Veda Krüger Ruiz
How might an anthropology of learning and knowledge transmission amongst indigenous Amazonian children inform the historical and contemporary process of formal schooling?
‘Looking at the past must only be a means of understanding more clearly what and who they are so that they can more wisely build the future.’ Paulo Freire (1970:84)
Introduction As fundamental historical beings, the enquiry about one’s past represents for Freire (1970) the starting point to understanding who we are. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, he addresses the “colonized-colonizer” power relation in Brazil (Ibid), and promotes a pedagogy for oppressed groups to enquiry about their history, understand who they are, and thus fight for a just future. Yet the history of these groups, as is the history of indigenous Amazonians, has been predominantly recorded through the hegemonic voice of the “colonizer”. Similarly are the histories of indigenous Amazonian children, who until recently have been considerably invisible in historical and anthropological accounts (Szulc and Cohn 2012). This invisibility has concealed the unique point of view children have to recount about important social, political, economic and religious processes at different times in history (Pires and Falcão 2014).
Formal schooling is one of these processes, and is of particular relevance considering indigenous Amazonian children belong to a historically oppressed group perceived by colonial discourses as “incapable” and “naïve” (Ramos 1998), who had to be raised, taught, and “civilized” (Amoroso 2000). These conceptions of “indianness” (Ramos 1998) significantly influenced early education, guiding missionaries, teachers and policies in the instruction of indigenous children. During the sixteenth-century, missionaries aimed to raise and teach indigenous Amazonian children (Block 1994), and so the initial form of schooling progressively integrated the life of several communities. Their paternalistic ideology however considerably neglected indigenous ways of learning and knowledge transmission (Czarny 2009), leading to the decontextualization of formal schooling (Rebodello 2009), and the perpetual colonial dominance in writing the history of indigenous education.
1 Veda Krüger Ruiz
It is here where a distinction between a “history of Indians” and an “education for Indians”, as determined by the outsiders’ perspective, clashes with an “Indian history” and an “Indian education”, or as put by the Brazilian Guarani people in 1993: an “indigenous education” that ‘should teach the history of the Guarani people and ensure the continuity of Guarani culture.’ (Silva and Sad 2012:546). Going back to Freire (1970), it is consequently the recovery of these histories as told by indigenous people themselves that will give voice to groups historically silenced and provide an alternative lens to understanding the process of formal schooling.
As the main subject of formal education, it is the child that is of greatest relevance in this discussion. Hence this essay aims to recover the ways children were portrayed during encounters with indigenous Amazonian peoples, and through the imaginative reconstruction of primary and secondary sources (Collingwood 1994), consider their experience of formal education through history. Despite the informative value of such accounts, the child still remains relatively invisible, as its presence is mostly determined by adult-colonial voices. Therefore, anthropological sources will also be included for a more in-depth understanding of learning and knowledge transmission in particular socio-cultural contexts (Silva, 2000a).
The contemporary anthropological engagement in studying indigenous Amazonian children has coincided with movements, particularly in Brazil, claiming for indigenous modes of learning to be legally recognized in “differentiated indigenous schools” (escola indígena differenciada) (Tassinari 2000). Education thus has played a decisive role in the lives of indigenous Amazonian children, both historically and contemporarily, emphasizing the need for an interdisciplinary discussion between history, anthropology and education on indigenous schooling (Silva 2000b). This essay will therefore explore the ways indigenous Amazonian children learn and get to know the world by considering historical and contemporary sources. Examples will be particularly drawn from Brazil, including other Amazonian regions in Bolivia and Peru, as the children’s indigenous status is considered to be similar. Overall, the essay aims to provide a different “lens” to understanding the process of formal education, one that combines the perception of the child as seen by others, as well as the lived experience of children themselves.
2 Veda Krüger Ruiz
1. Contributions from the past: the indigenous child in historical narratives.
1.1. Early encounters and mission culture.
When the Portuguese first encountered the Tupinikin of the Brazilian north- eastern coast in 1500, the fleet’s scribe, Pedro Vaz de Caminha, described natives as people with ‘very little knowledge’ (First Letter from Brazil, 1500:53). Much was inferred about how readily indoctrinated Tupinikin were, as they showed great willingness to imitate the Portuguese during Mass. Yet little is said about the place and presence of children. Caminha was certainly fascinated by the exotic and shameless appearance of young girls, who are mainly described through the Portuguese’s male gaze. Also, he noticed a young woman carrying an infant child tied around her chest with a cloth. But few assumptions can be made more than that young children were close to their mothers, girls seemed healthy and well cared for, and that overall, Tupinikin were willing learners, who were already looked upon with a paternalistic attitude by the Portuguese.
The contact zone between indigenous groups and the Portuguese expanded since that initial encounter, and in 1550 various settlements had been established along the coast (Whitehead and Harbsmeier 2008). It is in this context when Hans Staden, a German adventurer, was captured in 1552 by the Tupinambá, a neighbouring peoples of the Tupinikin. His account is a valuable source as it provides first-hand insight into the Tupi-speaking community. In particular, Staden describes how parents named their children after a forefather’s ‘courageous and terrifying name’, as ‘children with such names prospered and had good luck in catching slaves.’ (Staden, 1552:121-122). Notions of Tupinambá personhood are revealed here, especially in relation to boys, who are expected to grow fierce and strong, and whose passage into manhood is marked by their physical capacity to bear arms and engage in courageous activities.
Staden’s “eyewitness” account also includes informative wood-cut illustrations of Tupinambá everyday life (Whitehead and Harbsmeier 2008), some of which portray the relatively hidden presence of children in the community. In Figure 1, women are preparing manioc drink, and in Figure 2, women working on the fields are seen carrying their infants tied in cloths, similar to what Caminha had described amongst the Tupinikin. Again, children seem close observers of women’s activities,
3 Veda Krüger Ruiz they are also amongst each other, playing and communicating. Although these remain possible inferences, the illustrations suggest a close-knit social life in which children take part early on, through which they may progressively socialize, learn and become active members.
Figure 1. ‘Preparation of Drink by Figure 2. ‘Weather Shamanism and The Women.’ (Staden 1557:118) Cross (ii).’ (Staden 1557:115)
Further, the presence of the Cross (see Figure 2) indicates an early incorporation of Christian religious symbols. This can be understood in the historical scene of early Jesuit missionary contact. Mills, Taylor and Graham (2002) recount how in 1549, the first group of Jesuits established a colégio (school) in Bahia to gradually introduce Christian beliefs to the communities, particularly amongst children. Padre Manoel de Nóbrega was the Brazilian provincial of this Jesuit group, whose letter to Padre Simão in Portugal reveals crucial attitudes towards indigenous teaching at the time (Nóbrega 1552). Jesuits considered language the best way to instruct children, and so taught Portuguese grammar to facilitate their learning of Catholic catechism. Overall, Nóbrega describes indigenous children as enthusiastic learners, who were also readily taught and baptised.
These accounts suggest indigenous children were perceived as eager pupils and were apparently readily indoctrinated into Portuguese language and Christian beliefs. Attempts to Christianize and civilize them however became more perseverant when Indians were gathered into mission settlements, the aldeias (Roller, 2010). In a
4 Veda Krüger Ruiz letter written by Padre Antônio Pires (1558) in Bahia, he suggests that the aldeias facilitated teaching indigenous children to read, write, and adopt good habits, and restrained them from wandering around. Similar to Nóbrega, Pires (1558) also ascribes great enthusiasm and interest in learning to some of his students, suggesting a trend in how indigenous children were initially perceived.
The initial structure of formal schooling thus began to be established in the mid-sixteenth century. Yet these accounts reveal a dominant paternalistic attitude, which guided early educational practices and justified Jesuits’ role as “fathers” in charge of protecting and raising indigenous children (Block 1994). This shaped how children were initially viewed by missionaries, which later became influential for pedagogical methodologies. However, the understanding of children remained limited to the colonizer’s perspective, which concealed the ways children learnt in their own particular communities.
Alternatively, Laraia (1992) provides a historical account of Tupinambá children in the sixteenth century with a more insightful understanding of the learning and teaching practices amongst the community itself. Similar to what we can see in Staden’s illustrations, Tupinambá children seemed to accompany their parents in diverse activities early on. Through observation and the adult’s exemplary behaviour, children learnt different responsibilities within the community, like caring for younger ones. Considering the abovementioned missionary accounts, the role of the missionary school amongst communities like the Tupinambá may consequently have had a significant impact on children’s lives, who traditionally learnt from their parents and were now “fathered” and instructed by foreign colonist adults.
Further secondary sources also inform about missionary teaching practices and the ways in which indigenous modes of learning were insufficiently considered. Block (1994) recounts how in 1670, Jesuits reached Moxo settlements in the Bolivian Mamoré river, and created schools for teaching children in the vernacular language. Padre Pedro Marbán was one of these Jesuits, who’s concern with teaching in Moxa suggests an interest into indigenous language and an attempt to adapt Christian knowledge (Ibid). However, his teaching approach has been described by Block as ‘rigid’ and characteristic of eighteenth-century missionary culture overall (1994:119), as Marbán made little allowance for indigenous nuances in the translations, and
5 Veda Krüger Ruiz children were taught through systematic repetition. This perpetuated a schooling system in which the indigenous voice, let alone that of the child, was rarely present in decisions about language and content instruction.
The integration of indigenous peoples into colonial settlements continued during the eighteenth-century in a more systematic “capture” and consequent slavery (Roller 2010). The case of Francisca, an indigenous girl from the Manao people of northwestern Amazonia, who was illegally enslaved in 1717 in Belém do Pará (Sweet 1981), illustrates the impact colonial expeditions had on indigenous children’s lives, as they became severely uprooted. Consequently, although mission culture established an initial educational system, few children were actually taught in schools compared to the many who were subjects of intrusive expeditions, raiding and slavery (see Figure 3), which drastically changed their lives and that of their communities.
Figure 3. ‘Savages being escorted by indigenous soldiers in the Province of Curitiba’ Debret (1834, translated from French).
1.2. Travellers, scientists and other nineteenth-century accounts.
Mission culture expanded in Brazilian Amazonia during the nineteenth- century with the arrival of the Capuchin Padres. Their Catholic missions put forward an educational movement that aimed to approach indigenous communities in a more respectful manner compared to the violent practices of colonial times (Amoroso 2000). In 1845 several schools were built in indigenous villages, where missionaries
6 Veda Krüger Ruiz were to teach reading, writing and counting only to those children who accepted to be taught (Ibid). But little had changed from the pedagogical system developed by Jesuit missionaries. Similar to what Block (1994) described as a rigid form of instructing knowledge, Capuchin pedagogy was based on methods of mere “repetition without comprehension”, which perpetuated the premise that Indians could not rationalize but just imitate (Amoroso 2000).
This belief was characteristic of Western mentality at the time, as it can be read through the words of the American naturalist Herbert Huntingdon Smith (1879). During his stay in the indigenous village Ereré, close to Monte Alegre in northern Brazilian Amazonia, Smith asserts that compared to American children, the indigenous child did not investigate, was unambitious, and showed limited inquiry about the environment (Ibid). These inferences reinstate what according to Amoroso (2000) were the main premises held by Capuchin pedagogy: (i) Indians do not have the intellectual capacity to learn the values of cultures other than theirs, (ii) Indians could never change due to their ‘perpetual childhood’ (Block 1994:123), and (iii) their “savage” lifestyle only enabled learning through imitation.
These powerful premises are of particular relevance when considering the questionable success of nineteenth-century schools for indigenous children. Could it be that the missionary approach to teaching had been based on a fundamental misunderstanding of indigenous childhood? Considering the challenges faced by missionaries in teaching indigenous children (Amoroso 2000), there is considerable suggestion to think so. Issues of resistance and rejection had been often observed towards Jesuit attempts to integrate indigenous children in the colonies (Block 1994). Missionaries often concluded that difficulties in establishing school projects were due to parents’ prejudicial influence over children, which led educational agents after the Capuchin period to invest more in the construction of boarding schools with the aim to “civilize” indigenous children (Amoroso 2000). In living with a Catholic and hard- working society, children would forget their “bad habits” and become working- citizens themselves (Ibid).
Nevertheless, these projects resulted in some highly controversial cases. Agassiz and Agassiz (1868) recount how a boarding school for indigenous boys in Manaos, funded by the province, included many children who were forcedly taken
7 Veda Krüger Ruiz from their communities. Similarly, the school Colégio Isabel in the Brazilian province of Goiás, experienced a shortage of students in 1876, and soldiers were sent into the aldeias to traffic indigenous children and intern them in the school (Amoroso 2000). Consequently, although attempts to approach indigenous communities in a more respectful manner had initially been declared, the misinformation about indigenous childhood and the hegemonic paternalistic premises of educational agents led to drastic attempts to civilize the “incapable” Other.
Moreover, these historical narratives mainly recounted from a distant outsider’s perspective, bear limited information about children’s modes of learning and their experiences of early formal schooling. Agassiz and Agassiz’s (1868) travel narration provides a nearer view on indigenous children living alongside the Brazilian river Ramos. The travellers perceive children as very curious, some of whom are described by parents as ‘very bright’ and willing learners (Ibid:182). This introduces a very different portrayal of children, who until now have mainly been described as incapable and passive learners. Also, at this point we perceive a significant shift in indigenous attitudes towards schooling, as described by Agassiz and Agassiz (1868) when two indigenous parents express their genuine desire to provide an education for their children so they could learn reading and writing.
Overall, indigenous children’s characteristics seemed extensively diverse and their community lives significantly different across Amazonian regions. More importantly perhaps are the discontinuities found between these different accounts, especially when the previously unheard indigenous voices are read through the lines, revealing important underlying attitudes on how children should be taught and thus how children themselves learned. For example, although Smith believed children to be docile, quiet, and showing no particular interest in discovering their environment, he also says that little boys played enthusiastically with bows and arrows, quickly learnt the songs and dances of the elders, and observed ‘everything around them with keen eyes’ (1879:387). Thus although the scientist may have not been fully aware, his observations indicate underlying complex and culturally related modes of knowledge transmission in relation to a very particular environment, in which careful observation was prioritized.
8 Veda Krüger Ruiz
Given that important details about indigenous children’s ways of learning were considerably left out by early accounts, the challenges faced by missionaries while introducing formal schooling could be understood in the light of this misinformation and/or misunderstanding. This is particularly relevant when considering that not all indigenous schools in the aldeias were unsuccessful, particularly those adopting innovative teaching approaches that were closely related to the native’s pedagogies. The case of a school built in 1871 in Itambacuri, Brazil, successfully lasted for more than 20 years, as it employed indigenous teachers who instructed in the native’s language (Amoroso 2000). This particular case of formal schooling however was considered a great exception in the context of the nineteenth- century.
2. The twentieth-century: The institutionalization of childhood and indigenous Amazonian anthropology.
Early educational movements towards including indigenous teaching practices did not develop until later in the twentieth-century. The legacy of missionary work and the political attempt to incorporate indigenous peoples into national society significantly refrained the development of an education based on indigenous demands (Czarny 2009; Silva 2000a). Yet significant changes occurred too, where respecting indigenous Amazonian languages became a crucial element of educational discourses. In 1934 the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) funded in the United States aimed to introduce bilingual education and consequently replace the “civilizing” traditional school system (Rebodello 2009). Through the anthropological study of vernacular languages, SIL intended to develop evidence-grounded bilingual schools (Loos, Davis and Wise 1981). This consequently indicated a radical change in the historically prominent attitudes of paternalism, domination and ethnocentrism that had permeated much of previous educational work.
In Peruvian Amazonia, contact with the non-indigenous reality was defined as ‘unavoidable’ by SIL (Loos et al. 1981:368), and learning the language of the ‘governing civilization’ was considered necessary for ensuring a ‘just and fair dialogue’ between national and indigenous societies (Rescaniere 1981:60). As a result, SIL and the Peruvian Ministry of Education introduced during the mid-
9 Veda Krüger Ruiz twentieth-century an educational project in which indigenous Amazonian children were primarily taught in their mother tongue, with Spanish as a second language (Ibid). Jakway (1981) maintains that teaching in the indigenous language avoids the cultural discontinuities in the child’s understanding of complex concepts that occur when merely taught in an unfamiliar language.
This project required the participation of linguists and anthropologists gathering popular literature in stories, songs and myths, to better understand the Amazonian vernacular languages and develop linguistically-relevant school material (Rescaniere 1981). Illustrating the importance of acknowledging indigenous ways of transmitting knowledge through language, Lévi-Strauss (1955) described how amongst the Nambikwara of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, the father had the responsibility to recount traditional myths and stories into a language and style that children could understand and learn from. The consideration of the child’s level of understanding consequently guided how adults narrated and transmitted knowledge.
This approach is similar to the one adopted by SIL: with the indigenous Amazonian child in mind, reading, mathematical and artistic activities were elaborated. Jakway provides the example of the arithmetic-readiness book Vamos a Contar (Let’s Count), in which children learn through familiar jungle-based illustrations (see Figures 4 and 5), ‘since unidentifiable pictures, abstract numbers, and geometrical shapes do not have much meaning to the child who has no background in this new system.’ (1981:291). The consideration of children’s cultural context and the incorporation of elements they learn and interact with in community life, suggested significant changes towards the establishment of a culturally and linguistically adapted curriculum.
10 Veda Krüger Ruiz
Figure 4. ‘Sample page from arithmetic- Figure 5. ‘Sample page from arithmetic- readiness book.’ Children are being asked readiness workbook.’ Children are being to count how many tapirs there are and asked to think about how many canoe paint them. (Jakway 1981:289) paddles there are and paint them. (Jakway 1981:290)
With these educational programs in practice, the child was taught within the context of the indigenous group, yet also learnt the codes of national society through the Spanish language. Accordingly, an adult from the Aguaruna people in northern Amazonian Peru expressed the importance of bilingual education by saying that it enables to strengthen their social unity while simultaneously ‘preventing them from being dominated by Spanish speakers.’ (Loos et al. 1981:365). As a result, bilingualism and the consideration of cultural characteristics became important determinants of schooling success (Laraia 1992).
Further anthropological studies provide different accounts about indigenous attitudes towards bilingual education. Gow (1991) maintains that for native communities of the Bajo Urubamba river in eastern Peru, their forest-dwelling ancestors had been enslaved due to their ignorance, thus knowledge is considered key to prevent history from reoccurring. Specifically, they refer to the “civilized” knowledge transmitted in formal schools, which teaches children to deal with national
11 Veda Krüger Ruiz society (Ibid). Gow maintains that in this context, few children actively speak native languages like Piro, and parents prioritize schooling in Spanish over bilingual education. Gow’s ethnography shows certain inconsistencies between SIL’s philosophy in focusing on native language instruction and the realities of some indigenous communities increasingly concerned with national dynamics. Different from this however, the Mundurucú people of the Brazilian upper Tapajós valley do not place so much importance on the formal schooling of children, because ‘given the Mundurucú way of life, almost everything they learned in school was irrelevant’ (Murphy and Murphy 1974:41). Although learning Portuguese and arithmetic could facilitate their communication skills in trading with outside villages, most children would forget what they had learnt once back in the community (Ibid). Therefore, formal schooling, let alone bilingual education, was perceived and experienced very differently across Amazonian communities.
What was then the role of organizations like SIL or the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) in Brazil in defining indigenous education, especially given such an extensive cultural and contextual variability? Issues arose particularly due to the lack of attention to the complexity of children’s socio-cultural contexts (Szulc and Cohn 2012). FUNAI’s educational policies to teach indigenous children were mainly defined on notions of progress (Campbell 1995), included decontextualized teaching methods (Gomes 2004), and overall, schools in twentieth-century Brazil primarily promoted the transit of indigenous individuals into national market economy (Czarny 2009). The teaching of indigenous children had henceforth become considerably politicised and institutionalized (Szulc and Cohn 2012), in which notions of “universal childhood” defined the school as the ‘inalienable’ place for children to be (Montgomery 2009:6).
What indigenous Amazonian communities themselves required from formal schooling remained significantly invisible in the eye of educational policy. Before the 1988 Brazilian Constitution, indigenous schooling conditions were precarious in terms of teaching (Pereira 2009), most schools followed a homogeneous national curriculum (Szulc and Cohn 2012), and relatively few children attended these (Gomes 2004). Yet during the 1970s an increasing mobilization occurred, guided by indigenous claims that formal schooling was fundamentally disconnected from local modes of knowledge transmission (Czarny 2009). In particular, indigenous teachers,
12 Veda Krüger Ruiz leaders and local associations demanded for the right to maintain their languages and forms of thinking, learning and knowing (Tassinari 2000). These claims were later reflected in the Constitution (Constitution of Brazil 1988), which avowed the right to an indigenous “differentiated” school based on indigenous languages, culture and history (Szulc and Cohn 2012). This ensured a space of expression for diversity and culturally related notions of learning and knowledge transmission, simultaneously making indigenous voices be heard.
3. The new century: indigenous schooling and “child-centred” anthropology.
Yet the implementation of these legal recognitions became restrained by structural and ideological barriers, like administrative difficulties, the insensitivity towards treating indigenous problems in school, and social and geographical marginalization (Rebodello 2009). Moreover, the differentiated school system had diverse outcomes across indigenous groups (Gomes 2004). For example, amongst the Palikur of the lower Uaça river of the Brazilian Amazon, the training of indigenous teachers remained slow and problematic, and the pedagogic thinking of the new system was still too unfamiliar, leading to ambivalent attitudes amongst the community (Rebodello 2009). These initial challenges and the vast heterogeneity of a country like Brazil indicated important future developments to ensure that differentiated schooling satisfactorily addressed the diversity it said to acknowledge (Silva 2000b).
Moreover, contemporary debates on how indigenous children were to be educated are put in perspective when considering that indigenous pedagogies had been perpetually omitted, schooling methods were based on an insufficient empirical grounding, and little was known about how indigenous children themselves learnt in their particular contexts. In 1970s, coinciding with the indigenous mobilization to establish differentiated schools, the discipline of anthropology adopted a “child- centred” approach to grasp the ways children actively learnt from their environment (Montgomery 2007). Accordingly, children were no longer seen as ‘passive recipients of adult expectations and knowledge’ (Rapport and Overing 2007:42), but instead as active agents engaging in unique and dynamic ways of knowing and learning (Morelli 2013). This view also challenged the notion of the “universal child”, that did not
13 Veda Krüger Ruiz consider the historical and socio-cultural complexity of children in different parts of the world (Montgomery 2007).
As an example, Morelli’s (2013) ethnography amongst indigenous Matses children in northern Amazonian Peru is a valuable illustration of how children’s ways of knowing, learning and understanding the world can inform the structure of formal schooling. She explores how children develop the skills to become active members in the community through direct engagement with their environment. Nowadays’ Matses children have a strong affective relationship with the river, an adult-free space where they play, swim, fish, canoe, etc. These dynamic and sensory activities make the river a fundamental source of ‘children’s ways of knowing and acting in the world’ (Ibid:91). Harris also notes that the river becomes an active element in the acquisition of knowledge for riverine communities, where knowledge becomes ‘constitutive of an attachment to a place.’ (2005:202).
In this particular environment, Matses children are educated through physical movement, dynamism, and direct engagement with the outside world; whereas at school, learning is based upon authoritarian modalities that restrain expression (Morelli 2013). This contrast has a significant effect on children’s attitudes towards school, which they describe as ‘extremely boring and frightening’ (Ibid:291). However, Morelli maintains that children are also aware of the value of formal schooling, as it enables them to deal with the world of the chotac, the non-indigenous. Similar to what Gow (1991) noted, Matses children also consider schooling to provide the knowledge to deal with national society, which is full of future possibilities (Morelli 2013). Yet schooling is not perceived as the means through which they will have better opportunities in life (Ibid), suggesting that the present school system is significantly detached from the ways-of-knowing and particular needs, both economic and pedagogic, of Matses children.
That formal schooling remains considerably disconnected from children’s ways of learning and knowing has been a crucial element of other anthropologist’s enquiry. Amongst the Pinhel and Parauá communities of the Brazilian Tapajós river, Medaets (2014) maintains that children are expected to learn fishing, hunting, canoeing, cooking, etc. through a process of attentive observation that does not involve explicit educational guidelines from adults (Ibid). Medaets (2014) maintains
14 Veda Krüger Ruiz that river dwellers prioritize this form of learning compared to that in the school, where children are encouraged to learn from instructions and explanations. These elements of how children are expected to learn have been mentioned before in historical accounts, where the child appears to be silently observing and participating simultaneously. Learning through observation as opposed to being guided and instructed by an adult may therefore be a particular pattern prevalent in the pedagogies of certain Amazonian communities.
Anthropological approaches looking at how indigenous children learn beyond the boundaries of the school have given voice to children’s previously silenced perspectives (Szulc and Cohn 2012). When this child-centred approach is considered in the context of the community’s educative practices, an even more holistic appreciation is achieved. For example, amongst the Pirahã on the banks of the Brazilian Maici river, children are expected to gain self-sufficiency and contribute to economic activities (Everett 2008). Similar to the Tapajós riverine communities, Pirahã adults expect children to learn and understand the world without their explicit intervention (Everett 2008). Hence Pirahã children also learn through attentive observation, and are expected to be independent in various activities. Ingold (2007) maintains that this process in which children engage and relate to their social world occurs in two ways: the adult guides the child in learning about the world, and the child also contributes in shaping and making sense of the learning process. Consequently, the children’s agency in acquiring knowledge from their environment cannot be underplayed, and suggests that indigenous communities like the Pirahã, the Matses, and the Tapajós riverine peoples place a special emphasis in knowledge acquisition and transmission that very much depends on the child’s active observation and creative interpretation.
Overall, childhood is understood as a time of learning, socialization, and progressive incorporation into the adult world (Montgomery 2007), yet there is also increasing consensus that children’s ways-of-knowing and learning are in no way uniform (Silva 2000b). Context-bound, or “situated”, and culturally diverse modes of learning have been found across different indigenous Amazonian communities, both by studying children and notions of childhood respectively. Accordingly, an increasing academic interest on indigenous Amazonian thinking and pedagogies
15 Veda Krüger Ruiz reveals underlying ontological complexities that need to be taken into account in schooling institutions (Ibid).
Finally, the twentieth-first century has until now experienced an increasing engagement of anthropologists in indigenous schooling, particularly in Brazil, where they have contributed to the elaboration of public policy and educational projects (Silva 2000b). Also, there is consensus over the need to consider the particularities of every indigenous Amazonian group (Tassinari 2000), so to establish differentiated schools that are based on an informed “indigenous pedagogy”, as opposed to a homogenous system that omits the child’s culture and overemphasizes the codes of the “dominant” society (Rebodello 2009). Nowadays the school is no longer a mere site for assimilation of national values, but instead a place of frontier (Czarny 2009), a contact zone where intercultural differences emerge and obtain new meanings, and where an indigenous education can exist alongside national formal schooling.
Conclusion
This essay explored how considering indigenous Amazonian children in historical and anthropological accounts can inform the ever changing process of formal schooling. The importance of an interdisciplinary dialogue between these two approaches is incorporated in the discipline of ethnohistory, where historical documents make possible the study of the human past in relation to cultural interactions and changes (Barber and Berdan, 1998). This framework enabled to explore the historical narratives of different indigenous Amazonian groups in a history where the colonial voice has dominated. Looking at the past of a group that has historically faced cultural, social and educational oppression (Silva and Sad 2012), which is the case of many indigenous Amazonian children, and making their voices “heard”, provides valuable information to understanding complex sociocultural processes as formal schooling (Szulc and Cohn 2012). Children in countries like Brazil are increasingly considered in educational projects, yet for indigenous pedagogies and modes of knowledge transmission to be reflected in schooling practices there is still a trajectory to go. Taking into account indigenous children’s ways of learning and their expectations of the future within the framework of a
16 Veda Krüger Ruiz historically laden schooling experience seems to be an initial important step towards the realization of a culturally contextualized indigenous education.
Word count: 4, 992
17 Veda Krüger Ruiz
Bibliography
Agassiz, L. and Agassiz, E. 1868. A Journey in Brazil. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. Amoroso, M. 2000. Mudança de hábito: catequese e educação para índios nos aldeamientos capuchinhos. In: A. Silva, and M. Ferreira, eds., 2000. Antropología, História e Educação: A questão indígena e a escola. São Paulo: Global Editora, pp. 133-156.
Barber, R. and Berdan, F. 1998. The Emperor’s Mirror: Understanding Cultures through Primary Sources. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.
Block, D. 1994. Mission Culture on the Upper Amazon: Native Tradition, Jesuit Enterprise, & Secular Policy in Moxos 1660-1880. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Campbell, A. 1995. Getting to know Waiwai: An Amazonian Ethnography. London: Routledge.
Collingwood, R. 1994. The idea of history. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil, 1988 (2008). Chamber of Deputies, Documentation and Information Center. Brasília: Coedi.
Czarny, G. 2009. Escolaridad y Pueblos Indígenas en Brasil y Argentina: Un acercamiento crítico desde la investigación antropológica educativa. Rev. of Educación Escolar Indígena. Investigaciones Entropológicas en Brasil y Argentina, García, S. and Paladino, M. 2007. Revista Mexicana de Investigación Educativa, 14(43), pp. 1297-1308.
Debret, J. 1834. Soldados índios da província de Curitiba escoltando selvagens. Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo. Available at:
Everett, D. 2010. Das glücklichste Volk: Sieben Jahre bei den Pirahã-Indianern am Amazonas. Translated from English by Vogel, S., 2008. München: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt.
18 Veda Krüger Ruiz
Freire, P. 1970. Pedagogía del Oprimido. Translated from Portuguese by Ramos, M., introduction by Macedo, D. 2000. New York: Continuum.
Gomes, A. 2004. El proceso de escolarización de los Xakriabá: historia local y rumbos de la propuesta de educación escolar diferenciada. Cuadernos de Antropología Social, 19, pp. 29-48.
Gow, P. 1991. Of Mixed Blood: Kinship and History in Peruvian Amazonia. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Harris, M. 2005. Riding a wave: Embodied skills and colonial history on the Amazon floodplain. Ethnos, 70(2), pp. 197-219.
Ingold, T. 2007. The social child. In: A. Fogel, B. King and S. Shanker, eds., 2007. Human Development in the Twenty-First Century: Visionary Ideas from Systems Scientists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 112-118.
Jakway, M. 1981. Culturally adapted education. In: M. Larson and P. Davis, eds., 1981. Bilingual Education: An experience in Peruvian Amazonia. Washington: Summer Institute of Linguistics, pp. 283-296.
Laraia, R. 1992. Los indios de Brasil. Madrid: Ediciones MAPFRE.
Lévi-Strauss, C. 1955. Tristes Tropiques. Translated from French by Weightman, J. and Weightman, D., 1973. London: Picador Classics, pp. 367-384.
Loos, E., Davis, P. and Wise, M. 1981. Cultural change and the development of the whole person: an exposition of the philosophy and methods of the Summer Institute of Linguistics. In: M. Larson and P. Davis, eds., 1981. Bilingual Education: An experience in Peruvian Amazonia. Washington: Summer Institute of Linguistics, pp. 351-392.
Medaets, C. 2014. “Tu garante?”: Transmission and Learning Practices Along the Tapajós River. Childhoods Today, 8(1), pp. 1-14.
Mills, K., Taylor, W. and Graham, S. 2004. The Jesuit and the Bishop, Bahia, Brazil (1552-53). In: K. Mills, W. Taylor and S. Graham, eds., 2004. Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History. Lanham: SR Books, pp. 93-103.
19 Veda Krüger Ruiz
Montgomery, H. 2009. An Introduction to Childhood: Anthropological Perspectives on Children’s Lives. Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
Morelli, C. 2013. The River Echoes with Laughter: how children’s ways-of-knowing transform the world and future horizons of Matses people in Peruvian Amazonia. Ph. D. University of Manchester.
Murphy, Y. and Murphy, R. 1974. Women of the Forest. New York: Columbia University Press.
Nóbrega, M. 1552. Bahia, July 1552, Padre Manoel da Nóbrega to Padre Simão Rodrigues, Jesuit Provincial, Lisbon. In: K. Mills, T. William and S. Graham, eds., 2004. Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History. Lanham: SR Books, pp. 93-103.
Pereira, V. 2009. A educacão escolar indígena em Minas Gerais. Paidéia r. do cur. De ped. Da Fac. de Ci. Hum. e Soc., Univ. Fumec., 6(6), pp. 25-39.
Pires, A. (1558). Bahia, July 1558, Padrew Antônio Pires. In: E. Burns, eds., 1966. A Documentary History of Brazil. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, pp. 57-61.
Pires, F. and Falcão, C. 2014. Editorial: Children and Childhoods in Latin America. Childhoods Today, 8(1), pp. 1-5.
Ramos, A. 1998. Indigenism: Ethnic Politics in Brazil. Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press.
Rapport, N. and Overing, J. 2007. Social and Cultural Anthropology: The Key Concepts. London and New York: Routledge.
Rebodello, N. 2009. Cultura, escolarización y etnografía: Los palikur en el Amazonas brasileño del Bajo Uaça. México D. F.: Universidad Iberoamericana.
Rescaniere, A. 1981. Some anthropological considerations concerning bilingual education. In: M. Larson and P. Davis, eds., 1981. Bilingual Education: An experience in Peruvian Amazonia. Washington: Summer Institute of Linguistics, pp. 59-65.
20 Veda Krüger Ruiz
Roller, H. 2010. Colonial routes: Spatial mobility and community formation in the Portuguese Amazon. Ph. D. Stanford University.
Silva, A. 2000a. A educação indígena entre diálogos interculturais e multidisciplinares: introdução. In: A. Silva, and M. Ferreira, eds., 2000. Antropología, História e Educação: A questão indígena e a escola. São Paulo: Global Editora, pp. 9-25.
Silva, A. 2000b. Uma “Antropologia da Educação” no Brazil? Reflexões a partir da escolarização indígena. In: A. Silva, and M. Ferreira, eds., 2000. Antropología, História e Educação: A questão indígena e a escola. São Paulo: Global Editora, pp. 29-43.
Silva, C. and Sad, L. 2012. The Transformations of Knowledge Through Cultural Interactions in Brazil: The Case of the Tupinikim and the Guarani. In: J. Renn, eds., 2012. The Globalization of Knowledge in History. Berlin: Max Planck Research Library for the History and Development of Knowledge, pp. 525-558.
Smith, H. 1879. Brazil, the Amazons and the Coast. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Staden, H. 1557. Hans Staden’s True History: An Account of Cannibal Captivity in Brazil. In: N. Whitehead and M. Harbsmeier, eds., 2008. Durham: Duke University Press.
Sweet, D. 1981. Francisca: Indian Slave. In: D. Sweet and G. Nash, eds., 1981. Struggle & Survival in Colonial America. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 274-291.
Szulc, A. and Cohn, C. 2012. Anthropology and Childhood in South America: Perspectives from Brazil and Argentina. AnthropoChildren, 1, pp. 1-17.
Tassinari, A. 2000. Escola indígena: novos horizontes teóricos, novas fronteiras de educação. In: A. Silva, and M. Ferreira, eds., 2000. Antropología, História e Educação: A questão indígena e a escola. São Paulo: Global Editora, pp. 44-70.
Whitehead, N. and Harbsmeier, M., eds., 2008. Hans Staden’s True History: An Account of Cannibal Captivity in Brazil. Durham: Duke University Press.
21 Veda Krüger Ruiz
22