Janet M. Chernela is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Latin American Studies Center at the University of Maryland. After receiving her PhD from Columbia University in 1983, she served on the faculty of the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (National Institute of Amazonian Research, INPA) in Manaus. She has worked among indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin for over three decades. Her research interests include local knowledge, indigenous rights and organizations; gender and language. Her principal publications include a book, The Wanano Indians of the Brazilian Amazon: A Sense of Space (1993, 1996) and a recent trilogy on language and gender in the Upper Rio Negro: “Talking Community in the Northwest Amazon" (American Anthropologist, 2003); "The Second World of Wanano Women: Truth, Lies and Back-Talk in the Brazilian Northwest Amazon" (Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 2011); and "Mascarading the Voice: Texts of Self in the Brazilian Northwest Amazon" (Journal of Anthropological Research, 2012). She is the founder of AMARN/Numia Kura, one of the oldest ongoing indigenous associations in Brazil and former president of the international Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America.

Contents


Introduction


European Expansion Intertribal Relations and Linguistic


Social Organization


Kinship Nomenclature


Gender Language and Placement in Wanano Poetic


Resources Control and Distribution of Fish


Rank and Leadership within a Wanano Settlement


Rank and Obligation among Three


Conclusion


KinTerms


Index

Chernela's portrayal of authority and rank in Wanano society gives a new slant on the organization of these societies and changes the picture of leadership in the Amazon Basin. (American Anthropologist)

A welcome contribution, lucid, authoritative and accessible. (Journal of Latin American Studies)