Native Americans of Middle and South America

D

3

Early Peoples

The most important site of early human settlement in the Amazon Basin is Caverna da Pedra Pintada (Cave of the Painted Rock). It is located near the modern city of Santarém, Brazil, near the mouth of the Tapajós River. Evidence of human occupation here comes from cave-wall paintings and from objects found in the lowest levels of the cave, including stone tools, projectile points, red paint pigments, and fossilized animal bones and fruit seeds. These remains, dated to various times between 11,200 and 9,800 years ago, suggest that the cave inhabitants were hunter-gatherers who ate a rich and varied diet that included fruits, Brazil nuts, fish, tortoises, mussels, snakes, birds, and larger land mammals. Caverna da Pedra Pintada demonstrates that the earliest human migrants successfully adapted to the tropical forest environment.

Between 4,000 and 2,000 years ago, people living along the rivers of the Amazon Basin established ways of life similar to those of indigenous peoples in the Amazon today. As before, fishing and hunting were important for subsistence, but now the cultivation of root crops provided an important addition to the diet.

D

4

Diet and Subsistence

People adapted to the poor soils of the terra firme by practicing slash-and-burn agriculture. This farming method involves clearing a small section of the rain forest by cutting down trees and other vegetation, then burning them to release nutrients to the soil. Farming is then possible on the land for about three years, after which the land must be abandoned and a new area of forest cleared.

Of the many plants raised by indigenous Amazon groups, manioc (cassava) provided the most food. It contains a starch, tapioca, which was extracted from the roots of the plant and baked into cakes. Another important root crop was the sweet potato, which was boiled whole. Maize, beans, squash, peppers, peanuts, cotton, tobacco, arrowroot were also cultivated. In other spots, wild plants supplied important quantities of edible fruits and nuts, including palm fruits, cashews, and Brazil nuts.

---

---

In many areas, fish were plentiful and served as the main food; they were caught with nets, by poisoning the water in streams, or by shooting them with arrows. In other regions, peccaries, tapirs, monkeys, armadillos, caimans, manatees, turtles, and deer were numerous enough to become important parts of the diet. Birds and other animals were hunted with spears, bows and arrows, and blowguns. Darts used with blowguns were tipped with poison made from certain vines; the best known of these poisons was curare.

D

5

Social and Political Organization

Because food productivity was relatively limited on terre firme soils, most cultures of the Amazon Basin were village-level societies. In contrast to the large chiefdoms and states of the Andes, these societies consisted of isolated, politically autonomous settlements ranging in size from 100 to 500 people. All people were born with the same social status, but they could achieve higher status depending on their individual talents. The usual leader of a village society was a headman, whose charisma and prowess in societal activities made him “first among equals.” Headmen were often also shamans (religious leaders and healers) who performed various rites. In the Amazon várzea, greater agricultural productivity along the riverbanks supported the development of two large chiefdom societies, the Tapajós and the Omagua. Each of these societies included dozens of settlements, populations of many thousands of people, and powerful chiefs.

D

6

Warfare

Warfare and raiding were common among indigenous groups in the Amazon Basin, although the nature of warfare varied widely. For example, the Mundurucú of the southern Amazon Basin carried out long-distance warfare. Every year large groups of men traveled more than 1,000 km (600 mi) from their territory in the headwaters of the Xingú River, to raid villages near its confluence with the Amazon River. The Mundurucú killed large numbers of people and cut off their victims’ heads. They brought the heads home as trophies used to magically enhance hunting success. Warfare among the Ynomamö of the northern Amazon Basin, on the other hand, involved small numbers of deaths and long-running feuds between villages. These feuds meant that villages had to continually establish political alliances, however shaky, with other villages. Conflict among the Ynomamö ran along a scale of violence. In its most benign form, conflict consisted of chest and kidney pounding between pairs of men. At the other end of the spectrum, on occasion the Ynomamö practiced a treacherous trick called nohomori, in which they invited their neighbors over for a feast but killed as many of them as possible shortly after their arrival.

The Shuar of the western Amazon Basin were known as fierce warriors and became famous for their practice of preserving and shrinking their victims’ heads. Upon attacking a local household and killing one or more of its occupants, the Shuar immediately cut off their victims’ heads. The face and hair were peeled from the skull, then boiled, dried, and heated until the head had shrunken down to the size of a human fist. These heads, called tsantsas, were kept as trophies that were believed to have magical powers and bring good fortune. In the late 19th century, demand by European tourists and curio collectors created a brisk trade in shrunken heads, which for a time actually encouraged the Shuar to kill their enemies. In the early 20th century, to curb the problem, the governments of Ecuador and Peru outlawed trading in human heads.

D

7

Settlement and Housing

The houses of the Amazon Basin were usually made of a framework of poles or logs covered with palm thatch. They ranged in size from small lean-tos used for a single family to huge, vaultlike structures up to 60 m (200 ft) long that sheltered large groups of people. In the hotter areas the houses had no walls. Villagers often slept in hammocks suspended in the air, in part to avoid poisonous insects and snakes on the ground beneath. Many indigenous people in the Amazon Basin still live much in this manner today.

The layout of villages varied widely throughout the Amazon Basin. Mundurucú villages consisted of a circular distribution of houses around a clearing. All of the men lived in a large, open-sided structure on the western edge of the circle, while the women, girls, and young boys lived in smaller enclosed dwellings around the rest of the clearing. The open sides of the men’s house reflected the Mundurucú belief that men should be dominant and in control of everyone else in the village. Ynomamö villages, in contrast, consisted of a single circular structure called a shabono that contained about 125 people and surrounded a large plaza. Because of the constant threat of surprise attacks by nearby villages, the outer walls were constructed of closely spaced poles to provide protection against arrows. Shuar settlements were single household dwellings containing one man, his several wives, and their children. Like the Ynomamö structures, the walls were built with closely spaced poles for protection against attack. Further security was provided by dry ditches around the settlement, which were filled with sharpened sticks designed to wound or kill unwary attackers.