Biblioteca Digital Curt Nimuendajú

Arquivo enviado por Gustavo Godoy em dezembro de 2019

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This dissertation concerns the persistence of fundamental aspects of the culture of the Ka'apor Indians, who live in the tropical forest of Brazil. Since the early 1800s, the contact pressures on Ka'apor culture have included military invasions, loss of lands, forced migrations, foreign disease, and massive depopulation. Since 1928, when the Ka'apor were pacified, the presence of Western goods has increased in Ka'apor society, although the people had a taste for such goods long before that time. Using a general model of acculturation, Darcy Ribeiro predicted that in acquiring trade goods from Brazilians, the traditional economy, social organization, and ritual life of the Ka'apor would disintegrate. I document the continuing integrity of these aspects of Ka'apor culture as well as others. Given the contact pressures on the Ka'apor, and that many other South American Indian groups have become deculturated through involvement in a trade economy, the persistence of Ka'apor culture demands a special explanation.

I show that mere involvement in a trade economy does not necessarily destroy the foundations of an Indian culture. My hypothesis is simply that which is learned earliest is the last to go. Cultures organized mainly at the level of the nuclear family tend to resist change in contact situations longer than cultures containing higher order sociopolitical phenomena. I show that among the Ka'apor, the nuclear family is the unit of the household, production, consumption, socialization, and ritual life.

Historical and ecological factors are involved in why Ka'apor culture, and not other South American Indian cultures which have experienced similar pressures, persists into the present. Historically, because of harsh encounters with Brazilians in early contact times, the family became the most integral social unit and the Ka'apor became isolated in the deep forest, far from towns and trade routes. Ecologically, certain Ka'apor rituals centering on the nuclear family — specific duties of husband and wife during her menstruation, the couvade, and female initiation rites — contribute toward slowing the rate of game depletion near the settlement. I suggest that the integrity of the nuclear family is the common denominator of and mechanism in the persistence of Ka'apor culture.

Arquivo enviado por Gustavo Godoy em dezembro de 2019

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