Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Anthropology Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 30 of 84

Full-Text Articles in Anthropology

Propagating Conviviality: Waiwai Cultural Transformation Of Moral Depravity, George F. Mentore May 2024

Propagating Conviviality: Waiwai Cultural Transformation Of Moral Depravity, George F. Mentore

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This essay considers the problematics of anthropological translations when its responsibility to the codes of its modernist subjectivity persuades us to defer judgment on interpretations made of indigenous semiotics of life. It begins with this full disclosure before attempting to describe, from a translation of a Waiwai myth, how one can produce a guilty reading about their privileging of concern for conviviality. The Waiwai bodily feeling of well-being must be in place before relations of trust can be enacted. Transforming the vial aggressive feelings of strangers becomes a priority for hosting them. Maintaining feelings of conviviality within the community is …


Povos Indígenas Nas Guianas: Etnografias Contemporâneas, Luísa G. Girardi, Leonor Valentino, Virgínia Amaral May 2024

Povos Indígenas Nas Guianas: Etnografias Contemporâneas, Luísa G. Girardi, Leonor Valentino, Virgínia Amaral

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Na introdução a este número especial da Tipití, dedicado a etnografias recentes realizadas junto a povos indígenas na Amazônia guianense, sobrevoamos as principais tradições antropológicas que posicionaram a região no centro dos debates da etnologia amazonista. Alternativamente definida como “área linguística”, “área cultural” ou “área etnográfica”, a região das Guianas é compartilhada por coletivos indígenas falantes de idiomas da família Caribe e, em menor medida, de línguas Aruaque, Tupi, Yanomami, Sáliva e Warao, e está associada a algumas das monografias que inauguraram o período moderno da reflexão etnológica sobre o parentesco na Amazônia, além de influentes sínteses comparativas a …


Kita Vai À Kwamalasamutu, Fabio Ribeiro May 2024

Kita Vai À Kwamalasamutu, Fabio Ribeiro

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No contexto de uma série de encontros entre pessoas zo'é e tiriyó na região da fronteira Brasil-Suriname, o presente artigo aborda a experiência de Kita, jovem zo’é que em 2010 viajou com alguns chefes e pastores tiriyó e permaneceu na aldeia Kwamalasamutu, no sul do Suriname, por alguns meses. A partir de dois relatos de Kita, procuro seguir as múltiplas conexões por ele mobilizadas e articulá-las a problemas relevantes da etnologia das Guianas. Seguindo a proposta metodológica de S. Oakdale (2007) no sentido de ancorar a “economia simbólica da alteridade” em autobiografias ameríndias, o objetivo é imbricar a crônica de …


Women’S Routes: Gender, Mobility, And Knowledge Among The Makushi Of Southern Guyana, Lisa Katharina Grund May 2024

Women’S Routes: Gender, Mobility, And Knowledge Among The Makushi Of Southern Guyana, Lisa Katharina Grund

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Exploring the journeys of some Makushi women, this article highlights the relevance of gender in the question of (im)mobility and female engagements with the world as central to contemporary Makushi life. Departing from the understanding that the category of space has proven crucial in the theoretical groundwork of the Guiana ethnographic area and drawing on the region’s classical ethnographies, it explores everyday practices of movement of the Makushi people who live along the triple frontier of southern Guyana. Rather than disruptive, these in and out journeys—collective or individual—prove to be crucial to the weaving of community. They are also central …


Vaupés Multilingualism And The Substance Of Language, Stephen Hugh-Jones Nov 2023

Vaupés Multilingualism And The Substance Of Language, Stephen Hugh-Jones

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

By focusing on ordinary conversational language, relying on a notion of “group” derived from unilineal descent theory, and neglecting mythology and ritual, studies of Vaupés Tukanoan multilingualism have inadvertently tended to reproduce a Western ideology of language as marking national identity and concerned with conveying meaning. This paper suggests that attention to musical, ritual, and shamanic contexts reveals multilingualism in a different light, with ritual speech acts as constitutive of social groups, names as vehicles of reproduction, and breath as a substance-like bodily element and source of vitality. The more esoteric, rhetorical, musical, or visual ornamentation is given to breath, …


Introduction: Indigenous Multilingualism In Lowland South America, Patience Epps Nov 2023

Introduction: Indigenous Multilingualism In Lowland South America, Patience Epps

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Recent decades have seen an exponential growth in our understanding of the indigenous languages of lowland South America – from their structures and interrelationships to the dynamics of their day-to-day use and the ways they are conceptualized by their speakers. These advances highlight not only the diversity of languages in lowland South America, but also the complexity of the dynamics of interaction among speakers in multilingual settings. The region is home to a range of interactive indigenous ‘regional systems’, such as the Vaupés, Upper Xingu, and other areas, where multiple languages have thrived alongside each other for generations, and interaction …


The Way Of Warriors: Annotated Narratives Of The Mebengokre (Kayapo) In Brazil, By Gustaaf Verswijver, John Hemming Nov 2023

The Way Of Warriors: Annotated Narratives Of The Mebengokre (Kayapo) In Brazil, By Gustaaf Verswijver, John Hemming

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.


Multilingual Pantanal And Its Decay, Gustavo Godoy, Kristina Balykova Nov 2023

Multilingual Pantanal And Its Decay, Gustavo Godoy, Kristina Balykova

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Historically, the Pantanal wetlands were inhabited by diverse ethnicities belonging to various linguistic groups, including Bororoan, Arawakan, Tupian, Gauicuruan, and Zamucoan, as well as some isolates and unclassified languages. Numerous ethnic groups disappeared without leaving any records of their languages, leaving behind only a list of ethnonyms. A point of confluence of different peoples that also circulated in other major South American areas, the Pantanal was a place with high linguistic diversity. Trade networks surrounded and permeated the area, as described in the earliest accounts by Portuguese and Spanish colonizers. As Indigenous groups were affected by colonial disputes over labor …


The Age Of The Onanya - Regarding The Spread Of Ayahuasca Use Throughout The Ucayali Basin, Carlos Suárez-Álvarez Nov 2023

The Age Of The Onanya - Regarding The Spread Of Ayahuasca Use Throughout The Ucayali Basin, Carlos Suárez-Álvarez

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

The spread of ayahuasca shamanism throughout the Upper Amazon has become a matter of debate among scholars since, in 1994, anthropologist Peter Gow formulated the controversial suggestion that it could be a recent phenomenon in the Ucayali basin, usually considered the stronghold of a millenary tradition. Following Gow, Brabec de Mori argued that the Shipibo-Conibo people, a paradigmatic example of the antique practice of ayahuasca shamanism, adopted both the brew and the associated shamanic practices in a “relatively recent” past. Gow and Brabec pointed at the Maynas missions as the origin of this shamanic complex, and the mestizo and Cocama …


Into An Interference Zone: Childbirth And Care Among Mehinako People, Aline Regitano Nov 2023

Into An Interference Zone: Childbirth And Care Among Mehinako People, Aline Regitano

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This article addresses issues of care and corporeality during gestation, childbirth, the postpartum period, and childcare through a case study conducted with Mehinako people. Among this Amazonian people, care forms the person, having an elementary function in the daily construction of kinship relations through means of affection. A recent trend has caused expressive transformations in the way women experience corporeality and the making of a person: the displacement of birth from the home to hospitals, motivated by women’s fear, desire, and curiosity. In the city, Indigenous women transit through medical institutions, which I propose may be read as interference zones …


Jean E. Jackson: A Pioneering Ethnographer In The Colombian Amazon, Patience Epps, Danilo Paiva Ramos, Flora Dias Cabalzar Nov 2023

Jean E. Jackson: A Pioneering Ethnographer In The Colombian Amazon, Patience Epps, Danilo Paiva Ramos, Flora Dias Cabalzar

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This essay celebrates the work of Jean E. Jackson, a pioneering female ethnographer who devoted most of her fifty-year career to the Indigenous peoples of Colombia. Her research, represented in an extensive set of publications from the early 1970s to the present, engages with themes of identity, stigma, and social inequality, manifested across a range of contexts. Jackson’s ethnographic contributions include her ground-breaking early work on Indigenous Tukanoan society in the Colombian Vaupés, focusing on the practice of linguistic exogamy (obligatory marriage across language groups) among the Bará people. Later, she expanded her focus to address Indigenous experiences in the …


Language, Exogamy And Ethnicity In The Upper Rio Negro Region, Thiago Chacon, Luis Cayón Nov 2023

Language, Exogamy And Ethnicity In The Upper Rio Negro Region, Thiago Chacon, Luis Cayón

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

In this article we explore how languages interact with exogamous social units (e.g., clans and phratries) and descent ideologies (such as having a common mythical ancestor and emergence from the same mythical place) to help organize the multilingual and interethnic societies from the Upper Rio Negro region (URN) in the Amazon. We show that the expected alignment of language boundary, exogamous group and descent group is actually quite unusual. Complex social structures involving the aggregation of clans into larger ethnic groups or marriage alliances with other clans have important variations in the alignment of language, exogamy, and descent ideology. Existing …


Review: Of Mixed Blood, Luis Felipe Torres May 2023

Review: Of Mixed Blood, Luis Felipe Torres

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

The review revises the most inportant concepts of the book Of Mixed Blood


Civilized Elders And Isolated Ancestors: The Multiple Histories Of Contemporary Amazonia, Casey High May 2023

Civilized Elders And Isolated Ancestors: The Multiple Histories Of Contemporary Amazonia, Casey High

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

In this article I consider the impact of Peter Gow’s writing on indigenous histories as a key area of research on Amazonia. Building on his study of kinship as history on the Bajo Urubamba (1991) he presented a regional perspective on the dynamic social categories by which Amazonian people understand their relations with various “others.” Focusing on indigenous agency and modes of thought, Gow challenged certain lines of historical thinking that dominated anthropology at the time. I explore how his ethnographic approach to history has influenced a generation of regional scholarship, including my own work on memory and social transformation …


Marginal To Whom? Reflections On Gow's "Purús Song", Magnus Course May 2023

Marginal To Whom? Reflections On Gow's "Purús Song", Magnus Course

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This paper constitutes a personal exploration of the impact of the work of Peter Gow on my own attempts to think through specific ethnographic problems, both in the Mapuche communities of Southern Chile and the Gaelic communities of Western Scotland. I focus in particular on how Gow’s lesser-known essay “Purús Song” inverts received wisdom about the relationships between center and periphery, and between nation-state and Indigenous people. I see this as one iteration of Gow’s broader aim of letting ethnographic realities transform theoretical complacencies.


Indigenous Transformations In The Comunidad Nativa: Rethinking Kinship And Its Limitations In An Expanding Resource Frontier, Evan Killick, Juan Pablo Sarmiento Barletti May 2023

Indigenous Transformations In The Comunidad Nativa: Rethinking Kinship And Its Limitations In An Expanding Resource Frontier, Evan Killick, Juan Pablo Sarmiento Barletti

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

In Of Mixed Blood, Peter Gow sets out an account of the transformations of kinship and the construction of social relations among Indigenous, mainly Yine (Piro), people of the Bajo Urubamba valley in the early 1980s, when Peru’s “Comunidades Nativas” (“Native Communities”) were receiving their new official titles. We revisit Peter’s proposition by comparing it our more recent ethnographic engagements with Indigenous Asháninka/Ashéninka communities in the region. While tracing continuities from his observations, we also show how social relations now play out in different ways, as certain important resources have become scarcer and the need for …


‘One Piro Man I Knew Well’: A Brief Commentary On An Amazonian Myth And Its History, Leif Grunewald May 2023

‘One Piro Man I Knew Well’: A Brief Commentary On An Amazonian Myth And Its History, Leif Grunewald

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This is a book review for An Amazonian myth and History, to the special volume to honor Peter Gow


An Amazonianist And His History, Victor Cova, Juan Pablo Sarmiento May 2023

An Amazonianist And His History, Victor Cova, Juan Pablo Sarmiento

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.


Desire, Difference, And Productivity: Reflections On “The Perverse Child” And Its Continued Relevance, Christopher Hewlett May 2023

Desire, Difference, And Productivity: Reflections On “The Perverse Child” And Its Continued Relevance, Christopher Hewlett

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This article is concerned with the relationships through which children have been born, raised, and made into Amahuaca people over the past 75 years, and within contemporary Native Communities on the Inuya River since their formation beginning in the 1980s. The process of making children into kin among Amahuaca people is similar to that described throughout much of lowland South America. The production, preparation, and sharing of proper food (manioc, plantains, fish, and game) as well as manioc beer are central aspects of sociality and the formation of specific kinds of bodies. While the processes of sharing substances, demonstrating care, …


Between Cocama And Modernity In The Ucamara (Peruvian Amazon), Marta Krokoszyńska May 2023

Between Cocama And Modernity In The Ucamara (Peruvian Amazon), Marta Krokoszyńska

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Combining a contemporary ethnographic perspective with a review of historical records, the article extends Peter Gow’s re-reading of the ex-Cocama phenomenon in the Western Amazon. It argues that the foundation of the Amazonian Peruvian town of Requena at the beginning of the 20th century took place during an important historical moment in the region. Within the post-rubber boom context, schools became a particularly important idiom that enabled Requena’s growth as the centre of education and modernity. The paper investigates relations between the widespread desire for education in the Ucamara region, and Cocama descendants’ and other “ribereño” ex-Mainas peoples’ specific notions …


“Cuando Crezca, Quiero Ser Fotógrafo”: Caminos De La Producción Audiovisual De Kamikia Kisêdjê, Rodrigo Lacerda, Ximena Flores Rojas, Tatiane Maíra Klein Dec 2022

“Cuando Crezca, Quiero Ser Fotógrafo”: Caminos De La Producción Audiovisual De Kamikia Kisêdjê, Rodrigo Lacerda, Ximena Flores Rojas, Tatiane Maíra Klein

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.


Camaraderie, Mentorship, And Manhood: Contemporary Indigenous Identities Among The A’Uwẽ (Xavante) Of Central Brazil, James R. Welch Dec 2022

Camaraderie, Mentorship, And Manhood: Contemporary Indigenous Identities Among The A’Uwẽ (Xavante) Of Central Brazil, James R. Welch

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Rites of passage and associated social processes and configurations can foster a sense of shared purpose, fraternity, and dedication to community through common experiences of group trials and commitment. A’uwẽ (Xavante) age organization entails the social production of manhood through a privileged form of male camaraderie constructed through age sets and mentorship, rooted in the shared experience of rites of passage and coresidence in the pre-initiate boys’ house. This process is central to how A’uwẽ men understand themselves, their social relations with certain delineated segments of society, and their ethnic identity. It is a basic social configuration contributing to the …


Movements In C Minor: Vocal Soundscapes In Eastern Amazonia (Araweté), Guilherme Orlandini Heurich Dec 2022

Movements In C Minor: Vocal Soundscapes In Eastern Amazonia (Araweté), Guilherme Orlandini Heurich

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This article examines the capture of forest spirits through music in the Anĩ pihi speech-songs of the Araweté, a small Amerindian society in Eastern Amazonia, Brazil. The Anĩ pihi are unique in their combination of spoken and sung forms, in which spirits and divinities are voiced by a ritual specialist. I explore how particular sounds index the presence of different kinds of others (gods and spirits), and how these sounds are, in turn, related to the use of reported speech – in other words, how others talk about other others in sung form. As such, the Anĩ pihi are a …


Politics As War: The Ideology Of The Attack On Indigenous Territorial Rights, Artionka Capiberibe Oct 2022

Politics As War: The Ideology Of The Attack On Indigenous Territorial Rights, Artionka Capiberibe

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.


Territorial Rights In Brazil: Chronic Difficulties And New Approaches To Sustaining Traditional Landscapes, Jeremy M. Campbell Oct 2022

Territorial Rights In Brazil: Chronic Difficulties And New Approaches To Sustaining Traditional Landscapes, Jeremy M. Campbell

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.


Brazilian Indigenous Peoples: Territories, Legal Rights And The Obstacles Of Structural And Institutional Racism, Maria Rosário De Carvalho Oct 2022

Brazilian Indigenous Peoples: Territories, Legal Rights And The Obstacles Of Structural And Institutional Racism, Maria Rosário De Carvalho

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.


Povos Da Terra And Originary Rights, Marcela Coelho De Souza Oct 2022

Povos Da Terra And Originary Rights, Marcela Coelho De Souza

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.


The Right To Exist, Carlos Marés Oct 2022

The Right To Exist, Carlos Marés

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.


Health Agents On The Move: Yanomami Agency And The Struggle For Wellbeing, Alejandro Reig Oct 2022

Health Agents On The Move: Yanomami Agency And The Struggle For Wellbeing, Alejandro Reig

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This paper examines the sanitary and sociopolitical impact of the work of a Yanomami Health Agent in the Upper Ocamo area of the Venezuelan Amazonas State, and its relationship with the national health system, and argues that these build up into an interface of transformations. This is an interactional milieu composed by a dynamic mesh of incorporations and transformations working at different scales and in different directions: the State sanitary device incorporating a hinterland cluster of villages, a village at the center of this cluster incorporating the resources of the outside world, a young adult incorporating the potencies of outsiders …


Community Health Workers In Central-Southern Amazonia: An Ethnographic Account Of The Munduruku People Of Kwatá Laranjal Indigenous Land, Daniel Scopel, Raquel Dias-Scopel, Esther Jean Langdon Oct 2022

Community Health Workers In Central-Southern Amazonia: An Ethnographic Account Of The Munduruku People Of Kwatá Laranjal Indigenous Land, Daniel Scopel, Raquel Dias-Scopel, Esther Jean Langdon

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This article analyzes the role of Munduruku indigenous community health workers (CHW) with the expansion of biomedical services as part of state presence and territorial control in Brazil. Centuries of interethnic contacts among the Munduruku have resulted in a plurality of health practices. Since 1999, Primary services have increased significantly, when the Indigenous Health System (SASI) was created. CHWs were incorporated as part of the health teams serving the indigenous lands. Munduruku CHWs have not only assumed an important role in the delivery of biomedical services, but also are key in the articulation between different traditions of care. Although there …