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social equality and ritual hierarchy: the Arawakan Wakuénai of Venezuela
Author(s) -
HILL JONATHAN D.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1984.11.3.02a00070
Subject(s) - hierarchy , social hierarchy , structuring , amazon rainforest , flexibility (engineering) , contrast (vision) , sociology , social organization , geography , ethnology , dual (grammatical number) , anthropology , political science , ecology , law , computer science , mathematics , statistics , linguistics , philosophy , biology , artificial intelligence
The social organization of Eastern Tukanoan peoples in the Northwest Amazon region shows a dual tendency toward egalitarian and hierarchical relationships. This paper provides new data on the neighboring Northern Arawakan peoples of the Isana and Guainía rivers. It explores the equality‐versus‐hierarchy contrast as a pair of distinct, yet interconnected, modes of structuring that create adaptive flexibility in response to extreme seasonal fluctuations of basic riverine resources.