An Amazonian Myth and Its HistoryPeter Gow unites the ethnographic data collected by the fieldwork methods invented by Malinowski with Levi-Strauss's analyses of the relations between myth and time. His book is an analysis of a century of social transformation in an indigenous Amazonian society, the Piro people of Peruvian Amazonia, taking as its starting point a single myth told to the author by a Piro man. Gow explores Piro history and ethnography outwards into the domains of myth-telling in general, and following the logic of certain important myths, further out into important domains of Piro experience such as visual art, shamanry and girls' initiation ritual. All of these domains, like the myths themselves, have been demonstrably changing over the period since the 1880s. The book then shows how these changes are in fact transformations of transformations, changes in social forms that are intrinsically about change. The logic of these changes are then followed through the historical circumstances of Piro people from the 1880s to the 1980s, to show how the intrinsically transformational nature of Piro social forms led them to respond in the ways that they did to the coming of rubber bosses, missionaries, and film-makers.This book makes an important contribution to debates in anthropology on the nature of history and social change, as well as addressing neglected areas such as myth, visual art, and the methodological issues involved in addressing fieldwork and archival data. |
Contents
A Piro Myth and its Context | 35 |
Artemios Life | 44 |
Telling Piro People about My Country | 50 |
The Meaning of the Myth | 56 |
Myths and Mythopoeisis | 78 |
Design | 103 |
The Things with Design | 110 |
To look like Jaguars | 120 |
The Gringos Envisioned | 191 |
The World on the Other Side | 203 |
Possible Origins for Sangamas Analysis | 213 |
The Gringos Arrive | 219 |
The Gringos Rethought | 253 |
Conclusion | 286 |
Myth Texts | 313 |
References | 319 |
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Common terms and phrases
Adventist aeroplane anaconda analysis ancient people's stories anthropology Antonio Artemio Artemio told Artemio's version asked ayahuasca Birth of Tsla Campa canoe Catfish celestial clothing co-residence collared peccary cosmology dead down-river Earth ethnographic feature forest game animals Giant Catfish girl girl's initiation ritual gringos gwashata hallucinatory experience hence historical Huau huito human indigenous Amazonian jaguars kigimawlo kinds of white king vultures kinspeople Klana knowledge Kochmaloto Women Lévi-Strauss Machiguenga manioc beer Matteson moon mother Muchkajine mythic narratives Mythologiques narration ongoing Pablo Rodriguez painted Piro language Piro lived world Piro myth Piro people's powerful problem relationship Ricardo Alvarez river rubber bosses sacacara rumours Sangama Santa Clara Sepahua shamanry shamans Shikale SIL missionaries singing sky steamboat social specific tell things tion toé transformation Tsla Tsla swallowed Tsla's Ucayali Spanish Urubamba Urubamba river Vargas village Viveiros white bosses white people's white-lipped peccaries woman wood storks Zumaeta