Sanumá
Memories
Yanomami
Ethnography in Times of Crisis
Alcida Rita Ramos
New
Directions in Anthropological Writing
“A masterpiece. This is a book both broad and deep, both
historical and structural, vividly presenting individuals and
placing them in the sweep of social and historical process. A
major contribution is the new perspective it offers on the role
of time in the organization of society. It could become an anthropological
classic.”
—Waud Kracke, author of Force and Persuasion:
Leadership in an Amazonian Society
The Yanomami people of Brazil first attracted
anthropological and popular attention in the 1960s, when they
were portrayed as essentially primitive and violent in the widely
read book Yanomamo: The Fierce People. To this image of
the Yanomami another has recently been added: that of victims
of the economic rapacity devouring the Amazon.
Sanumá Memories moves beyond these images to provide the first
anthropologically sophisticated account of the Yanomami and their
social organization, kinship, and marriage, capturing both individual
experiences and the broader sociological trends that engulf them.
A poignant personal story as well, it draws on Alcida Ramos’s
extensive fieldwork among the Sanumá (the northernmost
Yanomami subgroup) from 1968 to 1992, as she reports on the brutal
impact of many invasions—from road construction to the gold rush that brought
the Yanomami social chaos, thousands of deaths, devastation of
gardens and forest, and a disquietingly uncertain future.
At the cutting edge of anthropological description and analysis,
Sanumá Memories ponders the importance of “otherness”
to the Sanumá; describes Sanumá spaces, from the
grandiosity of the rain forest to cozy family compartments; analyzes
their notions of time, from the minute reckoning of routine village
life to historical and metaphysical macro-time; shows how power
and authority are generated and allocated in space and time;
and examines the secrecy of personal names and the all-pervading
consequences of disclosing them.
“Ramos’s study is anthropologically sophisticated and ethnographically
fascinating. She has been able to construct a particularly refined
and compelling account of important problems presented by one
of the most interesting indigenous groups in South America, an
account that reflects her years of careful and insightful thinking
about Sanumá.”
—Donald Pollock, State University of New York at
Buffalo
Alcida Rita Ramos is professor of anthropology at the
University of Brasilia. She has been active in defending indigenous
peoples, particularly Yanomami, acting as expert witness to the
Brazilian Attorney General’s Office and as mediator between the
Sanumá and emergency medical teams working to combat epidemic
malaria. She is the author of three books published in Brazil: Hierarquia e Simbiose, Sociedades Indigenas, and Memorias
Sanumá, on which this English edition is based. She
is the author of Indigenismalso
published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
Media & bookseller inquiries regarding review copies, events, and interviews can be directed to the publicity department at publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu or (608) 263-0734. (If you want to examine a book for possible course use, please see our Course Books page. If you want to examine a book for possible rights licensing, please see Rights & Permissions.)
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Spring 1995
LC: 94-039614 F
268 pp. 6 x 9
10 halftones, 34 figures,
4 maps
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