Voyage au Tapajoz
28 juillet 1895–7 janvier 1896

Scholarly, comprehensive, and often poetic, Henri Coudreau's 1897 Voyage au Tapajoz records the vibrant life of an Amazonian tributary.

Henri Anatole Coudreau (Author)

9781108007399, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 October 2010

232 pages, 37 b/w illus.
24.4 x 17 x 1.2 cm, 0.38 kg

In the first of three exploratory missions into the Amazon basin, the French explorer, geologist, and scholar Henri Coudreau spent nearly seven months on the Tapajoz river, from 28 July 1895 to 7 January 1896. Coudreau was working as a teacher and scientist in French Guyana when he was commissioned by the governor of Brazil's Pará state to explore the Amazon's tributaries. His 1897 Voyage au Tapajoz carefully records the villages, towns, peoples, and environs encountered throughout his journey. Illustrations, meteorological tables, and vocabularies of indigenous languages demonstrate Coudreau's wide-ranging interests and observations and his rigorous approach to data collection. He also includes poetic detail, describing, for instance, 'un ciel du matin d'une douceur exquise'. This allows the reader to enter into Coudreau's sensory and affective experiences, and makes the book an enjoyable travelogue as well as a thorough scientific report.

1. De Para à Salto Augusto
2. Départ de Miritituba
3. Chez Cardozo
4. Alto-Tapajoz et Sao Manuel
5. Cachoeira de S. Gabriel
6. Derniers jours chez Paulo Leite
7. Les Mundurucus
8. Honneurs funèbres aux guerriers tués à l'ennemi
9. Retour de Sete Quedas
10. Tableaux statistiques
11. Dialectes
12. Derniers mots.

Subject Areas: Anthropology [JHM]