Vital Diplomacy

The Ritual Everyday on a Dammed River in Amazonia

Chloe Nahum-Claudel

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781785334078
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Kultur- & Sozialanthropologie

In Brazil, where forest meets savanna, new towns, agribusiness and hydroelectricity plants form a patchwork with the indigenous territories. Here, agricultural work, fishing, songs, feasts and exchanges occupy the Enawenê-nawê for eight months of each year, during a season called Yankwa. Vital Diplomacy focuses on this major ceremonial cycle to shed new light on classic Amazonian themes such as kinship, gender, manioc cultivation and cuisine, relations with non-humans and foreigners, and the interplay of myth and practice, exploring how ritual contains and diverts the threat of violence by reconciling antagonistic spirits, coordinating social and gender divides, and channelling foreign relations and resources.

Table of contents

• VITAL DIPLOMACY
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• A Note on Language
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. Mastery and Subjection at the Fishing Dams
• Chapter 2. The Fishermen Return ‘Like Yakairiti’
• Chapter 3. Routine Ritualism and a Festival of Abundance
• Chapter 4. Affinal Diplomacy in a United, Egalitarian Society
• Chapter 5. Cosmic Diplomacy
• Chapter 6. Yankwa’s Foreign Diplomacy and Saluma’s Defiance
• Bibliography
• Index