Full Description
In 1956, in the Brazilian state of RondÔnia, a group of Wari' Indians had their first peaceful contact with whites: Protestant missionaries and officers from the national Indian Protection Service. On returning to their villages, the Wari' announced, "We touched their bodies!" Meanwhile the whites reported to their own people that "the region's most warlike tribe has entered the pacification phase!" Initially published in Brazil, Strange Enemies is an ethnographic narrative of the first encounters between these peoples with radically different worldviews.During the 1940s and 1950s, white rubber tappers invading the Wari' lands raided the native villages, shooting and killing their victims as they slept. These massacres prompted the Wari' to initiate a period of intense retaliatory warfare. The national government and religious organizations subsequently intervened, seeking to "pacify" the Indians. Aparecida VilaÇa was able to interview both Wari' and non-Wari' participants in these encounters, and here she shares their firsthand narratives of the dramatic events. Taking the Wari' perspective as its starting point, Strange Enemies combines a detailed examination of these cross-cultural encounters with analyses of classic ethnological themes such as kinship, shamanism, cannibalism, warfare, and mythology.
Contents
List of Illustrations xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Orthography xvii
Introduction 1
Part I. Other Becoming
1. The Foreigner 25
2. The Enemy 70
3. The White Enemy 110
Part II. In Myth
4. The White Enemy 135
5. The Foreigner, the Dead 146
6. The Enemy 164
7. The Brother-in-Law 175
Part III. We Want People for Ourselves: PÁcification
8. The Motives of the Whites 197
9. The Widening River: Contact with the OroNao of the Whites 210
10. "The Enemy Says He's OroNao": Contact with the OroWaram, OroWaramXijien, and OroMon 229
11. The Great Expedition: Contact with the OroNao', OroEo, and OroAt on the Negro and Ocaia Rivers 255
Conclusion 301
Notes 321
Bibliography 341
Index 357
