Introduction
Introduction
This book is an ethnographic account of how Waorani people experience and remember past violence and the role these memories have in the context of ongoing social, political, and economic changes in Amazonia today. For centuries outsiders have imagined Amazonia as a place of violence, whether in colonial European accounts of “Amazon warriors,” contemporary ideas about “wild Indians” in South America, or famous studies of “tribal warfare.” In order to understand the experiences of Waorani people today, this book focuses on interethnic relations and the history of Christian missionaries in Amazonian Ecuador. It examines violence not simply in terms of “tribal warfare” or “revenge killing” but as a symbolic practice through which Waorani people today understand themselves, their ancestors, and kowori (non-Waorani people). This introduction provides an overview of the author's fieldwork among the Waorani people as well as the chapters that follow.
Keywords: violence, Amazonia, tribal warfare, Waorani, interethnic relations, Christian missionaries, Ecuador, revenge killing, kowori
Illinois Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.