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Of Enemies and Pets: Warfare and Shamanism in Amazonia
Author(s) -
Fausto Carlos
Publication year - 1999
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.1999.26.4.933
Subject(s) - shamanism , dialectic , indigenous , amazon rainforest , schema (genetic algorithms) , ethnology , sociology , history , environmental ethics , anthropology , ecology , epistemology , philosophy , archaeology , machine learning , biology , computer science
Indigenous warfare in tropical South America, frequently involving cannibalism and trophy hunting, has been a recurrent theme in Americanist literature. Since the 16th century, conquerors, missionaries, chroniclers, and more recently anthropologists have striven to make sense of the phenomenon. In this article, I propose a model of social reproduction that subsumes warfare and shamanism within a generalized economy. I show the existence of a dialectic operating between two relational forms, predation and familiarization. This dialectic functions as a general schema of the mode for producing persons and groups in the region, [warfare, shamanism, ritual, exchange theory, animal familiarization, Amazonian Indians]