Tetragona clavipes
Enawene name –
Kayalakase.
Indigenous name – Bora.
The nest that we found was located in a tall tree hollow in the ciliar bush. The hive entrance was wide. It was made of the old nests' hardened propolis. It did not have a "trumpet" shape. It protruded relatively little. The pots were average sized, approximately 3 cm in height. There were developed involucres that had many cerume membrane layers.
In general, the honeycombs are in helical shapes. They have royal cells and propolis with medium viscosity. The batumen and caulking are made of cerume and propolis. The colonies are highly populated. They are aggressive, attacking by biting and flying around the eyes and ears. Another kind of aggressive behavior was noted by Salt [16], who observed that, in Colombia, these bees deposit propolis on the people who examine their nests. Dirty habits, like visiting feces, are not known in this species. According to Ducke [17], their honey is acidic. In Paraguay, Bertoni [18] wrote about this species: " [I]t's certainly the best honey producer, but it's always somewhat acidic". The Enawene-Nawe also consider the honey sour (tiha). For this reason, they throw away the old honey that remains in the colonies.
Tetragona aff. dorsalis
Enawene-Nawe name: unknown
Indigenous name – Bora
We located the nest in a tree hollow found in the tall bush. The workers are not aggressive and the honey is good during the whole year.
Tetragona goettei
Enawene Name –
Tahadodoya.
Indigenous name – Bora
The nest was located in the trunk of a tree with a diameter of approximately 50 cm. The entrance was located about 30 cm from the ground in the ciliar bush. They are not aggressive, and the honey is considered very sweet, according to the Enawene-Nawe.
Tetragonisca angustula
Enawene-Nawe name –
Yolotare ou
Loreseri.
Indigenous name – Jatahy.
We found nests in dead hollow trunks on the ground. The trunks had different diameters (from 30 to 50 cm). We found T. angustula at both sampling locations, around the village and around the honey collection encampment. The collectors often find them in forested areas, where the sunlight penetrates the nest entrance. The colonies are frequently well populated, and the number of bees from colony to colony varies from 2000 to 5000. The nests of T. angustula can have as many as 5000 breeding cells. Sometimes they are docile, but they can also be aggressive. When the bees display aggressive behaviors towards humans, they pinch the skin and roll up in the hair, but they soon calm down. "Dirty habits" are not known. Their honey is extremely flavorful, and it is produced in small amounts.
Scaptotrigona bipunctata
Enawene-Nawe name –
Lorese.Indigenous name – Tubuna
We collected three species of the genus Scaptotrigona. Their nests had diameters of 40 to 50 cm, with the entrance situated approximately 7 m from the ground. The nest entrance was funnel-shaped and made of dark cerume. Their nests were found in the ciliar bush next to the Iquê River and the Papagaio River (adjacent to the honey collection encampment). The honey is known to be mildly acidic and very flavorful. When there is a lot of disturbance outside the hive, one can find many sentinels guarding the entrance.
The food pots have medium dimensions. They can range from 2.5 to 3 cm in height. The breeding honeycombs are generally helical, but sometimes they are horizontal. Scaptotrigona sp. build royal cells. The stored propolis has a medium viscosity. The batumen and the caulking are made with propolis and cerume. Generally, the colonies are very small. The size of the colonies varies from 2000 to 5000 bees. They are very aggressive bees, and they display the "tangle the hair" behavior. It's important to say that they are "dirty habit" bees because they visit excrement. In Guatemala, a tubuna subspecies frequently carries human excrement back to the nest to produce cerume. This species' honey is acidic and highly valued by the Enawene-Nawe.
Trigona dallatorreana
Enawene-Nawe name –
IrikaytiIndigenous name: Tu
Trigona braueri
Enawene-Nawe name –
IrikaytiIndigenous name: Abelha cachorro
According to the Enawene-Nawe, these two species of Trigona are considered to be one. Their hives usually hang from trees, connected to the tree solely by the upper portion of the nests. The bees are slightly aggressive. The little honey that they produce is highly valued by the Enawene-Nawe.
Trigona cilipes pellucida
The nest was located in the ciliar bush. Honey production is small.
Indigenous name: Buhnide
Trigona truculenta
Enawene-Nawe name –
YamayririIndigenous name: Sanharó
These bees are aggressive. They do not produce any honey.
Melipona quinquefasciata
Enawene-Nawe name –
Koretosero.
Indigenous name – Urusu
Most of the nest is found above ground, but the rest can reach more than 2 m deep in sand soil. They are very clean (they do not visit feces) and docile bees.
Melipona seminigra abunensis
Enawene-Nawe name –
Koretosero.
Indigenous name – Urusu
We found the nest in the hollow of a tree with diameter of approximately 1 m, and the entrance of the nest was located approximate 7 m high. It was located in a humid tall forest. They are not aggressive bees. According to the Enawene-Nawe, their honey is very sweet, and it is similar in flavor to the honey of the African bee (tolelori). The honey is clear and crystalline. The production of honey is good all year.
Plebeia sp
Enawene-Nawe name: unknown
Indigenous name – Miri
Generally, the entrances are made of hardned propolis. It is generally short on the outside, pratically, not forming a tube, except in some cases. It is kept open during the night (with the exception of when there is danger of ant attacks). The breeding honeycombs are horizontal or helical. They build royal cells. The propolis is stored and very sticky and viscous. The batume and the caulking are made of cerume and propolis. In general, colonies are average in population. Sometimes the number of the beehive's inhabitants is very small. They are docile bees. They are known to lick the sweat of human skin, which is a possible vehicle for the transmission of mycosis. Their honey is not very flavorful.
Duckeola ghilianii
Enawene-Nawe name: unknown
Indigenous name: Miri
We found the nest of this species at the honey collection encampment, by the Papagaio River, in hollow trees with diameters of approximately 40 cm. The entrances were approximately 7 m in height. The colonies ranged from having average to high populations. They are not aggressive, and their honey is not very sweet.
Geotrigona mattogrossensis
Enawene-Nawe name:
waykywane.
Indigenous name Mombuca
Their nest is subterranean, and their honey is sweet.
The bees and the spiritual world
The Enawene-Nawe people say that the cosmos is made of many layers. Most of these layers are inhabited by different creatures, spirits, gigantic ogres and spectral beings. Out of all of these creatures, the most feared are the
jakayreti, perverse spirits responsible for the disease and death of humans. The Enawene-Nawe dedicate important rituals to the
jakayreti, marked by an extended socio-ecologic calendar, involving fishing and agricultural activities. There are also benevolent spirits, the
enore-nawe, divine beings who inhabit a gigantic village, situated in the celestial platform of the cosmos. Considered to be Enawene-Nawe co-sanguineous relatives, these beings live in social harmony. They are physically good-looking and perfumed. They are the only beings who can expel the malefic presence of an
iakayreti. The
enore-nawe are the main
xamãs (spirits of an all powerful god) and helpers in the healing sessions of sick people [
19].
The Enewene-Nawe worship these celestial divinities in salumã and kateokõ rituals, marked by abundant offerings and consumption of honey, made possible by the long excursions of honey collection, from October to December. During these months, the whole population of the village lives in encampments that are spread about the indigenous territory in different micro-basins. In these encampments, the Enawene-Nawe collect large amounts of honey for ritualistic purposes. Stored in big calabashes or plastic receptacles, the honey is transported from the encampments to the village. There, it is consumed during the rituals.
The women organize the kateokõ ceremony. During Kateokõ, they present themselves publicly, singing and dancing, in the village's patio. This is a cue for one or more groups of men to leave and collect honey. After two or three days, the men suddenly return. Greased all over their bodies, they arrive, clamoring and spreading honey over houses and people alike. They chase the women, holding them firmly and smearing them with the apicultural product.
Expedition for honey collection
According to the Enawene-Nawe, in the mythical past, all species of the stingless bees used to live in one giant tree, which was very thick and tall. In it, all bees made their nests. Some species used to live in the low part, and others lived in the upper section of the tree. From then on, they have spread themselves and started to live in the bushes. The
Apis genus, later on known by them and generically denominated
tolelori, were, according to their origin, donated by a celestial entity as one of his
xamãs.
Never very far from a water source, the beehives are almost always located in the ciliar bushes. Thus, the bushes are the first places where the Enawene-Nawe searched for the bees. Once a nest is found and the bee type is identified, the next act is cutting down of the tree. For the honey extraction, it is necessary to open the trunks in transversal and lateral cuts. The structures that contain larvae and pupas are removed and dumped. The honeycombs are deposited into bowls or simply squeezed with the hands. The honey that is stored in the interior of the trunk is removed with the help of a sponge made of macerated palm leaves. When the collector identifies the queen bee, he normally rubs her against his eyes, believing that this gesture will bestow upon him the continued acumen to spot hives in future honey excursions. When the nest is completely destroyed, it is abandoned.
For the group expedition, the men divide themselves into groups of three or four. Soon after the sun rises, they leave, "tracking" through the woods. With baskets strapped to their backs, the honey collectors transport large, heavy knives, calabashes and pans.
As confirmed by our sampling results, most beehives are often found on the top of tall trees. Many others are found in rotten trunks of trees that have fallen.
The honey collector looks for older thicker trees to ensure the presence of bees. A touch with the back of the large knife on the trunk helps agitate the bees and draw them out, making it easier for their identification. Another good indicator that a hive is present is the presence of a tiny bird called a xokwi. It is an eager insect consumer, but its plume's color mixes with the forest green, making it hard to detect. However, a seasoned collector listens for its crow, which the Enawene-Nawe believe to proclaim, "It's here!" in reference to the presence of bees.
On an average collection day, the men find four or five stingless bee hives, which, on average, produce 2–3 kg of product for approximately five hours of work.
The honey collection generally happens while others are fishing in the rivers and streams next to the encampments. During honey collection, their diet is composed of honey, fish, fruits, and insects. The Enawene-Nawe usually add water to the honey, obtaining a solution (hydrohoney) that they call mala. They also use the honey to sweeten drinks and to eat with certain fruits, especially the palm buriti (Mauritia flexuosa).
The techniques for finding bee colonies differ among various indigenous people. According to Nogueira Neto [12], these various techniques used to locate beehives. Hollanda [20] cited seven authors who studied the nest-finding strategies performed by different indigenous societies. One strategy consists of capturing an worker and tying a bird plume to its body. The shadow cast allowed one to follow it throughout the bush. According to Rodrigues [9], the Guarani people locate colonies by their sense of smell. They claim that the smell surrounding the beehives is very peculiar. Other indigenous people use other ways to successfully determine the presence of bees, i.e., sunlight casting shadows of hives in the forest, landscape characteristics, the presence of certain vegetation, and the humidity [9].
Unlike other indigenous societies, such as the Guarani [9] and the Pankararé [11], the Enawene-Nawe do not breed bees.
Observations of the enawene-nawe regarding the mutualism between the stingless bees and the harpy eagle (harpya harpija)
There is a group of tiny bees, known to the Enawene-Nawe as lorese (
Scaptotrigona sp.), whose honey is highly valued. It is known to have a very peculiar habit: its attraction to the excrement and preys that remain on the gavião-real (
Harpia harpyia), denominated by the Enawene-Nawe as
ayridini. They claim that the lorese bees usually visit the beak and the nostril of this rapine bird and tranquilly nourish themselves with the food and other substances deposited there. Besides the head, the little lorese bees also visit the bird's body and even its cloaca, exploring the feces retained there. Often, the cloaca is visited during bouts of diarrhea caused by the consumption of monkey meat. The Enawene-Nawe also have observed that the monkey meat consumption provokes profuse sweating by the hawk, attracting those bees even more.
In a passage of the work "From honey to ashes" Levi-Strauss [21], calls attention to an observation made by the naturalist Henry Bates in one of his reports of his trip made to (insert place) in the 19th century that the New World's stingless bees display "dirty habits". Bates suggests that stingless bees from the Amazon obtain less of their nutrition from flowers and more of it from tree sap and from bird excrement. Strauss also stressed the distinction between New World and Old World bees by citing Schwartz's observation that "the Meliponas are interested for the various matters, from the nectar and the pollen to the yield, the urine and the excrements" (apud Lévi-Strauss, op. cit.).