Rain Forest Exchanges

by Fisher, William H.

• ISBN13: 9781560989837
• ISBN10: 1560989831
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-10-01
• Publisher: Smithsonian Inst Pr

Summary

Xikrin Kayapo of Brazil's eastern Amazon are divided in their support of logging and gold mining on their reservations. Their outlook has been shaped by decades of life on a boom-bust frontier as well as increasing reliance on trade goods to maintain traditional subsistence activities. More isolated than other Kayapo groups, they have become dependent during the past fifteen years on extractive companies to provide not only basic tools such as canoe motors, mechanical manioc grinders, guns, and machetes but also "luxury" manufactured foods. With such goods siphoned only through the village's chief, daily life for Xikrin Kayapo has become more competitive and politicized.

Drawing on both historical sources and indigenous informants, William H. Fisher argues that decisions to cooperate with frontier industries are best understood by taking into account the power of native social systems to shape the acquisition of trade goods. Charting the history, politics, economics, and ecology of the region, he tells how subsistence practices such as hunting and gardening h

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments	viii
A Note on Orthography	xii
Introduction	1	(16)
The Rise of Rubber and Religion	17	(28)
Renouncing the Frontier	45	(21)
The Beginnings of Redistribution	66	(14)
The Quiet Revolution	80	(17)
Inconstant Goods	97	(19)
Inflation, Food, and the New Economy	116	(12)
The Spread of Chiefly Power	128	(23)
In the Maelstrom of Extractivism	151	(23)
The Politics of Work	174	(19)
Conclusion	193	(8)
Notes	201	(3)
References	204	(9)
Index	213