Real toads in imaginary gardens; Aspelin vs. Lévi-Strauss on Nambiquara nomadism

Abstract

Aspelin5 s recent article in Bijdragen on the question of alleged economic dualism among the Nambiquara (1976) would do much to clarify the place of this people in ethnological perspective, were it not for L?vi Strauss' appended comments, which tend to revive the doubts that Aspelin has laid to rest. Under the circumstances, it may be of interest to the comparativist as well as the student of structuralism for a third Nambiquarist to take a stand on the matter. Reduced to essentials, Aspelin claims that the Nambiquara are not seasonally nomadic, and in consequence, he casts doubt on the whole structure of associated oppositions in terms of which L?vi-Strauss com prehends Nambiquara life. In rejoinder, L?vi-Strauss defends his ethno graphy, asserting that differences between his and Aspelin's accounts must be owing to either 1) a decrease in nomadism between 1938 and 1968, or 2) unusual political unrest in 1938, or 3) a difference in the groups studied by the two ethnographers. I will examine these three possibilities in reverse order. The Nambiquara linguistic family may be divided, as L?vi-Strauss perceived, into three languages, which he called a, b and c (1948: 8-13), and which I have called Southern Nambiquara, Northern Nam biquara and Saban? (Price and Cook 1969:688-93). Aspelin worked with the Mamaind?, who are speakers of the Northern language, and I have worked with all of the Southern groups, although most exten sively with the kithaulh?} L?vi-Strauss also worked mainly among the