful comments or warnings about outer events, such as a marriage, taking a trip, buying a house, taking a new job, moving to another city, etc, is becoming, unfortunately, less relevant to Analytical Psychologists because of the idea that โsubjective interpretationsโ of dreams are emphasized more than โobjective interpretations.โ A close reading of Wayuuโs cosmology may help Analytical Psychology to have a more balanced view and hold the tension of the opposites of viewing dreams subjectively and objectively. Therefore, next time we want to relocate to another city, change jobs, have more children and, (why not?) getting together with a friend, etc., let us consult a dream about it, like the Wayuu do.
(more…)