Strange Enemies: Indigenous Agency and Scenes of Encounters in Amazonia - Rilegato

Vilaca, Aparecida

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0822345560 ISBN 13: 9780822345565

Casa editrice: Duke Univ Pr, 2010

Riassunto

In 1956, in the Brazilian state of Rondônia, a group of Wari’ Indians had their first peaceful contact with whites: Protestant missionaries and officers from the national Indian Protection Service. On returning to their villages, the Wari’ announced, “We touched their bodies!” Meanwhile the whites reported to their own people that “the region’s most warlike tribe has entered the pacification phase!” Initially published in Brazil, Strange Enemies is an ethnographic narrative of the first encounters between these peoples with radically different worldviews.

During the 1940s and 1950s, white rubber tappers invading the Wari’ lands raided the native villages, shooting and killing their victims as they slept. These massacres prompted the Wari’ to initiate a period of intense retaliatory warfare. The national government and religious organizations subsequently intervened, seeking to “pacify” the Indians. Aparecida Vilaça was able to interview both Wari’ and non-Wari’ participants in these encounters, and here she shares their firsthand narratives of the dramatic events. Taking the Wari’ perspective as its starting point, Strange Enemies combines a detailed examination of these cross-cultural encounters with analyses of classic ethnological themes such as kinship, shamanism, cannibalism, warfare, and mythology.

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Recensione:

"This intimate portrait of a remarkable people who insist on encountering modernity on their own terms challenges us to think beyond outmoded notions about acculturation and loss of tradition. Deftly weaving the insights of Amazonian perspectivism with history, myth, and personal experience, Aparecida Vilaca shows how Wari' choices to live with whites and adopt many of their ways are part of the logic of being indigenous. Empowerment derives from seeing the world through the eyes of others. Strange Enemies invites us to see the world through Wari' eyes. The view is fascinating." --oBeth A. Conklin, author of Consuming Grief: Compassionate Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society

"Thanks to the excellent anthropological work of Aparecida Vilaca and colleagues studying Amazonia and Melanesia, it becomes increasingly apparent that the incorporation of othernessoin practices ranging from marriage and shamanism to warfare and cannibalismois an essential condition of human being. It follows that the relationship between societies is an essential condition of their respective cultural orders as well as their historical development. Now Vilaca has produced a landmark ethnography of these processes, with an unparalleled documentation from the inside of the assimilation of the outside, highlighted by a stunning analysis of the cultural reciprocities of the colonial encounter." --oMarshall Sahlins, author of The Western Illusion of Human Nature

L'autore:

Aparecida Vilaça is Associate Professor of Social Anthropology in the Graduate Program in Social Anthropology of the Museu Nacional, Universidade Federal de Rio de Janeiro. She is a co-editor of Native Christians: Modes and Effects of Christianity in the Americas.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Duke Univ Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0822345560
• ISBN 13: 9780822345565
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 370