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Kalapalo Biography: Psychology and Language in a South American Oral History
Author(s) -
Basso Ellen B.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.1989.91.3.02a00010
Subject(s) - resistance (ecology) , allegiance , narrative , dialogical self , context (archaeology) , ideology , biography , negotiation , sociology , history , personality psychology , ethnic group , gender studies , aesthetics , literature , psychology , social psychology , anthropology , social science , personality , law , political science , politics , art , archaeology , biology , art history , ecology
Kalapalo warrior biographies are concerned with dialogical processes of challenge, resistance, debate, and the negotiation of meaning—with the struggles that take place as people try to understand and experience anew. Although warriors were trained to aggressively defend their communities against enemies, these narratives describe how they attempted to refashion ideological forms connected with ethnic allegiance and moral community. The personalities of warriors, closely connected to the training they underwent in adolescence, are particularly important in this regard. While biographies are often understood as texts in which history is merely a context surrounding the progress of individuals, descriptions of personal development are shown here to constitute testimony about historical processes themselves, in this case the experiences of refugees fleeing from centers of European expansion in lowland South America.