The Village, the State, and Amerindian Shamanic Thought: Becoming Makushi in the Hinterland of Guyana
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
THE VILLAGE, THE STATE, AND AMERINDIAN SHAMANIC THOUGHT: BECOMING MAKUSHI IN THE HINTERLAND OF GUYANA Lucas Carneiro de Carvalho Charlottesville, Virginia M.A. Anthropology, University of Virginia, 2011 M.A. Socio-Cultural Anthropology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, 2008 B.A. Social Sciences, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, 2005 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Anthropology University of Virginia April, 2016 Copyright by Lucas Carneiro de Carvalho All rights reserved April 2016 II THE VILLAGE, THE STATE, AND AMERINDIAN SHAMANIC THOUGHT: BECOMING MAKUSHI IN THE HINTERLAND OF GUYANA Lucas Carneiro de Carvalho Charlottesville, Virginia M.A. Anthropology, University of Virginia, 2011 M.A. Socio-Cultural Anthropology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, 2008 B.A. Social Sciences, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, 2005 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Anthropology University of Virginia __________________________ __________________________ George Mentore, Ph.D. Roy Wagner, Ph.D. Department of Anthropology Department of Anthropology Advisory Committee Chair __________________________ __________________________ Richard Handler, Ph.D. Allison Bigelow, Ph.D. Department of Anthropology Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese April, 2016 III IV Abstract This dissertation presents a comparison between the cul- tural representations of Coastlanders and Amerindians in Guyana. This is done by contrasting Makushi practices and understandings of sociality, politics, violence, and the power to kill with non-Amerindian practices and understandings. The dissertation presents a series of episodes to illustrate the differences and similarities between these two systems. In these episodes, themes such as group identity, leadership, politics, kinship, development, shamanism, and death and violence are presented and discussed. Moreover, the dissertation explores the underly- ing Makushi aesthetics of being, together with the intricacies of their shamanic thought, in order to compare and contrast the differences between Makushi and Coastlander cultural represen- tations of violence and the power to kill. V Acknowledgments After seven years working on my Ph.D., I can finally acknowledge all of the people who helped me along the way. The most important mentions go to my Makushi brothers and sisters, my in-laws, and all the youmbayamî I made along the way in the many months I lived in the Rupununi region of Guyana and in Roraima, Brazil. In Lethem, I would like to thank Dayan, Tamsin, Zayna, and Kalen. A special thanks to Guy, Andrew, Walter, Ro- land, Allamed, Padmine, Maribeth, and Dexter for their patience and for welcoming me into their family, their households, and their village. My dearest Makushi parents Leo and Rufina ac- cepted me as a son, and taught me how to be a real person, a real human being. Living among the Makushi, laughing, gaffing, and also crying with them changed me in such deep and profound ways that all the changes are still not clear to me. I feel in my heart that the experience changed me to be better and to do better towards others. Other important people that I leave many thanks to for helping me while in Georgetown, Guyana, are the staff from the Walter Roth National Museum of Anthropology. These are Jennifer Wishart, Shebana Daniels, and Louisa Daggers. From Boa Vista, I want to acknowledge the encouragement and support of Alexandro Machado Namem. At the University of Virginia, I am grateful for VI the classes, workshops, and stimulating conversations with fac- ulty and students. Among the faculty, I would like to thank Ira Bashkow, Allison Bigelow, Eve Danziger, Fred Damon, James Igoe, Adria LaViolette, Susan McKinnon, Peter Metcalf, Brian Owensby, Edith Turner, and Kath Weston. I am extremely grateful to my amazing graduate committee formed by George Mentore, Roy Wagner, and Richard Handler. They offered me all the support I needed, but also provided me the intellectual freedom to trace my own path. A special thank you goes out to my committee chair, George Mentore. Witnessing not only George’s passion for good anthropology, but also his re- spect and compassion for Indigenous Peoples has been moving. His engagement with critical theory has been an inspiration to me, and hope I can be at least a fraction of the scholar that he hopes for me to become. I also would like to thank my classmates and colleagues in the Department of Anthropology who, in one way or another, also helped shape my research and dissertation. They are: Lydia Rodríguez, Rose Wellman, Nathalie Nahas, Nathan Hedges, Patricia Sánchez Bao, Giancarlo Rolando, Alessandro Questa, Jacqueline Cieslak, Allison Broach, Jessica Boynton, Kyle Edwards, Beth Hart, Grace Reynolds, Dionisios Kavadias, David Flood, Erika Brant, Dannah Dennis, Carolyn Howarter, Susan Palazzo, Harri VII Siikala, and Julie Starr. Among my peers, Yu-Chien Huang de- serves special mention for battling through and managing to read and give me a great deal of constructive criticism on previous versions of some dissertation chapters. My most important acknowledgment goes to my wife, Julie. She supported me emotionally throughout the ups and down of graduate student life, she was my shelter and safe haven in this weird world that is the U.S., and she even quit her job to accompany me during part of my field research in Guyana. It is because of her unconditional love and generosity that I was able to make it to the sunny afternoon on which I wrote this acknowl- edgment. And it is to her whom I dedicate this dissertation. We make a great research team and partners in life. I feel that now life has just begun once again, and we are headed into another journey of an entirely different sort. VIII Note on Pronunciation The phones present in the Makushi language are: Consonants: p t k Ž (') s m n ř (r) w Ø (y) Vowels: a e i o u î (î) Source: South American Phonological Inventory Database (2014); Miriam About (1976;1991). IX Table of Contents Abstract..................................................... V Acknowledgments............................................. VI Note on Pronunciation....................................... IX Introduction................................................. 1 Research Problem ........................................ 4 Field Research .......................................... 7 Organization of Chapters ................................ 7 Chapter One: Village Politics............................... 11 Introduction ........................................... 11 General Village Meeting in Tunaîmî ..................... 12 Tunaîmî ................................................ 49 The School ............................................. 53 Village Cattle ......................................... 61 Hot Meal Project ....................................... 63 Outside Money Logic .................................... 67 The Water Project ...................................... 71 The Village Tractor .................................... 74 Historical Context ..................................... 76 Final Remarks .......................................... 82 Chapter Two: Amerindian Act................................. 83 Introduction ........................................... 83 Modernity in Guyana .................................... 85 Guyana Regional Politics ............................... 93 X Amerindians and the Hinterlands ........................ 97 Sparse Presence of Government ......................... 100 Venezuela’s Claim and the Rupununi Uprising ........... 102 Amerindian Act and the Problem of Mediation ........... 106 Amerindians through a Legal Lens ...................... 109 Historical Demographic Changes ........................ 122 Satellite Villages .................................... 125 Governmental Control of Resources ..................... 127 Movement of Amerindians ............................... 137 Political Representation .............................. 143 Makushi Aesthetics of Being ........................... 144 Kinds of People ....................................... 148 Politics and Kinship .................................. 153 Losing Face ........................................... 157 Deconstructing the Individual ......................... 159 Land Demarcation ...................................... 163 Final Remarks ......................................... 166 Chapter Three: Tunaîmî Pantoni. Pata Pantoni............... 168 Introduction .......................................... 168 The One Next to God ................................... 171 The Journey ........................................... 173 Sacred Heart Hill ..................................... 174 Frog in a Jar ......................................... 175 The Cheating Wife and the Jealous Husband ............. 178 XI The Smell of Spirits .................................. 179 From Place to Place ................................... 185 Chapter Four: Dark and Light Shamans....................... 193 Introduction .......................................... 193 Rupununi Cattle ....................................... 199 Village Leader ........................................ 201 Conquering Souls ...................................... 204 Entrenchment .......................................... 209 Bichiwung - The One Who Met God ......................