Amazonian Kichwa of the Curaray River: Kinship and History in the Western Amazon

by Mary-Elizabeth Reeve

Overview

Amazonian Kichwa of the Curaray River is an exploration of the dynamics of regional societies and the ways in which kinship relationships define the scale of these societies. It details social relations across Kichwa-speaking indigenous communities and among neighboring members of other ethnolinguistic groups to explore the multiple ways in which the regional society is conceptualized among Amazonian Kichwa.

Drawing on recent studies in kinship, landscape from an indigenous perspective, and social scaling, Mary-Elizabeth Reeve presents a view of Amazonian Kichwa as embedded in a multiethnic regional society of great historic depth. This book is a fine-grained ethnography of the Kichwa of the Curaray River region (Curaray Runa) in which Reeve focuses on ideas of social landscape, as well as residence, extended kin groups, historical memory, and collective ritual celebration, to show the many ways in which Curaray Runa express their placement within a regional society. The final chapter examines social scaling as it is currently unfolding in indigenous societies in Amazonian Ecuador through increasing multisited residence and political mobilization.

Based on intensive fieldwork, Amazonian Kichwa of the Curaray River breaks new ground in Amazonian studies by focusing on extended kinship networks at a larger scale and by utilizing both ethnographic and archival research of Amazonian regional systems.

 

 
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781496228802
Publisher:	Nebraska
Publication date:	01/01/2022
Pages:	222
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Mary-Elizabeth Reeve is the retired director of the Global Perinatal Health Education Programs at the March of Dimes Foundation. She is the author of a number of articles on Amazonian Kichwa society and history, and a book written and published in Spanish about the Kichwa of Curaray.
 
 

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1: Landscape and Kinship in a Regional Society
Chapter 2: Ayllu and Lacta
Chapter 3: Runa on the Curaray
Chapter 4: The Ritual of Community
Chapter 5: Ayllu across the Regional Society
Chapter 6: Healing, Song and Narrative
Chapter 7: The Enduring Regional Society
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
 

Editorial Reviews

“Amazonian Kichwa of the Curaray River offers a way to understand both small-scale indigenous life and large-scale indigenous geocultural relationships in a unified framework. This is a major contribution to the field of Indigenous studies, Latin American studies, and Amazonian studies. It will become a must-read.”—Norman E. Whitten Jr., author of Puyo Runa: Imagery and Power in Modern Amazonia
 


“Amazonian Kichwa of the Curaray River presents an original and nuanced argument about kinship that shows how Amazonian people live through relational systems of kinship that span space, time, and ecological relations with the landscape. . . . This book is based on a lifetime of careful study, thought, and fieldwork. . . . The writing style is clear, fluid, and compelling.”—Michael Uzendoski, coauthor of The Ecology of the Spoken Word: Amazonian Storytelling and the Shamanism among the Napo Runa

From the Publisher