The Yuqui Connection: Another Look at Siriono Deculturation

Abstract

Allan Holmberg's ethnography of the Siriono Indians of eastern Bolivia depicts this group as one of the least complex human societies known. In recent years, anthropologists have argued that Siriono cultural poverty may be due to deculturation rather than to their failure to develop a more complex culture as the result of environmental stresses. Previous efforts to explore this hypothesis have been limited by the lack of additional data on the Siriono since Holmberg's early work. This study draws on new information derived from ethnohistorical sources and fieldwork among a recently pacified group known as the Yuqui. I demonstrate that the Yuqui and Siriono share the same cultural heritage and that, while the Siriono are now acculturated, the Yuqui only recently are undergoing this process. For this reason, the Yuqui case offers a parallel and current example from which new inferences can be made concerning the theory of Siriono deculturation. ALLYN MACLEAN STEARMAN is Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816.