Strange Enemies

Indigenous Agency and Scenes of Encounters in Amazonia

Autor: Vilaça, Aparecida; Rodgers, David; Whitehead, Neil L.; Fair, Jo Ellen; Payne, Leigh A.
Editor: Duke University Press
Col·lecció: The Cultures and Practice of Violence
ISBN: 9780822345565
eISBN Pdf: 9780822391289
Lloc de publicació: Durham , United States
Any de publicació digital: 2010
Mes: Maig
Pàgines: 392
DDC: 981/.01
Idioma: Anglés

Descripció

In 1956, in the Brazilian state of Rondônia, a group of Wari’ Indians had their first peaceful contact with whites: Protestant missionaries and officers from the national Indian Protection Service. On returning to their villages, the Wari’ announced, “We touched their bodies!” Meanwhile the whites reported to their own people that “the region’s most warlike tribe has entered the pacification phase!” Initially published in Brazil, Strange Enemies is an ethnographic narrative of the first encounters between these peoples with radically different worldviews.

During the 1940s and 1950s, white rubber tappers invading the Wari’ lands raided the native villages, shooting and killing their victims as they slept. These massacres prompted the Wari’ to initiate a period of intense retaliatory warfare. The national government and religious organizations subsequently intervened, seeking to “pacify” the Indians. Aparecida Vilaça was able to interview both Wari’ and non-Wari’ participants in these encounters, and here she shares their firsthand narratives of the dramatic events. Taking the Wari’ perspective as its starting point, Strange Enemies combines a detailed examination of these cross-cultural encounters with analyses of classic ethnological themes such as kinship, shamanism, cannibalism, warfare, and mythology.

Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Orthography
Introduction
I. Other Becoming
- 1. The Foreigner
- 2. The Enemy
- 3. The White Enemy
II. In Myth
- 4. The White Enemy
- 5. The Foreigner, the Dead
- 6. The Enemy
- 7. The Brother-in-Law
III. We Want People for Ourselves: Pacification
- 8. The Motives of the Whites
- 9. The Widening River: Contact with the OroNao’ of the Whites
- 10. “The Enemy Says He’s OroNao’”: Contact with the OroWaram, OroWaramXijein, and OroMon
- 11. The Great Expedition: Contact with the OroNao’, OroEo, and OroAt on the Negro and Ocaia Rivers
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index