SOUTH AMERICAN FOREST PEOPLES

Distribution of aboriginal South American and circum-Caribbean cultural groups. indigenous inhabitants of the tropical forests of South America. The tribal cultures of South America are so various that they cannot be adequately summarized in a brief space. The mosaic is baffling in its complexity: the cultures have interpenetrated one another as a result of constant migratory movements and through intertribal relations, leading to the obliteration of formerly significant differences, and to new cultural systems made up of elements of heterogeneous origin. Hundreds of languages, in very irregular geographic distribution, with innumerable dialects, are or have been spoken in the tropical area of South America. Thus, only the broadest generalizations can be made; one can mention certain cultural manifestations that are present in a great number of groups, even though varying in their actual expression, and illustrate them with specific examplesbut always with the qualification that in a neighbouring tribe or group a distinctly contrasting idea or institution may exist. The innumerable native peoples differ in their patterns of adaptation to their natural environment. Whether they live in the rain forest, in the gallery forests lining the rivers, in the arid savannas, or in the swamps, however, they share a common cultural background; they often combine fishing and hunting with rudimentary farming. Most are relatively sedentary, but some are nomadic or semi-nomadic. Greater differences are sometimes found among neighbouring groups living in the same forest than between some forest and savanna peoples. And some tribes, when migrating to open areas, maintain to a great extent the forest characteristics of their culture. On the banks of the great rivers but also in zones between the forest and the savanna live tribes who gain their subsistence from farming and fishing. Hunters and gatherers, almost all of whom also practice some farming, have settled near the heads of rivers, in open land, or in gallery forests. Tribes speaking related languages are scattered over a large part of the continent. The tribes of the Arawak and the Carib linguistic families are most numerous in the Guianas (French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, and the adjacent regions of Venezuela and Brazil) as well as in other parts of the northern Amazon, but the former have representatives as far south as the Chaco and the latter as far south as the upper Xingu. The Tup tribes extend to the south of the Amazon valley. The Ge family includes groups most of which are located in the semi-arid lands of central Brazil. In the extreme northwest of Brazil and in the jungles of eastern Peru and Bolivia live the Pano tribes. The Jvaro of Ecuador are famous headhunters. They cut off the enemy's head, separate the soft part from the skull, and, with the help of hot sand, reduce it to the size of a fist without altering the physiognomy. They attribute great magical power to these trophies, or tsantsa. Additional reading Peter Rivire, Individual and Society in Guiana (1984), compares the social systems of lowland indigenous peoples. Janice H. Hopper (ed.), Indians of Brazil in the Twentieth Century (1967), collects essays by American and Brazilian specialists. Betty J. Meggers, Amazonia: Man and Culture in a Counterfeit Paradise (1971), is a comparative study of Amazonian tribes and their adaptation to the natural environment. More specialized works include Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, Amazonian Cosmos: The Sexual and Religious Symbolism of the Tukano Indians (1971; originally published in Spanish, 1968); John Hemming, Red Gold: The Conquest of the Brazilian Indians (1978), and Amazon Frontier: The Defeat of the Brazilian Indians (1987); Irving Goldman, The Cubeo Indians of the Northwest Amazon, 2nd ed. (1979); and Jean E. Jackson, The Fish People: Linguistic Exogamy and Tukanoan Identity in Northwest Amazonia (1983). The complex social organization of the Ge tribes is studied in Curt Nimuendaj, The Apinay (1939, reprinted 1967), The erente (1942, reprinted 1979), and The Eastern Timbira (1946, reissued 1971); and David Maybury-Lewis, Akwe-Shavante Society (1967, reissued 1974). A general view of the religious ideas of indigenous peoples may be found in Rafael Karsten, Studies in the Religion of the South-American Indians East of the Andes (1964). Acculturation among tribes in contact with whites is discussed in Charles Wagley and Eduardo Galvo, The Tenetehara Indians of Brazil: A Culture in Transition (1949, reprinted 1969); Robert Francis Murphy, Munduruc Religion (1958), and Headhunter's Heritage: Social and Economic Change Among the Munduruc Indians (1960, reprinted 1978); and James B. Watson, Cayu Culture Change: A Study in Acculturation and Methodology (1952, reissued 1974). Egon Schaden The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica