James Andrew Whitaker
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 608496 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | James Andrew Whitaker |
| NOMBRES | James Andrew |
| APELLIDO | Whitaker |
| FIRMA | WHITAKER J A |
| AFILIACIONES | Tulane University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9112-9931 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 21 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 44 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 21 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1969 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 4 |
On Amazonian Magical Darts
This article examines pathogenic projectiles among the Makushi people in Guyana. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among Makushi in North Rupununi, the ‘magical’ darts known as waawî are described and contrasted with accounts of similar phenomena across Amazonia. For the Makushi, waawî seem to hold an ambiguous existence as both entities and objects. As embodiments of spirit-helpers, these pathogenic darts are fabricated by shamans yet maintain a p…
Folklore and Social Anthropology in Amazonia
Animacy of Plants
Plant Agency in the Guianas
This article uses ethnographic and ethnobotanical methods to examine relationships between animate and agentive plants and human beings among the Makushi, Pemon, Karinya, and other Indigenous and mixed-Indigenous peoples in the Guianas. It considers representations of these plants and related ontologies in the archival record and contrasts these accounts with more recent ethnographic descriptions based on the authors' fieldwork across Guyana and …
Shamanic alliance in the touristic borderzone
This article explores how villagers in Surama form alliances with outsiders through strategic hospitality within the touristic borderzone. Surama is a primarily Makushi village in Guyana. Tourism began during the 1990s and is now central to the village economy. Villagers' efforts to form relationships with certain visitors (particularly tourist leaders) as partners or yakos through hospitality reflect an ontological framework associated with sham…
Sorcery and well-being
This paper examines bodily transformation and well-being within the context of a millenarian movement that emerged during the 1840s in the area surrounding Mount Roraima at the periphery of Brazil, Guyana (British Guiana at the time), and Venezuela. The site of this movement was Beckeranta - meaning 'Land of the Whites' - where up to 400 Amerindians were reportedly killed in a quest that is described in its sole historical account as centred arou…
Totemic Outsiders
This article examines how sociological totemism mediates the co-existence of animism and an emerging naturalism among the Makushi in Surama Village (Guyana) within contexts of interactions with outsiders. Since the 1830s, such contexts have varied from missionization to eco-tourism, which Surama developed in the 1990s and which has since significantly increased. Eco-tourism currently facilitates access to employment, goods, outside knowledge, and…
Strategic alliance and the Plantationocene among the Makushi in Guyana
This paper examines how the Makushi Amerindians in Guyana use strategies of alliance in dealing with current threats associated with the Anthropocene that are linked to past engagements aimed at resisting slaving raids during the colonial era. The Makushi view logging and mining by outsiders as major sources of deforestation, which they see as a primary cause of ecological and climatic change. In the past and present, they have formed alliances a…
Water Mamas among the Makushi in Guyana
This article examines folklore concerning water spirits among the Makushi Amerindians in Guyana. Makushi accounts of spirits called 'water mamas'—twingram or Tuenkaron in Makushi—associate these beings with white people in both past and present. The case is presented here that this folklore reflects Makushi histories and experiences of European contact, colonialism in Dutch and British Guiana, and ongoing relations with Europeans and other outsid…
Climatic and Ontological Change in the Anthropocene among the Makushi in Guyana
This essay examines climatic and ontological change within the Anthropocene among the Makushi in Guyana. During fieldwork in the Makushi village of Surama, the author was frequently told how the wet and dry seasons have become irregular, the temperature has increased, and ecological changes have occurred in the forests and savannas. These perceived changes impact Makushi subsistence practices and have emerged concurrent with the local development…
William Curtis Farabee
There has been very little written about the anthropological career of William Curtis Farabee (1865–1925). The primary aim of this article is to fill this lacuna in the literature. Farabee was one of the first anthropologists from the United States to undertake extensive ethnographic explorations in South America. He undertook research with many Amazonian societies in Peru, Brazil, and Guyana. This article considers his explorations and writings …
Imagination and the Poetics of Being and Becoming an Other in Amazonia
This essay considers the role of the imagination in the envisioning and poetic construction of future being and becoming in Amazonia. Poetic construction is the process whereby the assembled forms that emerge from the imagination are brought out into the world of the senses. Imaginative envisioning and poetic construction are the means by which diverse ontologies of humans, animals, and spirits are articulated into particular visions of future tr…
Space and Society in Central Brazil
This ethnography by Elizabeth Ewart challenges long-held notions regarding Ge-Bororo dual organisation and explores Panara identity in terms of an opposition between selves and others. Also known a
Guns and Sorcery
Raiding, trading, and sorcery are historically-interrelated phenomena among the Makushi Amerindians in Guyana. Colonial documents reveal that the Makushi were heavily targeted during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by Luso-Brazilian and Amerindian slavers. The form of such slaving frequently fluctuated between raiding and trading and formed a nexus around which practices of sorcery came to be centred. A connexion between the histori…
Amerindians in the Eighteenth Century Plantation System of the Guianas
Dutch relations with Amerindian societies in their South American colonies began in the early seventeenth century.This contact increased during the eighteenth century, when Amerindians were slaves, slavers, and plantation enforcers for the Dutch.These roles transitioned over time and unevenly extended across the Amerindian societies within the Dutch colonies.The early configuration of the Dutch colonies relied upon Amerindians for trade.With the …
In Search of the Soul in Amazonia
Anthropos , Seite 201 - 205
Florestas Antrópicas No Acre
O artigo apresenta os resultados do primeiro inventário de um hecta¬re realizado na área de um sítio tipo geoglifo. Até o momento, todos os geoglifos estudados não tinham cobertua vegetal. O geoglifo Três Vertentes não mostra evidência de ter sido queimado ou usado para agricultura ou assentamento no passado recente. Assim, é possível que a vegetação existente sobre o geoglifo não tenha sido perturbada, com a possívele exceção de usos extrativos …
Out of the Study and Into the Field
This book considers the role of fieldwork in the history of French anthropology. It is the latest addition, volume 22, to the 'Methodology and History in Anthropology' series by Berghahn Books, edi
Warfare and Shamanism in Amazonia
Book review of Warfare and Shamanism in Amazonia. Carlos Fausto. Translated by David Rodgers. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2012. xv + 347 pp., maps, illustrations, footnotes, bibliography, annex, index. USD $99.00 (hardcover). ISBN: 978-1-107-02006-1
Rebelião na Amazônia
The Landscape Imagination
This article considers how the research programmes of historical ecology and Amerindian perspectivism may be combined and intersected to better describe the cultural understandings, agencies, and intentionalities that underlie the processes of landscape transformation in Amazonia. These research programmes will be discussed and interrelated towards points of contiguity and conjuncture. Historical-ecological research investigates the changing rela…
Climatic and Ontological Change in the Anthropocene among the Makushi in Guyana
This essay examines climatic and ontological change within the Anthropocene among the Makushi in Guyana. During fieldwork in the Makushi village of Surama, the author was frequently told how the wet and dry seasons have become irregular, the temperature has increased, and ecological changes have occurred in the forests and savannas. These perceived changes impact Makushi subsistence practices and have emerged concurrent with the local development…
Water Mamas among the Makushi in Guyana
This article examines folklore concerning water spirits among the Makushi Amerindians in Guyana. Makushi accounts of spirits called 'water mamas'—twingram or Tuenkaron in Makushi—associate these beings with white people in both past and present. The case is presented here that this folklore reflects Makushi histories and experiences of European contact, colonialism in Dutch and British Guiana, and ongoing relations with Europeans and other outsid…
Florestas Antrópicas No Acre
O artigo apresenta os resultados do primeiro inventário de um hecta¬re realizado na área de um sítio tipo geoglifo. Até o momento, todos os geoglifos estudados não tinham cobertua vegetal. O geoglifo Três Vertentes não mostra evidência de ter sido queimado ou usado para agricultura ou assentamento no passado recente. Assim, é possível que a vegetação existente sobre o geoglifo não tenha sido perturbada, com a possívele exceção de usos extrativos …
Totemic Outsiders
This article examines how sociological totemism mediates the co-existence of animism and an emerging naturalism among the Makushi in Surama Village (Guyana) within contexts of interactions with outsiders. Since the 1830s, such contexts have varied from missionization to eco-tourism, which Surama developed in the 1990s and which has since significantly increased. Eco-tourism currently facilitates access to employment, goods, outside knowledge, and…
Imagination and the Poetics of Being and Becoming an Other in Amazonia
This essay considers the role of the imagination in the envisioning and poetic construction of future being and becoming in Amazonia. Poetic construction is the process whereby the assembled forms that emerge from the imagination are brought out into the world of the senses. Imaginative envisioning and poetic construction are the means by which diverse ontologies of humans, animals, and spirits are articulated into particular visions of future tr…
Plant Agency in the Guianas
This article uses ethnographic and ethnobotanical methods to examine relationships between animate and agentive plants and human beings among the Makushi, Pemon, Karinya, and other Indigenous and mixed-Indigenous peoples in the Guianas. It considers representations of these plants and related ontologies in the archival record and contrasts these accounts with more recent ethnographic descriptions based on the authors' fieldwork across Guyana and …
Amerindians in the Eighteenth Century Plantation System of the Guianas
Dutch relations with Amerindian societies in their South American colonies began in the early seventeenth century.This contact increased during the eighteenth century, when Amerindians were slaves, slavers, and plantation enforcers for the Dutch.These roles transitioned over time and unevenly extended across the Amerindian societies within the Dutch colonies.The early configuration of the Dutch colonies relied upon Amerindians for trade.With the …
In Search of the Soul in Amazonia
Anthropos , Seite 201 - 205
The Landscape Imagination
This article considers how the research programmes of historical ecology and Amerindian perspectivism may be combined and intersected to better describe the cultural understandings, agencies, and intentionalities that underlie the processes of landscape transformation in Amazonia. These research programmes will be discussed and interrelated towards points of contiguity and conjuncture. Historical-ecological research investigates the changing rela…
The Landscape Imagination
This article considers how the research programmes of historical ecology and Amerindian perspectivism may be combined and intersected to better describe the cultural understandings, agencies, and intentionalities that underlie the processes of landscape transformation in Amazonia. These research programmes will be discussed and interrelated towards points of contiguity and conjuncture. Historical-ecological research investigates the changing rela…
Rebelião na Amazônia
Warfare and Shamanism in Amazonia
Book review of Warfare and Shamanism in Amazonia. Carlos Fausto. Translated by David Rodgers. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2012. xv + 347 pp., maps, illustrations, footnotes, bibliography, annex, index. USD $99.00 (hardcover). ISBN: 978-1-107-02006-1
Out of the Study and Into the Field
This book considers the role of fieldwork in the history of French anthropology. It is the latest addition, volume 22, to the 'Methodology and History in Anthropology' series by Berghahn Books, edi
Florestas Antrópicas No Acre
O artigo apresenta os resultados do primeiro inventário de um hecta¬re realizado na área de um sítio tipo geoglifo. Até o momento, todos os geoglifos estudados não tinham cobertua vegetal. O geoglifo Três Vertentes não mostra evidência de ter sido queimado ou usado para agricultura ou assentamento no passado recente. Assim, é possível que a vegetação existente sobre o geoglifo não tenha sido perturbada, com a possívele exceção de usos extrativos …
Amerindians in the Eighteenth Century Plantation System of the Guianas
Dutch relations with Amerindian societies in their South American colonies began in the early seventeenth century.This contact increased during the eighteenth century, when Amerindians were slaves, slavers, and plantation enforcers for the Dutch.These roles transitioned over time and unevenly extended across the Amerindian societies within the Dutch colonies.The early configuration of the Dutch colonies relied upon Amerindians for trade.With the …
In Search of the Soul in Amazonia
Anthropos , Seite 201 - 205
Guns and Sorcery
Raiding, trading, and sorcery are historically-interrelated phenomena among the Makushi Amerindians in Guyana. Colonial documents reveal that the Makushi were heavily targeted during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by Luso-Brazilian and Amerindian slavers. The form of such slaving frequently fluctuated between raiding and trading and formed a nexus around which practices of sorcery came to be centred. A connexion between the histori…
Imagination and the Poetics of Being and Becoming an Other in Amazonia
This essay considers the role of the imagination in the envisioning and poetic construction of future being and becoming in Amazonia. Poetic construction is the process whereby the assembled forms that emerge from the imagination are brought out into the world of the senses. Imaginative envisioning and poetic construction are the means by which diverse ontologies of humans, animals, and spirits are articulated into particular visions of future tr…
Space and Society in Central Brazil
This ethnography by Elizabeth Ewart challenges long-held notions regarding Ge-Bororo dual organisation and explores Panara identity in terms of an opposition between selves and others. Also known a
William Curtis Farabee
There has been very little written about the anthropological career of William Curtis Farabee (1865–1925). The primary aim of this article is to fill this lacuna in the literature. Farabee was one of the first anthropologists from the United States to undertake extensive ethnographic explorations in South America. He undertook research with many Amazonian societies in Peru, Brazil, and Guyana. This article considers his explorations and writings …
Strategic alliance and the Plantationocene among the Makushi in Guyana
This paper examines how the Makushi Amerindians in Guyana use strategies of alliance in dealing with current threats associated with the Anthropocene that are linked to past engagements aimed at resisting slaving raids during the colonial era. The Makushi view logging and mining by outsiders as major sources of deforestation, which they see as a primary cause of ecological and climatic change. In the past and present, they have formed alliances a…
Water Mamas among the Makushi in Guyana
This article examines folklore concerning water spirits among the Makushi Amerindians in Guyana. Makushi accounts of spirits called 'water mamas'—twingram or Tuenkaron in Makushi—associate these beings with white people in both past and present. The case is presented here that this folklore reflects Makushi histories and experiences of European contact, colonialism in Dutch and British Guiana, and ongoing relations with Europeans and other outsid…
Climatic and Ontological Change in the Anthropocene among the Makushi in Guyana
This essay examines climatic and ontological change within the Anthropocene among the Makushi in Guyana. During fieldwork in the Makushi village of Surama, the author was frequently told how the wet and dry seasons have become irregular, the temperature has increased, and ecological changes have occurred in the forests and savannas. These perceived changes impact Makushi subsistence practices and have emerged concurrent with the local development…
Sorcery and well-being
This paper examines bodily transformation and well-being within the context of a millenarian movement that emerged during the 1840s in the area surrounding Mount Roraima at the periphery of Brazil, Guyana (British Guiana at the time), and Venezuela. The site of this movement was Beckeranta - meaning 'Land of the Whites' - where up to 400 Amerindians were reportedly killed in a quest that is described in its sole historical account as centred arou…
Totemic Outsiders
This article examines how sociological totemism mediates the co-existence of animism and an emerging naturalism among the Makushi in Surama Village (Guyana) within contexts of interactions with outsiders. Since the 1830s, such contexts have varied from missionization to eco-tourism, which Surama developed in the 1990s and which has since significantly increased. Eco-tourism currently facilitates access to employment, goods, outside knowledge, and…
Animacy of Plants
Plant Agency in the Guianas
This article uses ethnographic and ethnobotanical methods to examine relationships between animate and agentive plants and human beings among the Makushi, Pemon, Karinya, and other Indigenous and mixed-Indigenous peoples in the Guianas. It considers representations of these plants and related ontologies in the archival record and contrasts these accounts with more recent ethnographic descriptions based on the authors' fieldwork across Guyana and …
Shamanic alliance in the touristic borderzone
This article explores how villagers in Surama form alliances with outsiders through strategic hospitality within the touristic borderzone. Surama is a primarily Makushi village in Guyana. Tourism began during the 1990s and is now central to the village economy. Villagers' efforts to form relationships with certain visitors (particularly tourist leaders) as partners or yakos through hospitality reflect an ontological framework associated with sham…
On Amazonian Magical Darts
This article examines pathogenic projectiles among the Makushi people in Guyana. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among Makushi in North Rupununi, the ‘magical’ darts known as waawî are described and contrasted with accounts of similar phenomena across Amazonia. For the Makushi, waawî seem to hold an ambiguous existence as both entities and objects. As embodiments of spirit-helpers, these pathogenic darts are fabricated by shamans yet maintain a p…
Folklore and Social Anthropology in Amazonia
Geography (12 obras) · Sociology (11 obras) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (10 obras) · Archaeology (8 obras) · Ecology (8 obras) · Philosophy (8 obras) · Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory (7 obras) · Anthropology (7 obras) · Geographies of human-animal interactions (7 obras) · Amazon rainforest (6 obras)