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A multidisciplinary study of pre-Columbian South America—centering on the psychoactive plant genus Anadenanthera As cultures formed and evolved in pre-Columbian South America, Anadenanthera became one of the most widely used shamanic inebriants. Anadenanthera: Visionary Plant of Ancient South America is more than a comprehensive reference on shamanic visionary substances; it is a useful tool for archeologists and pre-Columbian art historians. This thorough book examines the ritual and cultural use of Anadenanthera from prehistory to the present, along with its botany, chemistry, pharmacology, anthropology, and archeology. The earliest evidence for the use of psychoactive plants in South Am...
The Kuna of Panama, today one of the best known indigenous peoples of Latin America, moved over the course of the twentieth century from orality and isolation towards literacy and an active engagement with the nation and the world. Recognizing the fascination their culture has held for many outsiders, Kuna intellectuals and villagers have collaborated actively with foreign anthropologists to counter anti-Indian prejudice with positive accounts of their people, thus becoming the agents as well as subjects of ethnography. One team of chiefs and secretaries, in particular, independently produced a series of historical and cultural texts, later published in Sweden, that today still constitute the foundation of Kuna ethnography. As a study of the political uses of literacy, of western representation and indigenous counter-representation, and of the ambivalent inter-cultural dialogue at the heart of ethnography, Chiefs, Scribes, and Ethnographers addresses key issues in contemporary anthropology. It is the story of an extended ethnographic encounter, one involving hundreds of active participants on both sides and continuing today.
The Bará, or Fish people of the Northwest Amazon form part of a network of intermarrying local communities - each community speaks a different language and marriages must take place between people from different communities with different languages. Here, Jean Jackson discusses Bar· marriage, kinship, spatial organization and other features of their social landscape.
The Ethnological Museum in Berlin, Germany, houses Europe's largest collection of PreColumbian textiles-around 9000 well-preserved examples. Lena Bjerregaard was conservator of these materials 2000-2014, and she worked with many international researchers to analyze and publicize the collection. This book includes seven of their essays on the museum's holdings - by Bea Hoffmann, Ann Peters, Susan Bergh, Lena Bjerregaard, Jane Feltham, Katalin Nagy, and Gary Urton. Its second part is a 177-page catalogue of 273 selected representative items, arranged by period and style. There are more than 380 photographs. Styles or cultures shown include Paracas, Nasca, Sican/Lambayeque, Ychsma, Chavin, Siguas, Tiwanaku, Wari, Chimu, Central Coast, Chancay, South Coast, Inca, and Colonial. Items pictured include tunics, clothing, tapestry, hats, belts, headbands, samplers, borders, and khipus. Materials include camelid fibers, feathers, hair, cotton, reed, straw, and other plant fibers.
In this well-written, comprehensive, reasonable yet passionate volume, Emilio Moran introduces us to the range of human and ecological diversity in the Amazon Basin. By describing the complex heterogeneity on the Amazon's ecological mosaic and its indigenous populations' conscious adaptations to this diversity, he leads us to realize that there are strategies of resource use which do not destroy the structure and function of ecosystems. Finally, and most important, he examines ways in which we might benefit from the study of human ecology to design and implement a balance between conservation and use.
This superb collection offers an array of rich variations on a theme central to a multitude of disciplines: the nature of dialogue. Drawing on literary, philosophical, and linguistic concepts, the essays range from broad questions of the representation of knowledge and interpretation of meaning to case studies of dialogue's function in specific fields.
The remarkable arts and culture of the Kuna of Panama are accessible in this comprehensive, illustrated volume. From the familiar reverse appliqued molas to music, dance, and verbal arts, the Kuna live their values and bind their people together. This focus and strength has helped them to resist outside forces and maintain their culture and self-determination in the face of peoples and governments far more powerful.