The Canela - William H Crocker

This ethnology follows the lives of the Canela Indians of Barra do Corda, Maranhao, Brazil from 1890s to the present. Based on more than five collective years of fieldwork since 1957, it relates how this surviving nation of the Timbira group has retained its traditional culture, including an elaborate bonding system of kinship, ritual, meetings, complex festivals and sex. This case study challenges western conceptions of socialization for sex as well as adult sexual behaviour. Features: * Provides a cumulative account of Crocker's five years of field work with the Canela Indians between 1957 and 1991. * Relays how this group of people, a surviving nation of the Timbira group, has fetained most of their traditional culture after the settlers' invasion during the 1810s and 1820s. * Studies how the Canela have accepted and rationalized their dependent relationship with the surrounding Brazilians. * Relates the Canela's prosperity and pride to the growth in their population, their decision to remain in one large village, and their continued resistance to emigration.;* Conveys the social cohesiveness, achieved through an elaborate bonding system of kinship and rituals, including daily meetings and complex festivals, and an extensive practice of extramarital sex. * Traces the historical narrative of pacification and resulting loss of culture and how bonding counters these destructive forces and how bonding counters these destructive forces. * Records the historical accounts of 19th century military encounters with Canela ancestors and the findings of Curt Nimuendaju, Brazil's foremost anthropologist of the first half of the twentieth century. * Includes an epilogue that brings the discussion of cultural change and endurance up to 1991.