Mythologies of the Sanapaná Tribe
The Sanapana are one of many nomadic tribes inhabiting the lower Gran Chaco of western Paraguay. With the introduction of Mennonite settlements in the central Chaco in the 1930s, many nomadic tribes semi-settled near the Mennonites. The Mennonites established Missions to many of these tribes, often grouping linguistically similar tribes nearby. The Sanapana and Lengua were settled on La Esperanza mission, southeast of Filadelfia, just off the Pan-American Highway. The Lengua, in their tongue, refer to themselves as "Enhlit," which means "the people." The Sanapana refer to themselves as "Nenhlet," which also means "the people." A standard conversation among the Sanapana-Lengua often includes words from their language, mixed with Spanish and Guaraní, the national languages of Paraguay, and some Low German, the primary language of the Mennonites. The Sanapana language uses the Latin alphabet, a sample of which is "Tamilachlech coo evalhoc, Jesucristo singmasma coo." Sanapaná people call themselves nenlhet; Enxet people call Sanapaná people saapa'ang; Guaná people call them kasnapan; and Enlhet people, kelya'mok.
Sanapaná or Nenlhet is spoken by approximately 980 speakers out of 2,270 ethnic population in Alto Paraguay and Boquerón departments; Presidente Hayes department: Anaconda north to La Palmera south, Paraguay. There are (or perhaps better, used to be) native numerals for cardinalities up until 20. Apart from the ones listed in the table, I have not heard any of them used in normal conversation, and speakers often give different answers when eliciting them. I have therefore concluded that they are no longer part of the system of most if not all speakers, and have given in the table above the Spanish loans people use instead (since you asked for the most frequent forms). These vary depending on the Spanish proficiency of individual speakers, as some speakers with extremely little exposure to Spanish might, for instance, substitute /l/ or /ɫ/ for Spanish /ɾ/. The forms in the table above should therefore only be taken as an approximation of how an average speaker may produce these numerals. The consonants between brackets are allophones present in the speech of some speakers: [q] as a retention by a few older speakers of a (likely) proto-Enlhet-Enenlhet phoneme /q/ which has in Sanapaná become /k/ or /ʔ/ depending on context; /g/ as a marginal phoneme present in a very small number of fairly frequent words such as /paga/ 'mosquito' and /kaga/ 'type of fruit'; and [ʃ] and [x] as connected speech allophones of /j/ after /t/ and of the /kh/ cluster, respectively. The Sanapaná vowel system consists of /e, a, o/, respectively a mid front vowel, a low central vowel, and a mid back vowel. Data on this vowel system and the relations of /e, o/ with [i, u] can be found in a paper I am currently finishing, and of which I can send a draft if you are interested.
“The birth of the Sanapaná: they came from the mountain, they went underground and to come out from underground they have to go to a place full of palm trees”. Around 1850 they approached the Paraguay River to barter hunting, wild skins and some agricultural products with non-indigenous people. They worked in the tannery. When the tannery closed, the Sanapaná dispersed to private ranches in the Mennonite area and to religious missions. They celebrated the carob festival, which was related to the harvest of carob fruits. During the festival they prepared a special bread made from carob flour. Because of the importance that the tree had for this people, they were known as Sanapaná del algarrobo. They believe in several gods, but the influence of the Catholic and Mennonite churches persists, depending on the communities. For the Sanapaná, singing, music and dancing are very important in their festivals and artistic events. Masks and costumes are used in female initiation celebrations.
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