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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Patrimony, Publishing, And Politics: Books As Ritual Objects In Northwest Amazonia, Stephen P. Hugh-Jones
Patrimony, Publishing, And Politics: Books As Ritual Objects In Northwest Amazonia, Stephen P. Hugh-Jones
Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America
With particular reference to works by Tukano and Desana authors, this paper examines some of the cultural and historical factors that underlie the unique propensity of indigenous peoples of Northwest Amazonia to publish their narrative histories in books. Jointly written by a knowledgeable elder and a younger literate amanuensis, each book in Coleção Narradores Indígenas do Alto Rio Negro series contains the origin narratives, myths, and recent history of a particular group, told from the point of view of one of its clans. Writing down and thus rescuing oral traditions under threat from the pressures of education, urbanization and other …
The Origin Of Night And The Dance Of Time: Ritual And Material Culture In Northwest Amazonia, Stephen P. Hugh-Jones
The Origin Of Night And The Dance Of Time: Ritual And Material Culture In Northwest Amazonia, Stephen P. Hugh-Jones
Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America
Based on a survey of published material complemented by original fieldwork, this paper shows that Northwest Amazonian Arawakan, Tukanoan and Makuan stories of the Origin of Night form parts of a single, more inclusive myth about the sequential creation of earth, trees, house-frames, roofing leaves, night, song and dance. Here a box of feather ornaments plays a central role as the container of both roofing leaves and night with leaves as feathers, the ornaments of the house-as-person. When placed on the house-frame as thatch, these ornament-leaves shut out the light causing "night." The feather box, a container of bright yellow …