Ethnicity and Culture amidst New Neighbors

In ‘Ethnicity and Culture amidst New Neigbors’(1999), Theodore Macdonald Jr chronicles changes in the lives and culture of an indigenous group named the Runa whose traditional land lies within the Amazonian region of the nation state of Ecuador. The book outlines the Runa’s more ‘traditional’ way of life prior to major European colonization of their area and the factors that left them more untouched by colonial pressures, allowing them to maintain this pattern of life and maintain their belief system even after extensive Spanish colonization of the Amazon region. The book focuses particularly on the Runa’s various and changing responses to colonization and modernization that threatened them with loss of land and culture and impeded their self-determination as they battled for control over their lives and for their cultural survival in a changing social and political environment. Macdonald (1999) documents predominantly their shift from passive tolerance of colonizers and acceptance of modernization to an active social movement which led to the creation of strong political organisation and with it the emergence of new pan-Indian ethnicity.

Macdonald (1999) first gives a broad overview of ‘traditional’ Runa life, explaining Runa social organization, kinship, ritual practice and indigenous ideas of territory and land use. He also examines Runa cosmology, including ideas about how the world should be ordered and the nature of interpersonal relationships. These beliefs guide social norms and provide a framework for interpreting and understanding the world and their place in it, especially in regards to non-Indians. The expected social norm is that Runa are “considerate, sensitive, and respectful” (Macdonald 1999: 34) and Runa culture demands a “submissive and empathetic attitude to ‘others’ ” (Macdonald 1999: 35). Additionally, within Runa culture there are deep rooted patterns of reciprocity and the belief that knowledge is gained through intimate, face-to-face relationships; all cultural factors which undoubtedly influenced their initial response to the new colonisers.

The Runa maintained their traditional way of life as well as retaining their unique cultural beliefs right up into the mid-twentieth century simply due to the degree of isolation that history afforded them. Their location in the Upper Napo, to some extent, remained out of reach and slightly less dramatically affected by early colonial pressures. Nonetheless, the Runa are of course not ‘untouched’ by the effects of European colonialism. In some ways they would have surely felt the consequences of the massive rubber boom of late 19^th century, the extensive missionization of the region and present day resource extraction on their land. However, since Runa territory historically occupied land that was further away from the busy hub at the mouth of the Amazon, they managed to somewhat avoid the enslavement and forced labour that numerous other indigenous groups experienced under the colonial regime, a remoteness also afforded them a degree of protection from early missionization. Furthermore, the indigenous groups in these areas also actually benefitted from the colonizers presence; both historically and contemporarily. During the height of the rubber boom Runa men collected rubber for non-indigenous patrons in exchange for valued trade goods. More recently, oil drilling and resource extraction on Runa territory provided them with the opportunity for short-term wage employment. Since this work was only temporary it did not having any major lasting impacts of the pre-existing social and economic organizations. They still continued in a mostly traditional way and this maintained a degree of self-determination by carefully managing their involvement in colonial affairs.

It was the rubber boom in particular that that created the nature of early inter-ethnic relationships in the Amazon. For many indigenous peoples, involvement with a patron was their primary interaction with Europeans. These patrons, always of European or mestizo background arrived in the Upper Napo region bearing inexpensive gifts for indigenous peoples in return for cheap labour, an exchange that commonly locked indigenous peoples into a cycle of debt servitude. Although these relationships were a form of social control and indebted workers were often exploited, the Runa were not just however helpless victims of this practice. They frequently entered into these relationships willingly and they were well thought out strategic decisions with specific patrons being specially picked to meet the needs of an individual or the group (Macdonald 1999:52). Although asymmetrical, these relationships were in some nature reciprocal; the patrons used and exploited indigenous workers for their own ends, yet to some degree they also relied on them. Alternatively the Runa also used the patrons for their own needs. The reciprocal nature of the relationship was vital when the Runa were confronted with any kind of legal issue; they sought the assistance of the patrons. Furthermore, the patrons became an integral as cultural brokerage between Indian and Non-Indian society. The reciprocal aspect of these relationship, albeit asymmetrical and the face-to-face nature worked for the Runa since they fit into a pre-existing cultural framework. These relationships dictated the nature of inter-ethnic relationships for centuries. However, this all began to change with the separation of church and state and increased government intervention aiming to put an end to Indian abuses in the region. Faceless governments and institutions began to assert more control over the Runa’s lives; their changing policies regarding land use and government sponsored colonization programs resulted in a wave of settlers into Runa territory.

At first the Runa did not see these early colonisers as a threat. They had originally settled on land that lay between Runa territory and that of their hostile neighbours, the Huaorani. Since the Runa hoped then that the location of the new settlement would act as a buffer thus protecting them from future Huaorani attacks, they passively accepted the colonists (Macdonald 1999: 61). In fact, during the early stages of settlement the Runa even went so far as to openly embrace the colonists ‘modern’ farming practices. It was the Runa themselves who drove the shift to cattle ranching and involvement in the commercial market as a new means of subsistence. Prior to the colonists arrival, the Runa like many other Amazonian groups traditionally practiced slash and burn, or swidden horticulture, an ancient and ecologically viable adaptation to the limiting conditions of the neotropics that has been “practiced for at least 5,000 years in Amazonia” (Macdonald 1999: 16). Slash and burn horticulture refers to small plots of land that are cleared within a forest, through clearing vegetation (the ‘slash’ aspect) and then completely cleared using carefully managed fires to remove the remaining shrubbery (the ‘burn’). The remnants of the fire will be left and constitute highly valuable fertilizer, adding greatly needed minerals to the agriculturally poor soils, a method of farming that is often seen as primitive, backwards and the antithesis of modernization.

The arrival of the colonists marked a shift from traditional horticulture towards an adoption of cattle ranching and a greater involvement in the commercial, national market on the part of the Runa. Although the presence of the settlers did change traditional subsistence practices it did not function to eradicate their culture, but instead served the opposite; to served to create a strong and distinct sense of boundaries and cultural identity where it previously been absent. The Runa had not previously had a need to think about ethnicity since “to a large extent history allowed them a degree of isolation in which they focused more on each other than on other groups, in a sense, they [had] placed their ideas and concerns with ethnicity in the background” (Macdonald 1999: 44). However, this situation began to change as more and more settlers arrived and attempted to gain land titles to traditional Runa land. The concept of property ownership did not exist within indigenous Runa culture, it instead understood land as more communal with unstated rules about land use and who had access to what territories, all of which was “governed” through traditional social organizations. For the Runa community land did have defined boundaries, they were just not explicitly stated. Colonization obviously changed all this, since it brought with it European ideas of land ownership. A major issue was that traditional slash and burn horticulture mimics the natural biodiversity of the forest with farmers carefully managing the landscape, however to Europeans the forest appeared to be unused and uncultivated and therefore unoccupied (Macdonald 1999: 15-16). Consequently, plots were cleared and land was parceled out into individual lots. The Runa’s formally passive attitude towards the settlers changed when they realised they were in grave danger of losing their traditional land. In response the Runa first approached missionaries to assist them in claiming land titles to their ancestral land. They were surprisingly and uncommonly successful in their goal for the time and location, and most adult men managed to claim title to one of these plots.

Then came the major threat to their self-determinism; the Agrarian Reform Laws of 1973. This new government policy intended to increase agricultural productivity in Ecuador, but as a result the Runa found themselves pressured by the government to increase the agricultural output of their land or have all “uncultivated” land expropriated. Uncultivated in this sense, to the government, meant a shift to modernization and a greater reliance on cattle ranching. During this time the Runa gained access to new capital in the form of wages and bank loans with which they were encouraged to buy cattle. The Runa’s shift from slash and burn horticulture to the adoption of cattle ranching can perhaps be seen as adaptation, a means of survival maybe, “viewing local change as a response to current national policies” (Macdonald 1999: 72). The new sources of income as well as shifting cultural practices facilitated many young Runa to leave their traditional forest communities to attend universities in the cities. As a result these indigenous youths were exposed to more frequent inter-ethnic interactions and relationships and university introduced them to various theories pertaining to the general status of indigenous peoples in Latin America, the political and economic processes which lay at the root of their ascribed subordinate status, the concept of “dependency theory”, the unequal nature of powerful countries and third-world dependents from whom they extracted infinite resources, all of which created a greater sense of self and a better understanding of their unequal status and inherent human and indigenous rights (Macdonald 1999: 85)

All these factors combined to create a unique situation for the Runa. Faced with this new and greater threat to their ancestral land due to the Agrarian Land Reform Laws and armed with the knowledge and understanding of their situation the Runa responded with a change of tactic. So “in sharp contrast to the Runa’s previous responses to their subordinate status the region became the earliest setting for a social movement that has now proliferated and evolved throughout much of Latin America” (Macdonald 1999: 6). Following in the footsteps of their neighbours the Shuar, the created a major socio-political movement to fight the issues of colonization from within and at its core lay a heightened sense of unique ethnic identity. After deliberation, the Federation of Indian Organizations of Napo (FOIN) was created, a name which was chosen to re-affirm a sense of ethnic identity and captured the broader goals of the organisation.

Initially FOIN did not gain much support from the government or the church alike; they were met with government red tape along their way and relied primarily on the funding of donors. They had wanted to further Runa causes and win land claims cases, but were met with numerous blockades. Additionally, various failed attempts at cultural programs like the forest management program all hindered their progress and support. In response the Runa realised that they had to put their individual and local goals aside in favour of a broader pan-Amazonian Indian identity and a broad recognition of traditional indigenous rights (Macdonald 1999: 88).They banded together with other groups and organisations in similar positions to create a strong national political movement. Their organisation began to gain legitimization on the international level thus governmental support and major titles to their land (Macdonald 1999: 99). These major political ethnic federations facilitated Runa self-determination and were based on “three primary concerns: 1) to defend their member communities’ rights to land and resources 2) to expand and strengthen their organizations 3) to maintain their unique ethnic identity” (Macdonald 1999: 90). The Runa fought hard and made the decision to involve themselves in the legal and political sphere in order to maintain their rights, their cultural identity as a distinct people and the ability to self-determination over their own lives without interference from national governments.

Shannon Turner-Riley

ANTH 391: Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon

Instructor: Dr Peter Stahl

Book Report 2

Friday 2^nd November, 2011

Indigenous Amazonian Survival Strategies in Response to Colonialism

 There are various existing theories within anthropology that are used to explain the cultural practices of the indigenous peoples of the Neotropical lowlands of South America. These groups are typically practitioners of slash and burn horticulture, living in small isolated nomadic groups throughout the tropical forests. Traditionally, within anthropology more of a functionalist approach has been taken in explaining their cultural practices, focusing on historical and environmental determinism as the reason behind adaptation and change. However, a more recent perspective within the discipline stresses the historical interactions between indigenous peoples in this area and arriving European colonizers as the root of cultural change. This theory sees the nature of indigenous cultures today as the result of indigenous reaction to various historical processes.

 As a means of survival, indigenous peoples of the lowland tropics were forced to adopt various strategies in the wake of European conquest of the Americas. With a focus on the newer ‘historical turn’ model which emphasises the long term effects of historical interactions between indigenous peoples and western socio-political structures after the onset of European colonization, indigenous peoples are seen neither unchanging primitives of pristine natural environments nor as hopeless victims of an inevitable historical course. Thus its sees contemporary cultural behaviour practices as a result of historical reactions to this new threat.

 In the decades and centuries following Spanish conquest vast numbers of indigenous cultures simply vanished. It is difficult to asses the scale of the death toll, but various recent theories suggest that the perhaps as many as 90% of the original indigenous inhabitants of the Americas died, directly or indirectly, as result of colonialism. Yet, others survived against the odds, in the sense that they have become neither ‘extinct’ nor have they been completely assimilated into western society. Indigenous people in the Amazon area today are the descendents of these survivors. In certain, often remote places, indigenous cultures have not only survived but flourished. It is certainly no coincidence that the most vibrant cultures are found in remote and isolated forest habitats, the people there today either survived in their ancestral homes due to their remoteness, or survived there because they fled to the remotest areas to escape the colonial regime. Anthropologist William Balée of Tulane University in Louisiana outlines five possible survival strategies that may have been adopted as a response to the colonial regime. He states that indigenous peoples could choose to;

 1) Resist colonization at the risk of extermination, usually through disease or outright warfare.

 2) Submit to colonial forces in order to survive and serve as mercenaries for them.

3) Flee to the forest, as far away from colonial society as possible and revert to nomadic hunter-gathering as a form of subsistence.

4) Flee to the forest maintaining a ‘trekking’ lifestyle; depending on fast growing crops and then leaving after the annual cycle is completed.

5) Flee to remotest forests to establish a village and depend on slow growing crops far from the reach of colonial society.

 

Balée’s first suggestion that indigenous groups could choose to resist colonization would more than likely result in the extermination of the group, either indirectly through disease or through outright warfare against them. If they choose to resist and stay on their lands they would most likely still attempt to practice their traditional form of subsistence; an ancient and ecologically adaptive method of cultivation known as swidden or slash and burn horticulture. Slash and burn horticulture refers to small plots of land that are cleared within a forest, through slashing down vegetation (the ‘slash’ part) and then fully cleared using carefully managed fires to remove the remaining shrubbery (the ‘burn’). The remnants of the fire will be left and constitute highly valuable fertilizer, adding greatly needed minerals to the agriculturally poor soils.

 An important aspect of these garden plots is the use of shifting cultivation, meaning there is a shift in focus on different types of vegetation throughout the process; the gardens pass through various stages throughout their life cycle. When the garden is first cleared, farmers plant high nutrient demanding crops such as corn, whereas in the later stages of the garden they transition to crops like manioc which survive well in the lesser quality soils. Since tropical rainforest systems are so fragile and the vegetation relies on a very thin and poor soil base, this method of subsistence means that the already existing natural ecosystem is not destroyed but instead crops and valuable wild resources are all carefully maintained. Additionally, the use of long fallow periods means that the fragile soils are never depleted over their nutrients and are given time to recover, a practice that is highly sustainable in the long term. This type of horticulture has been practiced in Amazonia for more than 5,000 years. Prior to European contact it seems that this way of life was perfectly adapted to the unique and limiting conditions of the neotropics. However, this has all begun to change, particularly in recent years due to resource extraction on traditional indigenous land with oil drilling, coal mining and logging as well as an influx of colonists, settlers and ranchers who clear large tracts of land to create pasture for cattle ranching. These practices all inflict irreversible and detrimental damage to the fragile forest ecosystem, impeding the ‘traditional’ indigenous way of life.

 Even if indigenous groups did manage to resist certain colonial pressures an unfortunate but likely scenario would be an immense loss of life to Old World diseases. Historical documents and cotemporary studies indicate that western diseases, which arrived in the New World with the arrival of the first European explorers, absolutely devastated indigenous populations all over the Americas. They created major epidemics due to the lack of resistance to common European infections amongst indigenous populations to diseases such as measles, whooping cough, influenza and even the common cold. These diseases not only followed early routes of European exploration, but were also carried unknowingly along indigenous trade roots, wiping out early populations even years before any European ever set foot in an area. Evidence for this can perhaps be seen in the western lowlands of the Amazon Basin. Early historical sources as well as archaeological evidence seem to suggest that this area was highly populated prior to European arrival, however when the first Spanish settlers arrived they described it as a ‘no man’s land’; void of people. This would suggest that most of the original inhabitants had either died or fled the area.

 

Additionally, the indigenous groups would have been subjected to attacks by Spanish soldiers as well as military invasions resulting in the forcible removal of tribes from their land. However, warfare would not have been just limited to European-Indian conflicts, Spanish presence and colonial factors such as slavery, forced labour and missionization would have undoubtedly changed the nature of indigenous warfare as well. As the colonizers spread and indigenous groups either fled or were removed from their homes, people pushed from their land were trying to find new homes and other tribes sought to protect their territory. Colonial pressures created endemic conflict between indigenous groups over land and resources an example of which can be seen among the Yanomamö of Brazil. The now infamous anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, who became well known for his highly questionable unethical work among the Yanomamö, documented a ritual feast known as the ‘Nomohoni’ or treacherous feast. It was initiated with gossiping and accusations of cowardice, stinginess and fights over women and then which progressed into chest pounding, slapping and even spear fights. The fights were usually over women and often resulted in raids to obtain women from neighbouring groups. Chagnon’s work lead to the Yanomamö gaining a reputation as iconic indigenous warriors obsessed with violence. It was later revealed that this practice was not as traditional and ancient as Changnon had previously suggested but instead a direct result of European contact. The Yanomamö have had a long history of contact and involvement with Europeans and this abnormal state of warfare came about as a result of the high value they placed on European steel trade goods. Due to this the group began to move their villages closer to trading outposts in order to gain monopoly over imported goods but this required the need to keep male relatives around to maintain the control. This marked a shift in their traditional residence patterns; since the Yanomamö were traditionally matrilocal, the focus on men to maintain the monopoly meant that villages became patrilocal instead resulting in not enough women for the men. The solution was to raid for women.

 

William Balée’s second suggestion was that groups could choose to submit to, as oppose to resist colonial forces, as a means of survival and frequently opted to serve as mercenaries for them. As mercenaries for the colonial regime indigenous Amazonians worked on behalf of Europeans assisting them in local armed conflicts against other tribes and furthered colonial interests. The main motivation for their involvement would presumably have been both monetary as well as the protection of and freedom from colonial forces. The Mindurucú tribe of the Brazilian Amazon are one such group that took on this role during the colonial era. They were feared throughout the area as fierce and powerful warriors and are infamous for their taking of trophy heads. Although the ethical issues of their involvement in European conquests has been raised, it was certainly this role that allowed for their survival as a group and the reason they remain culturally strong today.

 

If indigenous people choose to submit to colonial forces presumably they would either have stayed in their traditional villages or would instead perhaps have been moved onto church reserves under the guise of missionization. Here they would have had the somewhat dubious protection of Jesuit missionaries, however these missionaries also often used indigenous people as labourers for their own gains. Furthermore, indigenous people were often coerced into forced labour as indebted labourers or opted to involve themselves in the commercial endeavours of early Europeans, often collect items from the forest or working as wage labourers during the rubber boom.

 Balée suggests thirdly that indigenous peoples could opt to flee to the forest, as far away from colonial society as they could possibly get and revert to nomadic hunter-gathering as a form of subsistence. Contemporary nomadic tribes in the Amazon have not always practiced this way of life; instead it is a method of subsistence that occurred as a direct repose to colonial pressures. Nomadic people in this area today are regressed agriculturalists; they were once sedentary farmers. Agricultural regression refers to the process of loss of the ability to practice farming resulting in eventually resorting to hunting and gathering. These groups must then rely on wild products or the domesticated remnants of agroforestry left behind by their predecessors. Evidence for this can be seen in the fact that most nomadic peoples have an in-depth knowledge of numerous crops and the ability to cultivate them should the circumstances require it. Furthermore, these cultures have their own array of detailed terms for these crops within their local indigenous language.

 Another indigenous response to colonial pressures that suggested by Balée is that groups could flee to the forest and depend on fast growing crops while maintaining a ‘trekking’ lifestyle. Trekking refers to groups that split up for extended periods of time throughout year, abandon their villages and embark on extended gathering excursions into the forest. These groups tend to live primarily in the savannas of Amazonia and spend long periods on trekking and hunting expeditions in the immense and remote gallery forests that boarder the banks of the Amazon. The savannas of the Amazon region in terms of geography lie between the equator and equatorial forests; they are characterized by great seasonality and extended dry seasons, frequently lasting over seven months and resulting in dry desert like conditions. Any vegetation that does exist is often fire and drought tolerant, but agriculturally quite poor. The great seasonality tends to result in there either being too much or too little water at any given time, these harsh environmental conditions create agriculturally poor lateralized soils. There are numerous savannas that exit across the Amazonian basin from the Llanos of Colombia and Venezuela, to the Rupununi savannas of Guyana and Brazil and the Llanos de Mojos in Bolivia.

 The trekking lifestyle that is utilized by people in these areas consists of a mixed subsistence pattern; part agriculture, part hunting and gathering. Groups who use this practice first will plant high yield fast growing crops, various seed and cuttings in small cleared plots before the onset of the rainy season. They then abandon their villages and gardens after the annual cycle is completed to embark on long trekking trips into the forest to hunt and to gather plants. An example of contemporary inhabitants of savannas and practitioners of this lifestyle are the Kayapo of the Brazilian Cerrado. This group of indigenous Gê speakers is known to use more than 98% of the indigenous gallery forest vegetation, suggesting perhaps that these environments are more anthropogenic than originally thought.

 The final indigenous response that Baleé suggests in that groups could flee to most remote and isolated forests and establish a village in undesirable areas. Here they could establish traditional gardens, rely on slow growing crops and practice slash and burn agriculture far from the reach of colonial society. Groups which employed this strategy of survival found that by fleeing to isolated and undesirable areas they could, to some extent, maintain their traditional lifestyles. The most vibrant and numerous indigenous cultures can be found today in the remote and agriculturally poor areas around Blackwater Ecosystems, this is because the soils are so lateralized and poor they are of little interest to national governments in terms of development and agriculture programs. These river systems drain ecologically poor areas that are characterised by closed nutrient cycling vegetation, plants with anti-predator mechanisms (poisons and toxins) and highly acidic soils none of which is conducive to agriculture. The Rio Negro is the largest Blackwater ecosystem and home to many vibrant indigenous communities. Here communities had to adapt to the poor soils by relying heavily on shifting cultivation and having extended fallow periods for gardens, sometimes upwards of thirty years. It is also here that the greatest reliance on bitter manioc and the greatest elaboration in preparation of this potentially poisonous plant can be found since this crop does remarkably well in the poor soils.

 Evidence supporting the theory that these groups fled to this area to escape colonial pressures comes in various forms. Firstly, many communities have origin myths that stress their origins outside the areas they currently inhabit. The Tukanoan tribe of the Vaupes Blackwater ecosystems stresses their ancestral home and place of origin as the ‘milk river’, a reference to the silted Whitewater river system of the Amazon. Numerous other groups also know they came from somewhere else and this is reflected in their origin myths. The Chaci of the pacific lowlands claim to have left their Andean homeland during the 1530s, after the Inca were defeated. Additionally, within the Tsátchela tribe, also of the pacific lowlands, volcanoes play an important role in their religion and the group has an in-depth knowledge of mountains despite there being no mountains anywhere nearby. They too seem to trace origins back to Andes. It seems then that at a time of immense violent and oppressive European presence in the Andean highlands that created upheaval and change, completely desecrating the Incan Empire certain groups did flee, supporting Baleé’s original theory. A further line of evidence supporting the presence and nature of these contemporary communities in this area as a direct response to colonial pressures can be seen with the high levels of multilingualism found amongst groups  in the Vaupes blackwater ecosystem. There are suggestions that this is not a traditional, pre-Columbian pattern, but instead a result of historical factors and the fissioning of various groups that fled to the area after colonial era.

 These types of interactions between indigenous cultures and western socio-political structures are not a thing of the past, but continue in various forms today. In this neo-colonial, rather than post colonial era we inhabit these types of interactions, power struggles over resources and the subjugating of non-European peoples continues to happen, not as explicitly perhaps as in the past, but subtle forms of colonialism remain. This is exemplified in the current conflicts over oil drilling on indigenous land in the Ecuadorian Amazon region, as documented in the short film “Trinkets and Beads”. This documentary followed the Huaorani indigenous group as they fought to remove oil companies from their ancestral land. It showed the immense destruction that oil extraction had inflicted on the environment, including massive deforestation, pollution of the air, and contamination of the streams and rivers which in turn had killed off much of the wildlife. Additionally, the toxins released into the air and water supplies created severe and long lasting range health complications for the indigenous population.

 A long list of questionable and unethical practices can be chalked up against the various oil companies that operated on Huaorani land. Firstly, it seems they were closely involved with missionaries who came to “civilize” the Huaorani, which ultimately meant removing them from their remote villages onto church ran reserves. With the indigenous inhabitants gone, the desirable land was free for development. Many of the indigenous groups were never consulted and did not give permission for oil companies to start prospecting on their land. The Huaorani did not want any drilling on their land as they had seen the lasting damage and destruction to the environment that years of oil extraction had done on neighbouring tribes land. Those that did give some form of permission were not fairly compensated for the true value of the resources that had been extracted. Additionally, extraction and development pushed indigenous people off their land and out of their homes, which they were also never compensated for. Most shockingly perhaps is that rather than creating deep underground wells, as is customary practice when drilling in North America, the oil companies pumped the waste crude oil and water mixture into large lagoons, which contaminated the water supply. They then separated the oil from the mixture and disposed of it by spreading the toxious mixture on the roads causing vast environmental damage and made living off the land almost impossible. Together these factors threatened the Huaorani’s traditional way of life through loss of land, resources, subsistence and culture.

 In response, various indigenous groups lobbied against the oil companies with the help of lawyers. They staged protests and picketed outside the main offices, all with little or no effect. The oil companies did not compensate them either for the resources or the damage that had been caused; instead they ignored demands, manipulated the situation and offered bribes to appease groups.

The language used, particularly by the American missionaries and oil executives alike had very ethnocentric undertones and frequent explicit statements that mirrored outdated colonial ideas about “civilisation” and “progress”. The Huaorani were referred to as godless heathens living in sin and that the only way forward for them was to accept western culture. In reality the practices and attitudes of the oil companies in particular almost exactly mirrored those of the colonial regime.

 

Self-determination can be outlined as the innate right and ability of a person to make choices regarding their own life without any influence from external sources. In regards to indigenous peoples it is a process initiated within indigenous communities by which they take control of their future and decide how to will address any issues and challenges facing them. Considering this various key issues need to be met to insure indigenous self-determination. Primarily ideas, initiatives and solutions should come from within the community. They should asses their own needs and goals should be set by the community and carried out by indigenous peoples, in some cases with outside assistance and support but in a collaborative way which does perpetuate dependency. This belief is mirrored by The United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which emphasizes “the rights of indigenous peoples to maintain and strengthen their own institutions, cultures and traditions, and to pursue their development in keeping with their own needs and aspirations” (United Nations : 2007)

  Additionally, indigenous peoples must be allowed to maintain a distinct sense of ethnicity, culture and language and be able to continue important cultural practices which hold the communities together. In instances where a long history of colonialism, European contact and oppressive government policies have threatened cultural practices, cultural identity and resulted in loss of language, groups should be assisted with cultural and linguistic restoration, revitalization and growth programs spurred by communities. Furthermore, indigenous groups must have recognised land titles to ancestral and traditional indigenous lands, which would imply some sort of acknowledgment that the land provides a cultural and spiritual base for many indigenous communities. This would also include having enough land to practice traditional subsistence patterns should they so desire, having a say in the use resources on their land and being compensated in for any resources extracted from indigenous land. In order to insure this, indigenous groups would probably have to attempt to gain legal rights to their lands.

 All in all it shows the importance of community members being able to navigate political and social institutions outside of their own in order to maintain a degree of self-determinism. Since they are not “isolated”, but find themselves with in contemporary nation states, whose policies affect their lives it is vital that indigenous groups have a knowledge of and participation in the political sphere so that they might pursue their own visions of economic and social development. Such a situation is exemplified with the case of various indigenous groups of western Amazonia, namely the Shuar and Runa tribes of Ecuador. In response to various pressures and the threat of colonisation and oil extraction the Runa, like the Shuar before them, banded together to create a strong indigenous self governed political organisation to represent the interests of indigenous peoples.

Their organisation, the Federation of Indian Organisations (FOIN), like many other Pan-Indian groups in South America lobbied for legal titles to traditional land, petitioned for compensation for extracted resources and environmental damage and initiated legal action and law suits against major international oil companies that had occupied their land. Maintaining a strong and visible presence on the political scene allowed them to gain support of international groups and NGOs which legitimised their cause and later led to the Ecuadorian government acknowledging some of their requests. Thus demonstrating that with knowledge of the political system and an ability to navigate it, indigenous people can be self-determinate and gain control over their own futures. 

Shannon Turner-Riley

ANTH 391: Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon

Instructor: Dr Peter Stahl
Midterm 2

Friday 2^nd November, 2011

References Cited

The United Nations.
2007 Decleration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, U.N General Assembly.
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/declaration.html, accessed 29^th November, 2011