Yucuna
Language Family
Now the yucuna language is part of the Arawakan Family. These languages are found near the Amazon jungle in South America and expands as from to the Caribean islands. A long with the Arawakan languages these have a little or more influence from Spanish. Some of the alphabet in the Yucuna language does have some of similarity in the grammer and alphabet.
History
Now not only is this a very endangered language, the Arawakan Natives have been to be belived for along time. According to Enacademic.com " The Arawakan people were indigenas peoples of the west indies and also were the Natives to meet christopher Columbus". Now for many Natives of the arawakan people they lived in a male dominate society like many people did in the past. To go along with how their communities were set up Enacademic.com says" the men hunted and the women took care of the Childcare aspects of life."
A well as community life, I can see how many Latino people got their hospitality from since many Arawakan people would always feed, give drinks, and have festivals with guests who they would have over. Now that isn't just a Latino thing, but that would just be considered great hospitality. Which could make the claim from Christoper Columbus and the Spanish Conquistadors said" They were peaceful primitive people", when they offered them balls of cotton thread and parrots.
Culture
Like many Native tribes around the world many things like arts and crafts is away to express feelings anf beliefs to others. And many Arawakan tribes used " pottery, basket weaving and cotten weaving... as well as Men and Women painted their bodies and wore jewerly made from stone, gold and bones, and dance in fesivales."
Population
The popluation of some of the Arawakan family tribes have lost significant people and that is the biggest problem with endangered or extinct languages. For example the Taino family lost significant people through " The Spanish coquistadors harsh rule, enslavement, and resettlement.. as well as attacks on the carribean Arawakan tribes by Europeon expansion." according to Enacademic.com. Even though many Arawakan families are located in South America near Colombia and Venazuela and in " 1880" 300,000 Natives lived in Colombia and 150,000 lived near Venazuela."
Even though many of the families don't exist anymore, some like the Yucuna still exist so what has caused languages like the Yucuna to still exist. Not only is the Yucuna being documented, studied by linguists, but some schools that share boarders with many Arawakan languages do help share knowledge about the other languages. As well as today the Number of speakers for Yucuna is like the number of languages around the world the range is wide and there is not an exact answer.
Also with population many Arawakan natives like anyone needs money. Like many Natives around the world herding and trading are a huge part of any economy. As long as being in the caribe and in south America the tropical climate made it possible to grow vegtables or other crops made it possible.
Linguistic Ideologies
According to Camilo Roberto-Robayo author of lingustic and ideologies and shamanism amoung Yucuna-Matapi indigenous people " in order to understand the language one has to analize the Social structure,,stature, Rights, and obligations"(pg 150). For many lingustics and researchers to find out about the language each one of these categories are a must to find out. For many the men really controled most of the way the communities lived and made the decisions for their tribes. For the rights many people mostly women didn't have a voice as loud as a man. Even the children, especially boys would grow up and be expected to take over for their father and go hunt and work physically for the family.And for the most part this was true for almost every past society.
The Yucuna Tribe
The Yucuna tribe is located near Colombia in South America. And according to Laurent Fontaine " the Yucuna Indians lived on the banks of the lower half mirití-parana river and lower Caqueta. As well as where they are located their way of life was that the men hunt and build and the women grow food, make the food and make pottery. Which many Amazionan Indians did and by doing this their culture or traditions could be recorded.
For example what comes to mind is in David Harrisons talked about the Tuvan and how their ways of life we similar.In that the men would go hunt and do all the physical stuff while the women cook and stay home.And how many ways those beliefs still exist in our socierty.