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Ethnicity in Ancient Amazonia: Reconstructing Past Identities from

Archaeology, Linguistics, and Ethnohistory Alf Hornborg and Jonathan D. Hill,
eds. Boulder: University Press of C...

Article in American Anthropologist · December 2013

DOI: 10.1111/aman.12059_24

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 Book Reviews 697

thoughtful wider contextualization. These soldiers lived in silent on women, they are even less revealing of indigenous
coal sheds and largely fended for themselves (by hunting and participants—like the local women that miners and traders
fishing); tellingly, immediately after the men of company often married and who contributed to their integration into
L 24th Infantry were relocated, the army upgraded their critical local networks and market success (see Cooper and
facilities. Holder Spude). Robert King explores Native entrepreneurs
I was thrilled to see that several of the chapters include who were well-aware of the challenges they encountered
information about women and indigenous people who were in the face of colonial biases, such as the indigenous people
involved in the colonial mining industry, not just as laborers who would keep gold discoveries secret until they could suc-
in the case of indigenous men or as prostitutes as in the case of cessfully partner with Euro-North Americans, and Thomas
women—both important roles—but there is a wider range Thornton discusses how Tlingit leaders controlled access to
we must explore, and this book inspires this dialogue. For ex- the pivotal mining thoroughfares of Chilkoot and Chilkat
ample (in Holder Spude’s contribution), the dynamic Mattie Trails (long used as indigenous routes of trade) and how this
Wilson, a stampeder who “gleefully” wore pants and staked monopoly was challenged by colonials and other indigenous
her own gold claim. Where studies have been relatively entrepreneurs.

Ethnicity in Ancient Amazonia: Reconstructing Past

Identities from Archaeology, Linguistics, and Ethnohistory
Alf Hornborg and Jonathan D. Hill, eds. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2011. 408 pp.

Augusto Oyuela-Caycedo chapters, authored by Eduardo Neves, contributes to dis-

University of Florida mantling essentialist interpretations on the human occupa-
tion of the Amazon by examining the case of the Central
Ethnicity is a situational category that was invented to clas- Amazon, where he demonstrates the lack of correlation
sify and divide peoples colonized by the European empires, between material culture, ethnicity, and linguistic disper-
and in more recent times by nation-states, under the ideol- sion. The contribution by Michael Heckenberger focuses on
ogy of nationalism. More recent works have demonstrated longue durée construction of identity that archaeologists like
how ethnicity is becoming another commodity in relation himself have pieced together in collaboration with indige-
to tourism and, in particular, to NGOs that seek economic nous groups, showing the continuity and transformation of
resources by utilizing postcolonial mythologies of the “no- identities in a “deep time” perspective. In a very ingenious
ble savage.” Ethnicity in Ancient Amazonia arrives late to the analysis, Warren DeBoer’s chapter defends the relationship
global discussion on this issue, in particular since the Ama- between material culture, like ligature locations on the body
zonian nation-states over the last 30 years have recognized as ethnic markers, and language by using data collected by
the rights of indigenous groups over large territories. Fur- Günter Tessmann in the early 20th century. Other chapters
thermore, constitutional changes in Amazonian states have deal with the transformations in pottery assemblages from
benefited “ethnic groups” with more rights to health, land, prehistory to the republic in the case of the Orinoco Basin in
and autonomy than what the states offer to nonindigenous Venezuela. Alf Hornborg and Love Eriksen explore broad
poor persons. The present volume contributes to under- data in an inductive way to think about migration as a cause
standing some of the processes of ethnogenesis that generate of ethnogenesis. This pursuit of an essentialist view of eth-
the complex mosaic of Amazonian indigenous peoples. The nicity based on the correlation of attributes or indicators of
central theme focuses on the Arawak language groups that regional interactions in which the local history or the un-
expanded over large territories of South America and the derstanding of historical context vanishes in favor of broad
Caribbean islands. The book provides an introduction to views does not assist understanding the present situation.
concepts of “ethnogenesis” and “ethnicity.” The 18 chapters The linguistic part of the book illustrates the problems of
of this volume are divided into three sections: archaeology, classification and historical reconstruction of the diversifica-
descriptive linguistic dispersion, and ethnohistory. The text tion of Arawakan languages. All the chapters discuss previous
ends with a discussion of the volume’s contribution by the divisions and subgrouping of the Arawakan languages, such
late Neal Whitehead. as a north and south (west) division by using, for example,
The archaeological chapters show very complex net- network analysis. A chapter on the use of GIS presents ar-
works and hierarchical social systems expressed in the land- guments to explain isolated languages as a very early human
scape that were very dynamic and transformative, not static occupation of Amazonia in contrast to the recent dispersion
as they are usually portrayed. One of the six archaeology of the Arawak-speaking peoples.
698 American Anthropologist • Vol. 115, No. 4 • December 2013

The ethnohistorical part is far more diverse than the pre- discussion on captive identities and subordinations between
vious parts. There is a chapter by Jonathan Hill on the con- indigenous groups and introduces the concept of “selective
struction of sacred landscapes and how this correlates with emulation” to explain how identities emerge.
Tupı́-Guaranı́ and Arawakan Wakuénai prophetic, move- In general, Ethnicity in Ancient Amazonia will be ap-
ments and ritual (musical and verbal). Another article, by preciated by those with an interest in understanding the
Pirjo Virtanen, explores the continuity in oral history about diversity of the Amazonian past and historical situational
earthworks found in the area of the Upper Purús River. The views of ethnicity. The editors did a good job of putting
chapter on the region of Apolamba (Bolivia) explores the together these fascinating chapters, which will generate a
impact of influences from the Andes on local, historical pro- lot of discussion on the role of anthropology and archae-
cesses of ethnogenesis. The study of the Ecuadorian “forest of ology in our understanding of present-day Amazonia and
Canelos” by Norman Whitten is a critique of the continuous what it means in relation to the future of this region’s
reproduction of ethnical divisions that come from the time of people.
the religious missions. Fernando Santos-Granero presents a

Living with Koryak Traditions: Playing with Culture in Siberia

Alexander D. King. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011. 348 pp.

Christos Lynteris tradition, and their dialectic. In an ethnographically rich text,

University of Cambridge he presents a true kaleidoscope of perceptions, opinions, and
ideas: of the performers on themselves, and on each other, as
This monograph reads as a thesis against the reification of well as of audiences regarding each performing group in and
native culture in Kamchatka, and it does so with impressive of itself and in relation to other groups. What is particularly
success. Alexander King’s Living with Koryak Traditions sits refreshing is the discussion of the way in which Koryaks dis-
comfortably within the best Sapirean anthropological tradi- sociate their evaluation of the authenticity of performances
tion, providing a nuanced and dynamic picture of Koryak from issues pertaining to the ethnic identity of the actual
culture at the turn of the 21st century. King weaves his dis- performers; what matters for Koryak evaluations of perfor-
cussion around issues as diverse as local museum dioramas, mances, such as staged folk dances, King argues, is not the
animal–human communication, the use of Russian words for reproduction of some eternal or otherwise static cultural
modern technologies, Bible translations, and hygienic ideol- authenticity but, rather, “doing it right.” This overarching
ogy in language textbooks in a manner that connects it all, principle, applied to a broad range of social practices not
not in some outlandish theoretical abstraction but, rather, excluding funerals, is key to King’s approach of culture as
in the concrete realm of cultural practice and semantic fundamentally creative and processual.
negotiation. When it comes to discussing Koryak language, King
King explores the effects of early ethnographic writings, adopts an analytical perspective deriving from the principle
Soviet anthropological theory, and the continuing policy of that “the ‘cultural’ in language lies in the connection between
“certified authenticity” on contemporary debates on culture microinteractional experiences and macrosociological con-
and language among Koryaks. In so doing, he discards deter- texts” (p. 25). He thus takes readers across different phases
ministic readings that tend to reduce the center–periphery of Russian colonialism and the Soviet era, presenting com-
relation in Russia to one of imposition and resistance or com- plex linguistic policies and theories of culture and ethnos
pliance. By setting at the center of his analysis the notion in a way that equips us to understand the sociology as well
of tradition as a resource for “creative play,” King exam- as the phenomenology of teaching and learning Koryak in
ines what people actively do with it in various spheres of schools today. Underlying Koryak emphasis on “the plu-
social life. Hence his analysis goes beyond invented–real and rality of linguistic practices” (p. 204), the book provides a
copy–original dichotomies, presenting a truly dynamic un- fascinating discussion of Soviet efforts to standardize Ko-
derstanding of Koryak culture in which debate is the driving ryak language. King’s study of history of “official Koryak”
force of generating meaning between past and present as in the last century furthermore provides the ground for
well as between local (mestnyi) and newcomer (priezzhii). an exploration of the afterlife of Soviet dichotomy between
Perhaps the book’s crucial analytical turn regards King’s modernity and tradition as reflected by the realm of language
approach to dance as an “iconic index” or “synecdoche” of and language teaching. Once again native rejection of eth-
Koryak culture as a whole. In examining a number of dif- nic nationalism and purism plays a significant role in King’s
ferent dance groups (such as Weyem and Mengo) and their analysis, especially as it contrasts with Soviet and post-Soviet
perspective on cultural genuineness, King explores the in- anthropological and official categories of “native language”
tricate native debate over understandings of performance, (radnoi iazyk) and the spurious metaphysics of form and

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