ABOUT THIS BOOK

Before they were largely decimated and dispersed by the effects of European colonization, Arawak-speaking peoples were the most widespread language family in Latin America and the Caribbean, and they were the first people Columbus encountered in the Americas. Comparative Arawakan Histories, in paperback for the first time, examines social structures, political hierarchies, rituals, religious movements, gender relations, and linguistic variations through historical perspectives to document sociocultural diversity across the diffused Arawakan diaspora.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Jonathan D. Hill is chair of the Department of Anthropology at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. He is the author of Keepers of the Sacred Chants: The Poetics of Ritual Power in an Amazonian Society.Fernando Santos-Granero is a staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and the author of The Power of Love: The Moral Use of Knowledge amongst the Amuesha of Central Peru.

REVIEWS

"This volume is a true treasure-house for all those interested in South American indigenous ethnology for being highly informative, rich in details, and really interdisciplinary. Another very positive aspect is that the single contributions are interrelated and refer one to the other, producing a high level of coherence rarely achieved by volumes of this kind."--Peter Schröder, Anthropos Institute

TABLE OF CONTENTS






  Introduction
  JONATHAN D. HILL AND FERNANDO SANTOS-GRANERO 1

  PART 1: LANGUAGES, CULTURES, AND LOCAL HISTORIES

1. The Arawakan Matrix: Ethos, Language, and History in Native
  South America
  FERNANDO SANTOS-GRANERO 25

2. Arawak Linguistic and Cultural Identity through Time:
  Contact, Colonialism, and Creolization
  NEIL L. WHITEHEAD 51

3. Historical Linguistics and Its Contribution to Improving the
  Knowledge of Arawak
  SIDNEY DA SILVA FACUNDES 74

  PART 2: HIERARCHY, DIASPORA, AND NEW IDENTITIES

4. Rethinking the Arawakan Diaspora: Hierarchy, Regionality,
  and the Amazonian Formative
  MICHAEL J. HECKENBERGER 99





5. Social Forms and Regressive History: From the Campa Cluster
   to the Mojos and from the Mojos to the Landscaping Terrace-
   Builders of the Bolivian Savanna
   FRANCE-MARIE RENARD-CASEVITZ 123

6. Piro, Apurina, and Campa: Social Dissimilation and Assimilation
   as Historical Processes in Southwestern Amazonia
   PETER GOW 147

7. Both Omphalos and Margin: On How the Pa'ikwene (Palikur)
   See Themselves to Be at the Center and on the Edge at the
   Same Time
   ALAN PASSES 171

   PART 3: POWER, CULTISM, AND SACRED LANDSCAPES

8. A New Model of the Northern Arawakan Expansion
   ALBERTA ZUCCHI 199

9. Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Woman:
   Fertility Cultism and Historical Dynamics in the Upper
   Rio Negro Region
   JONATHAN D. HILL 223

10. Secret Religious Cults and Political Leadership: Multiethnic
   Confederacies from Northwestern Amazonia
   SILVIA M. VIDAL 248

11. Prophetic Traditions among the Baniwa and Other Arawakan
   Peoples of the Northwest Amazon
   ROBIN M. WRIGHT 269