Warfare and Shamanism in Amazonia

Describes the culture of the Parakanã, a little-known indigenous people of Amazonia, focusing on conflict and ritual.

Carlos Fausto (Author)

9781107020061, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 March 2012

368 pages, 24 b/w illus. 8 maps 20 tables
23.6 x 16.1 x 2.5 cm, 0.7 kg

'Warfare and Shamanism in Amazonia is the English translation of Inimigos Fiéis, Carlos Fausto's masterful ethnography of the Parakanã Indians, published in Portuguese in 2001. … Beyond its ethnographic value, the book brings an innovative combination of structuralist anthropology with a historical approach of potential value to archaeologists.' Eduardo Goés Neves, Antiquity

Warfare and Shamanism in Amazonia is an ethnographic study of the Parakanã, a little-known indigenous people of Amazonia, who inhabit the interfluvial region in the state of Pará, Brazil. This book analyzes the relationship between warfare and shamanism in Parakanã society from the late nineteenth century until the end of the twentieth century. Based on the author's extensive fieldwork, the book presents first-hand ethnographic data collected among a generation still deeply involved in conflicts. The result is an innovative work with a broad thematic and comparative scope.

1. The matter of time
2. Images of abundance and scarcity
3. Forms through history
4. Why war?
5. The master and the pet
6. Death producing life
7. Gods, axes, and jaguars.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Archaeology [HD], History of the Americas [HBJK]