The Xavante in Transition: Health, Ecology, and Bioanthropology in Central Brazil. By Carlos E. A. Coimbra Jr., Nancy Flowers, Francisco M. Salzano, and Ricardo Santos. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI, 2002, 344 pp., index. Coimbra, Flowers, Salzano, and Santos have written an unusual book, and one that will change the way we think about indigenous Amazonian peoples. It is unusual on two counts. First, the book synthesizes the work of several investigators over a long period of time, as well as the collaborative work of the authors over a 10-year period. Second, the book is truly collaborative; the authors wrote all the chapters together. Their goal in writing the book is to explore some of the fundamental changes the Xavante have experienced in their 50 years of contact with Brazilian society, and connect these changes to the political and economic forces in the dominant society. The Xavante are a group of indigenous Amazonians living in central Brazil, probably best known for their visits to Brasilia in paint and feathers to press their demands of the national government. The history Coimbra et al. write is a recent history, focused on the past 50 years. And it is a history they sometimes sketch in very broad strokes because of the paucity of information available. They do, however, have good data from five points in time with which to anchor the analysis: The ethnographic accounts of David Mayberry-Lewis from 1957 to 58, the biological data of James Neel and associates from 1962, the ethnographic and demographic data of Nancy Flowers from 1976 to 77, the ethnographic work of Laura Graham from the 1980s, and their own fieldwork in the 1990s. The book is divided into 10 chapters. The first four chapters identify the Xavante, compare them biologically with other indigenous Amazonians, and place them in their social, historical, and ecological setting. The Xavante are Je speaking peoples of central Brazil. They inhabit the cerrado, a mixed grassland and scrub forest landscape cut by galley-forested rivers. The Xavante are distinctive morphologically, in that they are the tallest of the indigenous Amazonians. They are also distinctive genetically to some degree. The Xavante now number about 8000 individuals, spread among six different federal reservations. The book focuses on the Etenitepa Xavante at Pimental Barbosa. The authors emphasize that each Xavante group has a different history of contact with the national society and a different degree of interaction with it. The focus on the Etenitepa Xavante makes the book a case study and limits the generality of the analysis. On the other hand, it provides a richness of detail and a sense of the importance of place that could not have been achieved by reviewing all Xavante groups. The Etenitepa Xavante continue to maintain the essence of the traditional Xavante social organization even though they are in continuous contact with Brazilian society. Their relatively large reserve provides a degree of isolation, but they are within an easy drive of a Brazilian town. The historical account the authors provide demonstrates quite clearly that the Xavante have been interacting with non-Indians for a long time. This interaction has been driven by the expansion of Brazilians into the interior of the country, which in turn was the result of economic and political processes taking place in the larger society and the world. The title of chapter 3, "Confrontations and Connections," sums it up nicely. The next two chapters are historically structured analyses of the changes in demography and subsistence in the 50-year postcontact period. The demographic analysis relies on data collected by Neel in 1962, by Flowers in 1976-77, and by the authors in the early 1990s. Using these data, the authors sketch a picture of the demographic crisis (increase in mortality and decrease in fertility) associated with contact, and also explore some of the effects that postcontact epidemic diseases probably had on village-level demographic and social dynamics. …
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Aug 2, 2006
Erik Elm Svensson + 3
Open Access