The Canela: Kinship, Ritual and Sex in an Amazonian Tribe

by William H. Crocker, Jean G. Crocker

This text is a case study of one people, the Canela, which traces changes through time, a group uniquely held together by social and sexual bonds, and reveals the ethnographer's fieldwork practices. The authors present much of the material through short narratives and examples and Native points of view are expressed through their diaries. The reader is introduced to the Canela with an account of one of the author's arrivals in the tribe. This is followed by a brief history of the Canela that clarifies how the network of the kinship system holds the society together, and how the unusual sex practices create satisfying bonds among the people. The case study also shows how the practice of rituals affirms the group way of life for the individual. Many contemporary influences have caused the gradual demise of the Canela way of life. The case study concludes with an epilogue on the Canela's future adaptation to Brazilian life.

Genres: Anthropology

153 pages, Paperback

First published April 28, 2003

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe the most perfect form of human society was reached in the Amazonian rainforest, where they have small family units living together, and the men spend a couple of hours a day hunting then come home and they all sit around sleeping in hammocks, having sex and playing with their children. I watched a documentary about them recently. This capitalism and consumerism seems to me a man-made hell on earth, but it's an inevitable consequence of complexity.