Trekking Through History: The Huaorani of Amazonian Ecuador

Laura Rival

Published by Columbia University Press 2002

Trekking Through History

The Huaorani of Amazonian Ecuador

Laura Rival

In the series Historical Ecology Series

https://doi.org/10.7312/riva11844

Overview
Contents

About this book

The first description of Huaorani society and culture according to modern standards of ethnographic writing. Through her detailed comparative discussion of native Amazonian representations of history and the environment, Rival illustrates the unique way the Huaorani have socialized nature by choosing to depend on resources created in the past—highlighting the unique contribution anthropology makes to the study of environmental history.

The Huaorani of Ecuador lived as hunters and gatherers in the Amazonian rainforest for hundred of years, largely undisturbed by western civilization. Since their first encounter with North American missionaries in 1956, they have held a special place in journalistic and popular imagination as "Ecuador's last savages." Trekking Through History is the first description of Huaorani society and culture according to modern standards of ethnographic writing. Through her comprehensive study of their extraordinary tradition of trekking, Laura Rival shows that the Huaorani cannot be seen merely as anachronistic survivors of the Spanish Conquest. Her critical reappraisal of the notions of agricultural regression and cultural devolution challenges the universal application of the thesis that marginal tribes of the Amazon Basin represent devolved populations who have lost their knowledge of agriculture. Far from being an evolutionary event, trekking expresses cultural creativity and political agency. Through her detailed comparative discussion of native Amazonian representations of history and the environment, Rival illustrates the unique way the Huaorani have socialized nature by choosing to depend on resources created in the past—highlighting the unique contribution anthropology makes to the study of environmental history.

Author / Editor information

Laura Rival is Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Oxford. She has written a number of ethnographic articles and papers on the Huaorani of Ecuador and the Makushi of Guyana. She is the editor of The Social Life of Trees: Anthropological Approaches to Tree Symbolism and the co-editor of Beyond the Visible and the Material: the Amerindianization of Society in the Work of Peter Rivière.

Reviews

Luisa Elvira Belaunde, University of St Andrews:
[Rival's] rich ethnographic analysis and theoretical discussion provide key arguments and materials to re-think further Amazonian people's relationships to the environment.

Michael A. Uzendoski:
A superb job in addressing issues of native historicity.

Loretta Cormier:
Rival's fascinating ethnography demonstrates that ecological adaptation cannot be understood as resource extraction alone, it is deeply embedded in Huaorani identity, sociality, symbolism, and historicity... Rival's work represents an important contribution to this developing approach.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Illustrations and Tables Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xi
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xiii
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xxi
Note on Orthography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xxiii
1 Trekking in Amazonia Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. The Upper Amazon from Omagua Expansion to Zaparo Collapse Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	20
3. The Time and Space of Huaorani Nomadic Isolationism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	46
4. Harvesting the Forest’s Natural Abundance Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	68
5. Coming Back to the Longhouse Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	94
6. Eëmë Festivals: Ceremonial Increase and Marriage Alliance Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
7. Schools in the Rain Forest Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	152
8. Prey at the Center Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	177
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	189
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	239

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 256
Illustrations
- Coloured Illustrations: 12
- Other: <B>Color Illus.: </B>12,

eBook

Published: June 1, 2002
ISBN: 9780231506229