Amahuaca wife-beating sticks?

Q: I was on the museum website and I saw striped sticks of the Amahuaca tribe which were called "wife-beating sticks." What is that about? Why are they beating their wives?

A: I had to ask a friend of a friend to get this answer for you. The Amahuaca are a small tribe and very remote. She says "It was a ritual. The people believed bad things came from dark magic. If a woman was infertile, they would beat her with a sacred stick to drive out the bad magic. They also had special whips that the shaman would whip men in a ritual to make them stronger and drive away dark magic. This is what I hear from older people. Amahuaca still do many of our traditions but not these ones."

Hope that answers you question, have a good day!

Further reading:
Amahuaca language
Amazonian tribes

Gvlieliga

Q: What is the meaning and language of the word gvlieliga?

A:  It's Cherokee. It's a polite comment similar to the English phrase "you're welcome"-- something you say in response to "thank you." Literally it means "I'm glad," or "my pleasure."

Hope that is interesting, have a good day!

Further reading:
Cherokee language
Cherokee alphabet
Cherokee tribe   

Pennacook Language

Q: Hello. Not sure if I have the right person. But I was wondering how you say grandmother,  Nana in Pennacook.

Thank you

A:  Unfortunately the Pennacook language was never recorded. They may have been speakers of the Abenaki and/or Wampanoag languages, or they may have spoken their own Algonquian dialect of which we have no record. The Abenaki word for "grandmother" is Nokemes (pronounced no-kuh-muss.) Hopefully that is close enough for your purposes.

Have a good day!

Further reading:
Abenaki language
Wampanoag language
Pennacook Indian tribe