Kawaiwete Perspectives on 20th-Century Brazilian Indigenous Policies

FAIN: HB-50237-12

Suzanne Robyn Oakdale
Regents of the University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001)

Centering on the autobiographical narratives of two Kawaiwete Brazilian indigenous men, this book project develops a picture of how state processes connected to visions of modernity and progress, such as “pacification,” the push toward “acculturation,” and, more recently, the encouragement to maintain a distinctive indigenous culture, were experienced, understood, and shaped by indigenous individuals. Insights from anthropological work on how social relationships are formed through bodily practices in Amazonia are used to explore the culturally specific ways these men describe interethnic networks and alliances being formed from the 1920s to the 1990s in the Brazilian frontier. Archival records are used to substantiate these narratives as well as cast them into relief. Through its focus on autobiographical narrative, this project covers the Kawaiwete's "first contact," with the Brazilian national society, induction into wage labor, and the creation of a celebrated indigenous park.

Associated Products

Amazonian Cosmopolitans Navigating a Shamanic Cosmos, Shifting Indigenous Policies, and Other Modern Projects (Book)
Title: Amazonian Cosmopolitans Navigating a Shamanic Cosmos, Shifting Indigenous Policies, and Other Modern Projects
Author: Suzanne Oakdale
Abstract: Amazonian Cosmopolitans focuses on the autobiographical accounts of two Brazilian Indigenous leaders, Prepori and Sabino, Kawaiwete men whose lives spanned the twentieth century, when Amazonia increasingly became the context of large-scale state projects. Both give accounts of how they worked in a range of interethnic enterprises from the 1920s to the 1960s in central Brazil. Prepori, a shaman, also gives an account of his relations with spirit beings that populate the Kawaiwete cosmos as he participated in these projects. Like other Indigenous Amazonians, Kawaiwete value engagement with outsiders, particularly for leaders and shamanic healers. These social engagements encourage a careful watching and learning of others’ habits, customs, and sometimes languages, what could be called a kind of cosmopolitanism or an attitude of openness, leading to an expansion of the boundaries of community. The historical consciousness presented by these narrators centers on how transformations in social relations were experienced in bodily terms—how their bodies changed as new relationships formed. Amazonian Cosmopolitans offers Indigenous perspectives on twentieth-century Brazilian history as well as a way to reimagine lowland peoples as living within vast networks, bridging wide social and cosmological divides.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/title/amazonian-cosmopolitans-navigating-a-shamanic-cosmos-shifting-indigenous-policies-and-other-modern-projects/oclc/1287054729&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: Amazonian Cosmopolitans focuses on the autobiographical accounts of two Brazilian Indigenous leaders, Prepori and Sabino, Kawaiwete men whose lives spanned the twentieth century, when Amazonia increasingly became the context of large-scale state projects. Both give accounts of how they worked in a range of interethnic enterprises from the 1920s to the 1960s in central Brazil, including "contact" missions to isolated peoples, building aviation networks, rubber tapping and the creation of Brazil's first multi-ethnic reservation. Prepori, a shaman, also gives an account of his relations with spirit beings that populate the Kawaiwete cosmos as he participated in these projects. Amazonian Cosmopolitans offers Indigenous perspectives on twentieth-century Brazilian history as well as a way to reimagine lowland peoples as living within vast networks, bridging wide social and cosmological divides.
Access Model: hardback and ebook
Publisher: University of Nebraska
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 978-1-4962-300
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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