Kuwamai

Historic Epidemics and Resilience of Cariban-Speaking Peoples, Northern Amazonia

Dados Bibliográficos

ID5771895
AutoresRenzo S Duin (Amazon (United States), autor correspondente)
Ano2021
Volume20
Fascículo1
Páginas247-272
Data de publicação2021-04-19
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoeTropic electronic journal of studies in the tropics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1448-2940 • E-ISSN: 1448-2940
EditoraJames Cook University (PUBLISHER • AU)
DOI10.25120/etropic.20.1.2021.3759
OpenAlexW3154785570
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas4
Referências citadas17

How Amazonian Indigenous Peoples combatted emergent epidemic diseases in colonial times, and their innovative responses to epidemiological crises, has not received sufficient attention. This study outlines a clash of cultures and an entanglement of places and people related to pandemic diseases and epidemic death in the Eastern Guiana Highlands, northern Amazonia. By means of archival and historical sources, the article provides eyewitness insight into multiple waves of highly contagious epidemics that affected Cariban-speaking communities in Eastern Guiana - Suriname, French Guiana, and Brazilian Amapá - over the past 550 years. The paper commences with some general statements on illness and healing. Hitherto unpublished journal entries by the Governor of Suriname of an outbreak of the pox during the winter of 1743-1744 set the scene, these are followed by rare nineteenth and twentieth century historical accounts, and a novel interpretation of Wayana oral history - posited to be the first account of the spread of a viral disease in Amazonia in July 1542. The paper concludes with responses to the current COVID-19 pandemic from an indigenous etiology which demonstrates indigenous historical consciousness of the social present as related to events from the past

Pandemic · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Indigenous Health and Education · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies