Lowland South America Research Articles

Are Isolated Indigenous Populations Headed toward Extinction?

At least 50 indigenous groups spread across lowland South America remain isolated and have only intermittent and mostly hostile interactions with the outside world. Except in emergency situations, the current policy of governments in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru towards isolated tribes is a “leave them alone” strategy, in which isolated groups are left uncontacted. However, these no-contact policies are based on the assumption that isolated populations are healthy and capable of persisting in the face of mounting external threats, and that they can maintain population viability in the long-term. Here, we test this assumption by tracking the sizes and movements of cleared horticultural areas made by 8 isolated groups over the last 10–14 years. We used deforestation data derived from remote sensing Landsat satellite sensors to identify clearings, and those were then validated and assessed with high-resolution imagery. We found only a single example of a relatively large and growing population (c. 50 cleared ha and 400 people), whereas all of the other 7 groups exhibited much smaller villages and gardens with no sizable growth through time. These results indicated that the smaller groups are critically endangered, and it prompts an urgent re-thinking of policies toward isolated populations, including plans for well-organized contacts that may help save lives and rescue isolated indigenous populations from imminent extinction.

Russell, Andrew, and Elizabeth Rahman (eds.): The Master Plant. Tobacco in Lowland South America

Russell, Andrew, and Elizabeth Rahman (eds.): The Master Plant. Tobacco in Lowland South America

Dual organization and social inequality in a Venezuelan chiefdom, AD 550–1000

We use archaeological data from the El Gaván site (B12), the paramount center of a pre-Hispanic regional chiefdom during the Late Gaván phase (AD 550–1000) in Barinas, Venezuela, to test two hypotheses about dual organization derived from the ethnographic literature of lowland South America: (1) the hypothesis of gender-linked polarity-complementarity (GLPC); and (2) the hypothesis of exogamous moieties with virilocal residence (EMVR). Spatial analyses of artifact distributions on the floors of two excavated houses reveal that both houses were divided into two complementary activity areas that can be associated with the adult females and adult males of the households, consistent with the GLPC hypothesis. Shifting our perspective to the community level, we conduct statistical analyses of artifacts from test pits in each of the site’s two sectors of house mounds; the results are consistent with the EMVR hypothesis. We then consider how dual organization might have intersected with conditions of social inequality in the El Gaván chiefdom.

ENSAIO SOBRE PRÁTICAS COSMOPOLÍTICAS ENTRE FAMÍLIAS WAJÃPI SOBRE A IMAGINAÇÃO, O SENSÍVEL, O XAMANISMO E OUTRAS OBVIEDADES

Resumo Tendo como base uma pesquisa etnográfica entre famílias wajãpi (grupo Tupi, que habita a bacia do rio Jari-AP), este artigo aborda alguns temas candentes na etnologia das terras baixas da América do Sul por uma rota diversa: examinarei o perspectivismo ameríndio e o xamanismo a partir das relações cotidianas de pessoas não "empajezadas" com seres não humanos, em especial com as plantas. Por esse caminho etnográfico emergem questões acerca de como o mundo de outrem pode também ser conhecido fora do afamado vértice xamânico, passando por distintos dispositivos de conhecimento, tais como: a "lógica do sensível", a capacidade imaginativa e a existência de passagens entre naturezas, as quais permitem uma comunicação em amplo sentido - o que proponho caracterizar como um xamanismo rarefeito.

Fluent Selves: Autobiography, Person, and History in Lowland South America

The ten essays in Fluent Selves: Autobiography, Person, and History in Lowland South America, edited by Suzanne Oakdale and Magnus Course, present the tense relation between cultural forces and personal agency, between individual particularities and cultural diversity or the universality of human sociability. But this is not an abstract discussion. In line with one of the most valuable aspects of the anthropological tradition, the contributors consider this question with reference to ethnographic materials, collected in this case in different parts of lowland South America (Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, and Chile), and with attention to native voices. The intensive use of autobiographical narratives (in some essays more than others) makes the book germane to those interested in discourse as a social practice both situated and at the same time linked to multiple aspects of social life in every group.One essay examines the biography of a Waorani leader with a porous identity into which other individuals are incorporated and for which victimization is a marker of personhood and sociability. The topics of other essays include family stories of the Asháninka, a group whose members conceive of the person as an active seeker of external resources; Piro (Yine) narratives of “exemplary personal experience” that are special cases of simultaneous self-singularization and multiplicity; the meaning of the multiple persons of a young Marubo shaman; paradoxical models of Mapuche personhood as described in song and ritual; speech-centered stories about encounters between Kalapalo enemies; the “lascivious” autobiography of a Tukano leader; the logic of assemblage in the autobiographical narrative of a Kawaiwete “captain”; the stressful life of a Xavante leader who has lived between two worlds; and the story of a Kuikuro leader. Together, they illustrate the complex and variable relations of personal exchange that characterize anthropological research.The collection's interest in narrative practices illustrates the centrality of language as a privileged symbolic expression of the categories of self, individual, and person, including how they overlap and how they differ. The essays point to autobiographies as re-creations of personal experience and communicative bridges between social worlds. There are questions as to whether these categories are particular or transcultural, and if so, in what sense. Are there multiple experiences of self? If so, are they comprehensible to us? How are they related to the long and complex history of contact between lowland South American Amerindian societies and colonizers? Are these narratives history or myth? Does that distinction help us to understand them? What is the role of the person who elicits or records the story, and what is the legacy of the relationship between researcher and research subject? What is the role of narratives in the construction of personal and ethnic identities not based on the well-known opposition between tradition and modernity, identities that are hybrid and open to participation? The narratives discussed in this collection are presented in light of all these questions and as ways to structure experience and to understand traumatic events and historical context. They problematize the use of history and myth, as well as the autobiographical form, as evidence for concepts of self and person and as mechanisms for constructing social relations inside and outside the community.The example of the Asháninka of Peru's central Amazon region, Selva Central, which is examined in Hanne Veber's essay “Memories of the Ucayali: The Asháninka Story Line,” illustrates the value of focusing on a narrative's manner of presentation, on the model of a person that it depicts, on the ways in which conceptions of time are entangled with what it means to be a person, and on the interethnic context within which it is presented rather than on narrative as an account of “what really happened” (p. 109). Collective memories are not mechanical copies of reality but constructions that emerge from social interactions in which personal, historical, and political consciousness are formed. Asháninka narratives contrast with stories told by missionaries and other outsiders on one crucial point: the former's stories about the rubber boom do not recount individual victimization and heroism. They model family rather than collective identities. While they recount a series of events that made for a difficult journey, they differ radically from myth. The Asháninka regard outsiders as potentially dangerous, but they consider contact necessary in order to obtain resources. They think of themselves not as victims but as seekers of resources who assume necessary risks — including but not limited to colonial contact — and thus confront danger and loss. In this sense, their narratives are more than simple retrospectives. They are structured and retold in order to organize their vision of a world not fully or exclusively imposed by bosses and gringos but open to the influence of their own actions as well (p. 113).

The Pleiades and Scorpius in Barasana Cosmology

In 1905, the German ethnographer Koch-Grünberg published a report of an Indian astronomical system from the Northwest Amazon region.1 His account, based on drawings by two Indian informants, has remained one of the most comprehensive descriptions of ethnoastronomy from lowland South America. Scattered references to star lore in the works of other writers,2 together with Koch-Grünberg’s own word lists of the many different languages spoken in the area,3 suggest that the basic elements of the system he described are probably common to all the Tukanoan speaking Indians of the Vaupés and to their Arawakan speaking neighbors to the north. In his account, Koch-Grünberg identifies some seventeen named stars and constellations and states that knowledge of astronomy is used in time reckoning, orientation, and the regulation of agricultural activities. But little information is given, either by him or by other writers, as to how this knowledge is used and how it relates to the cosmology and worldview of the Indians involved. In this paper, I shall try to answer some of these questions with reference to the Barasana.

The agency of non-human entity in the recent anthropology of the Indigenous Lowland South America

In the last twenty years, agency has entered the field of anthropological studies of Lowland South America Indigenous Peoples as a term and a topic of concern. Ethnographical and theoretical treatment of this notion has intertwined here with the revisiting of the concept of animism, Viveiros de Castro’s statements about “amerindian perspectivism” and a broader “ontological turn” in research orientation. In the paper I discuss this trend, focusing on how different notions of agency are used to talk about topics as shamanism and ontological status of artifacts as well as, more generally, of other non-human categories of beings. I pay attention too to dissonances and consonances in this field of study between approaches closer to socio-cultural anthropology and anthropological linguistics. Finally, I show how this meeting of the notion of agency with ethnography of Lowland South America has precipitated its deconstruction.

Protecting isolated tribes

There are about 50 isolated indigenous societies across lowland South America, with limited to no contact with the outside world. Despite displacements, epidemics, and hostile interactions with outsiders, such tribes still manage to survive. How can we ensure the well-being of humanity's last known isolated peoples under such enormous and mounting pressure from external threats?

Co-father relationships among the Suruí (Paiter) of Brazil.

Partible paternity refers to the conception belief that children can have multiple fathers (“co-fathers”) and is common to indigenous cultures of lowland South America. The nature of social relationships observed between co-fathers reveals information about the reproductive strategies underlying partible paternity. Here we analyze clan, genealogical, and social relationships between co-fathers for the Suruí, an indigenous horticultural population in Brazil. We show that co-fathers roughly assort into two separate categories. In the affiliative category, co-father relationships are amicable when they are between close kin, namely brothers and father-son. In the competitive category, relationships are more likely of avoidance or open hostility when between more distant kin such as cousins or unrelated men of different clans. Results therefore imply multiple types of relationships, including both cooperative and competitive contexts, under the rubric of partible paternity. These complexities of partible paternity institutions add to our knowledge of the full range of cross-cultural variation in human mating/marriage arrangements and speak to the debate on whether or not humans should be classified as cooperative breeders.

Povoamento inicial da América do Sul: contribuições do contexto brasileiro

O povoamento inicial da América do Sul não foi um processo homogêneo. Em termos cronológicos, as evidências apontam para a ocupação de diversas regiões já em fins do Pleistoceno e início do Holoceno, com datas anteriores ou ao menos contemporâneas ao Horizonte Clóvis na América do Norte. Entre doze mil e oito mil anos ap o leste da América do Sul já se encontrava ocupado por uma população estável de caçadores-coletores, caracterizada por diversificadas estratégias de adaptação aos processos de transformação das paisagens Holocênicas. Neste texto apresentamos uma hipótese segundo a qual esse contexto pode ser mais bem entendido se concebermos que o processo de povoamento das Terras Baixas Sul-Americanas incorporou os vales dos grandes rios como rotas para o interior do continente. Nossa intenção é realçar o potencial do contexto arqueológico brasileiro para construção e teste de hipóteses que contribuam para a discussão sobre o processo de povoamento da América do Sul.

Phylogeny and biogeography of the New World siskins and goldfinches: Rapid, recent diversification in the Central Andes

Time-calibrated molecular phylogenies can help us to understand the origins of the diverse and unique Andean avifauna. Previous studies have shown that the tempo of diversification differed between the Andes and adjacent lowland regions of South America. Andean taxa were found to have speciated more recently and to have avoided the decelerated diversification that is typical of Neotropical lowland clades. The South American siskins, a Pleistocene finch radiation, may typify this Andean pattern. We investigated the phylogenetic biogeography of all the New World siskins and goldfinches in new detail. To understand the specific role of the Andes in siskin diversification, we asked: (1) Was diversification faster in Andean siskin lineages relative to non-Andean ones? (2) Did siskin lineages move into and out of the Andes at different rates? We found that siskin lineages in the Andes had higher diversification rates and higher outward dispersal rates than siskin lineages outside the Andes. We conclude that páramo expansion and contraction in response to Pleistocene climatic cycles caused accelerated diversification and outward dispersal in Andean siskins. The younger average age of bird species in the Andes compared to lowland South America may be attributable to bursts of recent diversification in siskins and several other vagile, open-habitat clades.

Introduction: Indigenous Urbanization in Lowland South America

Introduction to special-themed journal: Indigenous Urbanization: the circulation of peoples between rural and urban Amazonian spaces. This introduction provides an overview of indigenous Urbanisation in Lowland South America

Fluent Selves: Autobiography, Person, and History in Lowland South America ed. by Suzanne Oakdale, Magnus Course (review)

Fluent Selves: Autobiography, Person, and History in Lowland South America ed. by Suzanne Oakdale, Magnus Course (review)

High levels of diversity uncovered in a widespread nominal taxon: continental phylogeography of the neotropical tree frog Dendropsophus minutus.

Species distributed across vast continental areas and across major biomes provide unique model systems for studies of biotic diversification, yet also constitute daunting financial, logistic and political challenges for data collection across such regions. The tree frog Dendropsophus minutus (Anura: Hylidae) is a nominal species, continentally distributed in South America, that may represent a complex of multiple species, each with a more limited distribution. To understand the spatial pattern of molecular diversity throughout the range of this species complex, we obtained DNA sequence data from two mitochondrial genes, cytochrome oxidase I (COI) and the 16S rhibosomal gene (16S) for 407 samples of D. minutus and closely related species distributed across eleven countries, effectively comprising the entire range of the group. We performed phylogenetic and spatially explicit phylogeographic analyses to assess the genetic structure of lineages and infer ancestral areas. We found 43 statistically supported, deep mitochondrial lineages, several of which may represent currently unrecognized distinct species. One major clade, containing 25 divergent lineages, includes samples from the type locality of D. minutus. We defined that clade as the D. minutus complex. The remaining lineages together with the D. minutus complex constitute the D. minutus species group. Historical analyses support an Amazonian origin for the D. minutus species group with a subsequent dispersal to eastern Brazil where the D. minutus complex originated. According to our dataset, a total of eight mtDNA lineages have ranges >100,000 km2. One of them occupies an area of almost one million km2 encompassing multiple biomes. Our results, at a spatial scale and resolution unprecedented for a Neotropical vertebrate, confirm that widespread amphibian species occur in lowland South America, yet at the same time a large proportion of cryptic diversity still remains to be discovered.

Crash and rebound of indigenous populations in lowland South America

Lowland South America has long been a battle-ground between European colonization and indigenous survival. Initial waves of European colonization brought disease epidemics, slavery, and violence that had catastrophic impacts on indigenous cultures. In this paper we focus on the demography of 238 surviving populations in Brazil. We use longitudinal censuses from all known indigenous Brazilian societies to quantify three demographic metrics: 1) effects of European contact on indigenous populations; 2) empirical estimates of minimum viable population sizes; and 3) estimates of post-contact population growth rates. We use this information to conduct population viability analysis (PVA). Our results show that all surviving populations suffered extensive mortality during, and shortly after, contact. However, most surviving populations exhibit positive growth rates within the first decade post-contact. Our findings paint a positive demographic outlook for these indigenous populations, though long-term survival remains subject to powerful externalities, including politics, economics, and the pervasive illegal exploitation of indigenous lands.

Development of microsatellite loci for the fish Poecilia vivipara (Cyprinodontiformes: Poeciliidae)

Poecilia vivipara is a small fish found throughout the coastal lowlands of South America. We report the isolation and characterization of 25 microsatellite loci in this tropical fish. In 24 individuals from two populations, 18 loci were polymorphic. The loci had 2–12 alleles, expected heterozygosities of 0.194–0.836, observed heterozygosities of 0.208–0.792, and discriminatory powers of 0.202–0.872. Four loci showed significant deviations from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium. The microsatellite loci will be useful for investigating genetic diversity and population genetic structure, which will contribute to the development of efficient conservation programs for coastal lowlands where P. vivipara occurs.

Focusing Perspectives and Establishing Boundaries and Power: Why the Suyá/Kïsêdjê Sing for the Whites in the Twenty-first Century

Looking at Lowland South America as a whole, it appears that instrumental and vocal music are essential components of the relationships between kinds of beings and realms. This is one reason why music in the region is important and so often at the heart, rather than the periphery, of social experience. New music is produced and learned at the interface between kinds of beings, and music is used to transition from one realm to another or one kind of being to another. But how does one move from the apparently sacred sphere intrinsic to these societies to the conflicted struggle of these Indigenous communities to survive the assaults on their lands, their health and their livelihood brought by agroindustry, large dam projects and oil drilling? What is the place of music at this interface, and what does that use tell us about music as a whole for the region?

Instruments of Power: Musicalising the Other in Lowland South America

Indigenous peoples across Amazonia make and play a rich variety of flutes and other wind instruments in their collective rituals and ceremonies. These instruments are cultural tools for enacting semiotic transformations that are central to indigenous understandings of human and non-human powers to control social reproduction and natural fertility. This essay will explore collective performances of flutes and other aerophones as ways of harnessing powers of predation and reproduction in two Amazonian communities, the Wauja of the Upper Xingu and the Wakuénai/Curripaco of the Upper Rio Negro. My theoretical approach to musicalising the other is offered as a critique of perspectivism. I will demonstrate how musicalising the other, embodying intrinsic linkages between life-giving and life-taking forces, is a more nuanced process of making history through engaging others, sharing the space–time of others (rather than violently consuming them) and always returning to one's own identity.

Early Dogs and Endemic South American Canids of the Spanish Main

Although common and widespread today throughout the neotropical lowlands, the domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris) may have been a relatively recent introduction into certain areas. Numerous early documents, however, implicate the precolumbian presence of tamed endemic South American canids, at least in lowland areas of northern South America and the adjacent Caribbean. These early and limited descriptions of small dogs that did not bark were eventually dismissed in the scholarly literature as simply domesticated dogs that were trained not to bark. A review of the earliest documentation of indigenous canids in the Spanish Main, and subsequent accounts of tamed endemic canids in various parts of the continent, suggests that native foxes or forest dogs could have been tamed. Varied sources written at different times and from different areas of lowland South America also mention interbreeding of endemic canids with domesticated dogs. The control of tamed endemic canids by indigenous populations could also have factored into the late appearance of the domestic dog, particularly in portions of the Amazon Basin.

Apùap World Hearing Revisited: Talking with ‘Animals’, ‘Spirits’ and other Beings, and Listening to the Apparently Inaudible

The Kamayurá (Apùap) system of classification, identification and nomination of the acoustic-musical domain is comprehensive, sophisticated and powerful. It involves communication with ‘humans’ and ‘non-humans’ (‘spirits’, ‘animals’ and ‘inanimate beings’) and is the basis for what I have called ‘world hearing’, a worldview whose primacy is phono-auditory. For the Kamayurá, ‘human’ and ‘non-human’ beings can be situated at the same ontological level. This paper revisits the Kamayurá system and compares it with those reported in other areas of lowland South America, suggesting that it forms the basis for a biopolitics of sensoriality without—or better, against—modernity. It calls for new research in the region into acoustic-musical perception, the universe of ritual, and their connections with the worlds of power and politics.