acase@tulane.edu / This dissertation combines ethnohistory and ethnography to produce a unified description of Makushi ecology, economy, socio-politics, and cosmology in the past and present. It is based upon ethnographic data obtained through fieldwork with the Makushi in Surama Village, Guyana, and upon ethnohistorical data obtained through archival research. This dissertation seeks to examine the past and present of the Makushi in order to elucidate a cultural logic that continues and perdures in their society and in their relations with the outside world. As described in this dissertation, Makushi cultural logic posits an inward and directed movement of outside elements (people, material goods, and knowledge) into Makushi society and a subsequent incorporation of these elements for individual and collective purposes of renewal and transformation. This cultural logic posits a basic distinction between inside and outside and locates mediating entities at the boundaries between these domains. A focus on Amazonian encounters with alterity recurs throughout Amazonian ethnology. Anthropologists have highlighted the ways in which Amazonian societies encounter and incorporate outside elements, whether affines, war captives, material goods, or names and other symbolic items, for various purposes related to the reproduction of internal social relations, the marking of self-identity through contrastive alterity, and the transformation of self towards alterity. Using the theoretical frameworks of historical ecology and Amerindian perspectivism, this dissertation contributes to the literature by showing how the Makushi have sought outsiders in the past (missionaries) and present (tourists and consultants) and have incorporated their material goods and knowledge. In the nineteenth century, this is seen in the rise of syncretic religions with goals of material abundance and self-transformation. In the present, it is seen in Makushi attempts at transformation through interactions with tourists and consultants. In both cases, one finds a cultural logic that links Makushi relations with outsiders to ecological, economic, socio-political, and cosmological relations. This dissertation argues that such relations between inside and outside domains lie at the perduring heart of Makushi identity. / 1 / James Andrew Whitaker
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_74312 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Contributors | Whitaker, James Andrew (author), Balée, William (Thesis advisor), School of Liberal Arts Anthropology (Degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | electronic, 505 |
| Rights | No embargo, Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law. |
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