South American forest IndianArticle Free Pass
While the bands of gatherers rarely exceed a few dozen individuals, the farmers’ villages have been known to include as many as 2,000. As a rule they are much smaller, dividing whenever the population becomes too large. A characteristic arrangement is the circular village of houses placed around a central plaza. This is found, for example, in the upper Xingu, in various Ge tribes, and among the Bororo of the Mato Grosso. The plan of the Bororo village, like that of the Ge, is a real map of the social structure. Each household represents a particular segment of the local group, such as an extended family or a patrilineal or matrilineal clan. The centre of the plaza is often occupied by the men’s house, where the men spend the night and the greater part of the day, and which is at times the locus of ceremonial activities.
The house reflects the economic organization and social structure. Designs range from the simple shelter of the Guayakí and the wind screens of the Nambicuara up to large communal houses containing 200 or more individuals, even the entire tribe. The latter, known as malocas, have been found in the Guianas, northwestern Amazonia, and in some regions farther to the south in the area of the Purus and the Guaporé rivers. The Tupinamba houses are reported to have measured up to 20 metres in length. Houses on piles are found in marshy and swampy locations, for example among the Warao (Warrau) and other Indians of Venezuela but sometimes also among tribes that inhabit dry lands and savannas. The Mura, who live on the Madeira and Purus rivers, and the Guató of the upper Paraguay River, who spend a good part of the year on rivers and lagoons, fishing and hunting aquatic animals, have made their canoes into dwellings. At other times they live in small shacks at the water’s edge.
Most houses are made of rough wood, covered with palm leaves or grass. The great circular malocas with conical roofs in southeastern Venezuela merit special attention for their size and solidity. Although there are no walls in the malocas, the space is customarily divided according to social distinctions, giving a specific place to each family and sometimes even to each of its members. The furniture is very rudimentary. Some Indians sleep on mats or on platform beds, but more of them use hammocks which are found throughout the tropical region.
A great variety of economic systems is found in the tropical forest. The tribes cannot accurately be classified as hunters and gatherers on the one hand or as farmers on the other. The differences lie in the emphasis given to agriculture rather than in the presence or lack of it. The Guayakí of the forests of eastern Paraguay are one of the few tribes without any agriculture; they feed on wild honey and larvae, catch fish with arrows, and hunt jaguars and armadillos. The Sirionó of Bolivia and most of the Makú (a denomination that comprises rather heterogeneous Amazonian groups) are nomads who hunt, fish, and gather. A few Makú groups, however, influenced by their neighbours, have become more or less sedentary farmers. The same holds for the Shirianá and Waica of the Orinoco–Amazon headwaters.
The crops are chiefly bitter manioc as well as other tubers and roots, and, in the western regions, maize (corn). Some Ge tribes grow mainly sweet potatoes and yams. The forest is cleared by felling the trees (the stone axe has now been everywhere replaced by the iron axe) and, when the underbrush is dry, setting fire to it. The same plot is used for several (but never more than six) consecutive crops and then left fallow for several years until it is covered by new vegetation. The group must therefore move periodically. The slash-and-burn system does not, except in the more fertile lowlands, permit the growth of dense populations. It does, however, provide a seasonal food surplus that might in many cases, considering the available techniques, be increased. But the Indian has no incentive to store up goods in a generally egalitarian society, since goods are not a source of prestige.
The tropical forest Indians are highly inventive. They have developed many types of harpoons, arrows, traps, snares, and blowguns. In fishing they employ a variety of drugs that stun or kill the fish without making them inedible. The bow and arrow are today known everywhere; in some Amazon regions they have replaced the spear thrower, a device still in use in certain western tribes. The bow and arrow are the principal weapons of warfare, although some groups fight with clubs and lances.
The techniques of basketry have a wealth of variations, mainly in the Guianas, the northwest Amazon region, and among the Ge peoples. Along with many kinds of baskets and hampers, these folk plait sifters, traps, fans, mats, and other household articles out of palm leaves and shafts of taquara, or bamboo.
The potter’s wheel was traditionally unknown, but coiled ceramics reached a high degree of development, particularly among the Arawak and Pano tribes. Among nomadic groups pottery is either nonexistent or very rudimentary; instead, the nomads use gourds, calabashes, baskets, and fibre pouches.
Spinning and weaving, though well-known, remain at an elementary level since most tropical forest Indians, instead of dressing, prefer to paint the body and to embellish it with all sorts of adornments. From cotton, growing wild or planted, they make tunics, as well as belts of various types, skirts, and particularly hammocks. They use simple spindles, which they whirl like tops. The most common loom is the heddle loom: the threads of the weft, separated by heddles, are wound around a vertical frame. In regions close to the Andes, especially in eastern Bolivia, the Indians make cloth of beaten bark.
The roots of the manioc or cassava plant is a staple of the Indian diet, and its processing requires a number of implements including baskets and sifters, graters made of planks with little stones embedded in them, the tipiti (a plaited cylinder used to squeeze the prussic acid from the grated pulp), great clay pots for preparing the flour, and earthen fryers for making flat cakes.
Land is generally owned by the group occupying or exploiting it—a band, a village, or a clan—and parcelled out to families or other small units for hunting, fishing, or planting. Collective tribal land or territory exists only in rare cases, when the solidarity between the various groups of a people is particularly strong. There are rigorous norms for the distribution of game among the hunter’s family and among other families to which he is associated by certain ties; the hunter himself may receive a rather small share. Cleared land almost always belongs to the family using it, but when necessary others may have access to its products. Generosity is greatly valued. This also holds for intertribal relations, when gifts are exchanged on the occasion of visits or celebrations.
Weapons and household utensils are the property of individual men and women, but canoes and other objects used collectively are not. Body adornments generally belong to the wearer. Intangible property may belong to the clan or other social unit, but it may also be individually owned, as in the case of the name or ritual functions among Ge tribes, and magical–religious chants among the Guaraní.
Brisk trade among tribes is carried on in parts of the Guianas, in northwest Amazonia, and in upper Xingu. Indians of the upper Orinoco export urucu, a red dye, to groups living downriver. The Arawak frequently trade ceramic wares produced by their women; they also supply blowguns in exchange for poisonous curare and barter manioc graters. Carib tribes often trade cotton products. Some groups specialize in the manufacture of canoes, which are much in demand by neighbouring groups. The most complex trading system is that of the upper Xingu; it includes a dozen tribes, each with its own products. Commerce contributes significantly toward reducing cultural differences among the tribes, the more so because it is accompanied at times by ceremonial activities through which religious ideas and practices, as well as elements of social organization, are transmitted.
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