Page 213 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V

1990 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

by the friar Gaspar de Carvajál in 1542, of an uninten- in part explains the incapacity of the former to resist the
tional expedition down the Amazon from Ecuador to the latter. On the other hand, it seems generally possible to
Atlantic which at various points encountered flotillas of relate the occurrence of warfare to similar kinds of his-
canoes laden with warriors or riverbank armies equipped torical processes, for instance the struggle to control
with spears, shields, bows and arrows, or blowguns with important resources or trade routes, and the shifting bal-
poisoned darts. Historical and ethnographical data can ance of power between centers and peripheries in
probably be used to make some inferences about pre- regional or global systems of exchange.
Columbian patterns, but they remain uncertain. From the
Alf Hornborg
first millennium BCE,Arawak-speaking peoples inhabited
much of the fertile floodplains and the wet savannas from
Orinoco in Venezuela to the Llanos de Mojos in Bolivia. Further Reading
Many of these societies were populous chiefdoms Benson, E. P., & Cook, A. G. (Eds.). (2001). Ritual sacrifice in ancient
engaged in riverine trade and intensive agriculture. The Peru. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Bram, J. (1941). An analysis of Inca militarism. Seattle: University of
Arawaks are to this day unusual in prohibiting endo-
Washington Press.
warfare, war among themselves, which is quite common Chagnon, N. A. (1968). Yanomamö: The fierce people. New York: Holt,
in other linguistic families.The floodplain societies were Rinehart and Winston.
D’Altroy,T. N. (2002). The Incas. Malden and Oxford: Blackwell.
the first to succumb to European epidemics and slave Ferguson, R. B., & Whitehead, N. L. (Eds.). (1992). War in the tribal zone:
raids. Linguistic groups such as Caribs and Tupí have Expanding states and indigenous warfare. Santa Fe, NM: School of
American Research Press.
been described as warlike and prone to cannibalism, but
Haas, J. (Ed.). (1990). The anthropology of war. Cambridge, UK: Cam-
it is hard to say how much of the warfare observed by bridge University Press.
early Europeans in the region was a response to Haas, J., Pozorski, S., & Pozorski,T. (Eds.). (1987). The origins and devel-
opment of the Andean state. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
upheavals following their arrival, as decimated and enfee- Press.
bled riverine groups were subjected to systematic preda- Hemming, J. (1970). The conquest of the Incas. London: Abacus.
Hemming, J. (1978). Red gold:The conquest of the Brazilian Indians. Lon-
tion by previously marginal groups. The ideology of
don: Macmillan.
predation that has been posited as common to most Hill, J. D., & Santos-Granero, F. (Eds.). (2002). Comparative Arawakan
Amazonian Indians, and as generative of endemic war- histories: Rethinking language family and culture area in Amazonia.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
fare and ritual cannibalism, probably has pre-Columbian Keatinge, R. W. (Ed.). (1988). Peruvian prehistory: An overview of pre-
roots but may have been exacerbated during the colonial Inca and Inca society. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Morey, R.V., Jr., & Marwitt, J. P. (1978). Ecology, economy, and warfare
period. Feuding among simpler groups has commonly
in lowland South America. In D. L. Browman (Ed.), Advances in
involved raiding for women (bride capture), headhunting, Andean archaeology (pp. 247–258). Paris: Mouton.
and accusations of sorcery, whereas the more complex Moseley, M. E. (1992). The Incas and their ancestors. London: Thames
and Hudson.
pre-Columbian chiefdoms would have competed over Redmond, E. M. (Ed.). (1998). Chiefdoms and chieftaincy in the Ameri-
floodplain areas and trade in prestige goods such as cas. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Salomon, F., & Schwartz, S. B. (Eds.). (1999). The Cambridge history of
metal objects from the Andes. Carvajál reports that the
the native peoples of the Americas:Vol. 3. South America. Cambridge,
Tupí-speaking Omagua on the upper Amazon took pris- UK: Cambridge University Press.
oners of war from inland groups, keeping some as slaves Viveiros de Castro, E. (1992). From the enemy’s point of view: Humanity
and divinity in an Amazonian society. Chicago: University of Chicago
and taking head trophies from others. He also notes that Press.
they had spear-throwers with gold and silver inlays,
which were probably of Andean origin.
In sum, warfare generally had quite different cultural
meanings to the indigenous South Americans and to the
European conquistadors of the sixteenth century, which