06 Scaramelli 2005 Roles of Material Culture in The Colonization of The Orinoco

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Journal of Social Archaeology
ARTICLE
Copyright 2005 SAGE Publications (www.sagepublications.com)

ISSN 1469-6053 Vol 5(1): 135168 DOI: 10.1177/1469605305050152
The roles of material culture in the

colonization of the Orinoco, Venezuela
FRANZ SCARAMELLI
Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, USA
KAY TARBLE DE SCARAMELLI

Escuela de Antropologa, Universidad Central de Venezuela,Venezuela and
Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, USA
ABSTRACT
The analysis of exchange and commerce, the introduction and
consumption of foreign manufactures and technologies, and the
process of commoditization of Native material products, service and
labor, provides the background for the examination of long-term
historical process and Native cultural response in the face of different
colonial and post-colonial circumstances in the Middle Orinoco. Our
analysis focuses on the exchange relations and the forms of incorporation of Western objects and practices into Native cultures in the
region. We trace the impact of certain material items as they
contributed to the transformations undergone by local indigenous
societies, and offer examples of the differential consequences of the
incorporation of foreign manufactures and practices into Native structures of consumption and systems of values. The two cases analyzed
in this article concern the incorporation of items of Western dress and
the introduction of alcoholic beverages. Through insights derived
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Journal of Social Archaeology 5(1)
from the archaeological record, historical accounts, and ethnographic

descriptions, we discuss the way in which these commodities served
as the medium for the articulation of strategies on the part of the
Native and colonial agents. While the colonial strategy was designed
to create and perpetrate relations of dependency and domination over
the local population, the indigenous strategy aimed at increasing
personal political power and enhancing status.
KEYWORDS
colonialism drinking practice
culture social body
exchange
identity
material
INTRODUCTION
Archaeological studies of the colonial process in Latin America gathered
momentum in the wake of political debates surrounding the 500th anniversary of first contact (Deagan, 1998; Orser, 1996). Following this event,
there was a marked increase in archaeological research in areas previously
underrepresented in the literature, especially those found on the periphery
of the main thrust of European efforts in South America (Curbelo, 1999;
Funari, 1997; Funari et al., 1999, 2003; Gassn, 2000; Kern, 1994, 1996;
Poujade, 1992; Quiroga, 1999; Sanoja, 1998a,b; Sanoja et al., 1995; Sanoja
and Vargas, 2002; Senatore, 1995; Soares, 1997; Zarankin, 1995). Although
the occasion promoted more critical analyses of the major paradigms and
contributions in the scholarship of conquest (Stern, 1993), the study of
contact and colonization involving people previously unknown to each
other continues to pose an extraordinary intellectual challenge.
Over the years, anthropology has intensified its attempts to overcome its
parochial concerns with small-scale, isolated cultural phenomena,
confronting issues derived from the global process of Western expansion.
Acculturation theory dominated early attempts to analyze situations of
contact. This approach tended to stress the inevitability of acculturation
and the superiority of the dominant culture. Acculturation was measured
in terms of trait lists, which translated to imported items in most archaeological analyses (Cheek, 1974; Rogers, 1990; Spicer, 1961; SSRC, 1954).
More recently, archaeologists have become increasingly aware of the limitations of unidirectional acculturation theories, and have turned to more
encompassing, multidirectional, ethnogenetic and creollization approaches
(Cusick, 1998; Deagan, 1998; Ewen, 2000; Gasco, 1992; Hoffman, 1997).
These studies have stressed the interaction between cultures resulting in
the creation of a mosaic, syncretism, or the reformulation of the cultures
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Scaramelli & Scaramelli
The roles of material culture in the Orinoco
that came into contact. This approach has found a place in certain colonial
contexts, especially those where mestizaje, assimilation, or transculturation were the dominant results, such as in the Antilles, Northern
Venezuela, or in the Spanish Florida colonies (Acosta Saignes, 1961; Bonfil
Batalla, 1978; Deagan, 1998; Ewen, 2000; Ortiz, 1947; Whitehead, 1996).
At the same time, other anthropologists and archaeologists seeking a
more comprehensive theoretical paradigm for studies of colonial contact
turned to world system theories, developed by economists and historians
during the 1970s (Frank, 1978, 1990; Wallerstein, 1974, 1980). These studies
stressed the expansion of global mercantilism and capitalism, and the
civilizing projects that accompanied colonial involvement worldwide
(Frankenstein and Rowlands, 1978; Roseberry, 1989; Schortman and
Urban, 1992; Wolf, 1982). By focusing on colonial relations of economic
and political power, these approaches found in a structural Marxist analysis
an elegant explanation for the expansion of capitalism and had a major
impact on anthropological studies of colonial contact. Since the world was
no longer conceived as a set of isolated cultural entities (Wolf, 1982), but
as a network of interconnected social aggregates, indigenous societies,
campesinos, and other rural people were no longer perceived as isolated,
pristine vestiges of the past, living at the fringes of civilization. They came
to be recognized as an important part, and perhaps, in some cases, the
result, of a global scale history of colonial expansion.
Although this approach made various important contributions to the
practice of anthropology in general, and to archaeology in particular, a
number of serious theoretical problems have come to light. On the one
hand, the conception of global interaction as the articulation of modes of
production led to overly mechanistic and reductionist interpretations. On
the other hand, the model was inherently Euro-centric and tended to overemphasize the role of the core as determining the processes occurring in
the peripheries. Moreover, its incapacity to take into consideration
indigenous historical agency precluded the understanding of variations in
colonial encounter situations (Dietler, 1995, 1998), and tended to obscure
the role of local cultural forces in the conformation of the world system
itself (Sahlins, 1988, 1992, 1993). As a result, these models came to reproduce the inadequacies of previous theoretical approaches, as they privileged, even while criticizing, the impact of European expansion by
assuming, a priori, the nature and direction of historical processes
(Comaroff, 1985: 3).
In response to this popular, but problematical approach, recent literature on the historical anthropology of colonialism has underlined the need
to move toward more dynamic and multi-dimensional approaches to
contact situations (Cohn, 1996; Comaroff and Comaroff, 1991, 1992, 1997;
Dietler, 1995, 1998; Roseberry, 1988, 1989; Sahlins, 1992, 1993; Stein, 2002;
Wolf, 1982). The role of culture as an historical product and agent, an
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emphasis on the individual and on interest groups as actors in the process,

and concerns about agency and structure as mutually constituting historical
forces, are now placed at the forefront of the analysis (Dietler, 1995, 1998:
299; Sahlins, 1985, 1993). This promotes a better understanding of the
articulation between local and global structures of power, including the
specific mechanisms that contribute to the formation of structures of
colonial dependency and domination, on the one hand, and local processes
of formation of colonial systems, cultural resilience and defiance, on the
other. What once was treated as a one-way imposition of the colonists on
the colonized can now be analyzed as a complex and reflexive consequence
of multiple, often contradictory strategies, played out by the different
interest groups involved in the colonial situation (Deagan, 1998; Ewen,
2000; Funari, 1996; Orser, 1996; Rowlands, in Funari et al., 1999; Schrire,
1985, 1995; Trigger, 1975).
In pursuing these objectives, recent years have witnessed an increasing
interest in the role of material culture in historical processes of colonialism
(Appadurai, 1986; Comaroff and Comaroff, 1991; Cummins, 2002; Cusick,
1998; Dietler, 1995, 1998; Kirch and Sahlins, 1992; Lyons and Papadopoulos, 2002; Mintz, 1985; Roseberry, 1988, 1989; Sahlins, 1985, 1992, 1998;
Stein, 2002; Thomas, 1991, 2002). These processes, manifested in the interchange of goods, foodstuffs, architectural knowledge, technology, religious
ideas and paraphernalia, etc., can be documented in written and iconographic sources, as well as in the artifacts themselves. Therefore, material
culture provides a crucial link between these different sources that can be
employed in the study of historical situations of contact, where it is recognized that context is essential to interpretation, and meaning and value have
been shown to vary in different circumstances.
The analysis of exchange and commerce, the introduction and consumption of foreign manufactures and technologies, and the process of
commoditization of Native material products, services and labor, are
particularly informative for the examination of long-term historical process
and Native cultural response in the face of different colonial and postcolonial circumstances. The analysis we present here incorporates recent
propositions on the biographical approach of things (Appadurai, 1986;
Kopytoff, 1986), focusing on the exchange relations and the forms of incorporation of Western objects and practices into Native cultures in the
Orinoco region. We follow the impact of certain material items related to
dress and drink, as they contribute to the transformations undergone by
local indigenous societies, and present examples of the differential consequences of the incorporation of foreign manufactures and practices into
Native structures of consumption and systems of values.
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THE CIRCULATION OF MATERIAL CULTURE IN THE

ORINOCO BASIN
During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, several European nations vied
for a foothold in the Antilles and the eastern coast of South America,
resulting in various forms of colonialism, which differed in both goals and
strategies. The intervention produced profound changes in the culture,
economy and forms of socio-political organization of the local populations
and of the colonizers, as well. In many areas, these contact situations
resulted in drastic population decline, cultural transformations, and
systemic discontinuities (Deagan, 1988, 1996, 1998; Dunnell, 1991). In other
areas, to the contrary, Native reactions posed significant challenges to the
colonial intentions of the European powers.
In the Orinoco, there were no empires to conquer, no vertical structures
of power susceptible to colonial manipulation, and no easy riches. The
Europeans initially explored this territory driven by the myth of El Dorado,
but what they found was a vast network of indigenous societies with widely
different worldviews. Very few of these groups had centralized forms of
social organization; beyond the major river courses, communities were
generally small and widely dispersed; and the multiplicity of languages
spoken in the area posed a formidable barrier to the various colonial
projects. However, one mechanism that served to initialize and perpetuate
the articulation between the colonizers and the Native peoples of the
Caribbean and coastal mainland of South America was trade. The Indians
were keen for trade from the start. Certain coastal Indians, who were in a
privileged position to obtain European goods, quickly established themselves as intermediaries in the exchange networks that extended far inland
(Boomert, 1984). The competition among the English, Dutch, French and
Spanish colonizers led to the formation of shifting alliances between
European and indigenous agents that tended to favor Native enterprise,
especially in the hands of the Carib of the Lower Orinoco, and effectively
blocked Spanish attempts to establish permanent settlement in the
Guayana region for over two centuries (Lucena Giraldo, 1991; Rey Fajardo,
1966, 1971, 1974, 1988; Useche Losada, 1987; Whitehead, 1988, 1994).
When the Jesuits attempted to establish missions in the Orinoco area in
the late seventeenth century, all of Guayana and the Colombian/Venezuelan Llanos were affected by the slave trade, dominated by the Dutch/Carib
alliances on the eastern coast, and by the Portuguese and their indigenous
allies to the south, in what is now Brazil. Carib slaving/trading expeditions
posed the chief obstacle to Jesuit settlement of the Middle Orinoco. The
Caribs had a virtual monopoly on the acquisition and local trade of
European goods, which they obtained from the Dutch in advance payment
for slaves. They protected this monopoly by means of alliances with local
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groups, threats of retaliation, and physical attacks on colonial settlements

throughout the seventeenth century and into the early eighteenth century
(Morey and Morey, 1975; Whitehead, 1988).
The Spanish recognized the potential value of the Orinoco as a strategic
fluvial connection between the Colombian highlands and the Atlantic coast,
and a source of coveted tropical products, both wild and cultivated. The
Crown feared it would lose control of this crucial axis of communication
and potential source of economic benefit. Therefore, in the late seventeenth
century, the Spanish renewed efforts to colonize the region, which, until
that time, had been largely ignored. The agents charged with the task were
the different religious orders, including the Capuchins, the Observantes
and, in the Middle and Upper Orinoco, the Jesuits (Rey Fajardo, 1966,
1971, 1974, 1988; Whitehead, 1988).
As on other parts of the Spanish colonial frontier, missionary intervention in the Orinoco was primarily conceived as a major civilizing
project designed to incorporate indigenous peoples into the ChristianWestern world. The missionaries were expected to convert Native people
to Catholicism and to prepare the way for future settlement and economic
enterprise (Langer and Jackson, 1995). European strategies for domination were designed both to suppress and seduce the local population.
Military and religious strategies to this end are well documented in the
literature, with accounts of the armed recruitment and forced relocation
of indigenous groups to the missions, the punishment and persecution of
Native religious leaders, and the emphasis on the indoctrination of
children, often interned and separated from their parents (Rey Fajardo,
1966, 1971, 1974, 1988; Whitehead, 1988, 1996). Less attention has been
paid, however, to more subtle strategies that, nevertheless, may throw light
on indigenous long-term historical process and Native cultural response in
the face of contact. One of these concerns precisely the analysis of
exchange relations and the forms of incorporation of Western objects,
technology, and practices into Native cultures and the eventual consequences of these relations.
While long-distance trade had played an important role in the negotiation of inter-group relations in the pre-contact era (Boomert, 1986;
Boomert and Kroonenberg, 1977; Helms and Loveland, 1976; Lathrap,
1970), following European intervention, the introduction of certain items
such as iron tools, firearms, fish hooks, glass beads, and alcoholic beverages, changed the relations of power in favor of certain nations of the
Orinoco, and led to the acceptance, or at least tolerance, of the newly
founded missions in the area on the part of other sectors of the indigenous
population. In general, the missions were more readily accepted by several
of the more sedentary, agricultural indigenous societies of the Llanos and
the Orinoco, such as the Sliva, the Achagua, and the Mapoyo. These populations were attracted to the reducciones (mission settlements) by the lure
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of Western goods, as well as by the protection they offered against the

increasingly devastating Carib and Portuguese slave raids. In contrast to the
Dutch trading posts, where little concern was given to the civilizing
project, the mission system in the Middle Orinoco was designed to enforce
indigenous obedience to the exigencies of the Crown and the Catholic
Church (Whitehead, 1988). Military coercion played an important role in
the establishment of the missions, through the forced relocation of indigenous communities, the punishment of runaways, and the surveillance of
traffic on the river by means of the strategic placement of forts. However,
the voluntary relocation of local communities was often gained through the
liberal distribution of European goods. This gift-giving procedure, a policy
that had already been widely employed on other parts of the Spanish
borderlands (Sweet, 1995) and in other contact situations worldwide, established what has been called the material dimension of contact in the
Orinoco (Hill, 1998). The introduction of goods as gifts, and their eventual
conversion to commodities, produced profound transformations in the
area.
MATERIAL AND METHODS

The study area is delimited by the lower courses of the Suapure and the
Parguaza Rivers, two eastern tributaries of the Middle Orinoco (Figure 1,
Map). We carried out our survey during three field seasons (19982002),
based in the Mapoyo community of Palomo.1 Fieldwork included systematic surface collections, mapping, and limited excavations of a total of 19
sites, with the recovery of over 20,000 artifacts. Archaeological evidence
from pre-Hispanic, colonial and republican sites (including ancient indigenous settlements, mission towns and pueblos, cemeteries, and forts)
permitted the construction of the archaeological sequence: (a) Late PreHispanic (14001530), (b) Early Colonial2 (16801767), (c) Late Colonial
(17671830), (d) Republican (18301930) (Table 1). No sites in the study
region can be securely dated to the period between 1530 and 1680. This
sequence documents the foundation and subsequent development of the
colonial mission frontier along the Villacoa River, where the Jesuits
founded Nuestra Seora de Los ngeles de Pararuma in 1732, until their
expulsion in 1767. We also document the transformations that took place
in the area following the War of Independence as evidenced in the landscape (such as the construction of roads and paths, mission centers, alterations caused by the introduction of cattle and other European plants and
animals), in indigenous settlement patterns, in the use and construction of
space (domestic and ceremonial), in productive activities, and in indigenous material assemblages.
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142
Figure 1
Study area map showing archaeological sites
Table 1 summarizes the data as to period, type of site, type of artifact,

provenance, and associated materials. As can be seen, artifacts varied both
through time and according to the type of site. At Simonero and Los
Mangos, the two pre-contact sites included in the sample, artifacts allow
identification with the Arauquinoid and Valloid series, which date to the
late pre-contact period (Tarble and Zucchi, 1984; Zucchi et al., 1984). These
sites provide a baseline for the comparison of pre- and post-contact situations. Four sites can be securely assigned to the period of Jesuit occupation: El Fortn de San Francisco Javier de Marimarota, and Pueblo de los
Espaoles del Villacoa (known in the historical documents as Nuestra
Seora de Los ngeles de Pararuma) were settled by Jesuit missionaries
in the early 1700s. San Isidro and Piedra Rajada, located a short distance
inland from the mission sites, appear to be indigenous habitation sites
contemporaneous with the mission sites in at least part of their occupational
sequence. Artifacts located in these sites, counterparts of which are found
at the mission centers, offer material evidence of the interactive process
during colonial times. The location and layout of the colonial period sites
clearly illustrate the European strategy to control the main river course, to
impose Western ideas of urban space and industry, and to incorporate the
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local indigenous population under Spanish authority. Only two sites date
to the late colonial period, representing the final stage of Spanish rule, and
demonstrating the ephemeral presence of the earlier colonial settlements.
Finally, in contrast to the colonial period, Republican period sites are
made up of shallow scatters of artifacts, widely dispersed throughout the
inter-fluvial region; most of these sites have been identified by informants
as abandoned Mapoyo settlements. These sites are particularly useful in the
comprehension of the more recent processes and transformations that took
place in the area after the collapse of the colonial intervention, a period for
which written sources are scarce.
BOT TLES AND SPIRITS 3

The effectiveness of commensality and other forms of gift-giving as overtures to social involvement must not have been lost on the Jesuit missionaries attempting to establish a foothold in the Middle Orinoco in the late
seventeenth century. They were quick to observe that drinking was an
essential element of nearly every ritual occasion: initiation rites, funerals,
exchange parties, dances, and warfare. When the missionaries attempted to
ban drinking from the missions, they complained that the Indians carried
out their festivities in the woods, out of sight of the Fathers. Gilij, a Jesuit
missionary who spent 17 years in the Orinoco, commented on the preference the Indians expressed for distilled liquor, when available (Gilij, 1987,
Vol. 72: 133). Alcohol seems to have been such an essential part of indigenous social practice that the missionaries had to assume an attitude of tolerance with respect to their drinking. Although the European descriptions of
these practices are obviously biased, they do allow us to infer the importance of drink in the aboriginal world. Feasts, dances and drinking made up
an essential part of the ritual practice in tropical American cultures dating
back to at least 1000 BC, as attested to by the presence of large ceramic
pots used to ferment chicha (Lathrap, 1970, 1973).
In many of the lowland societies, feasts and drinking parties served as a
means to establish political alliances, gain prestige, demonstrate wealth and
generosity, and propitiate cooperative endeavors such as house building
and group hunts. Extra gardens were often planted to the sole end of
producing surplus destined for a big extra-communal party. This was the
means for display of wealth and political power limited to those men able
to garner the surplus produce of the women in his household (Overing,
1989; Overing and Kaplan, 1988; Rivire, 1983/1984). On another level,
drinking and eating were practices intimately related to dealings with the
world of gods and spirits, health and disease, fertility and depredation. In
many cases there were proscriptions according to sex and age. In the case
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Constructions
Ceramics
Beads
Metal
Glass
Pre-Hispanic
Camoruco
12001530
Los Mangos
Simonero
Low habitation
mounds
Wattle and daub
Arauquinoid
Valloid
Polished stone
None
beads and bead
polishers
None
Early exploration
and contact
Early Colonial
15301680
Carichana
Pararuma
16801767
Pueblo de los Espaoles

(Nuestra Seora de los
ngeles de Pararuma)
Pueblito del Villacoa
Fortn del Parguaza (San
Francisco Javier de
Marimarota)
Piedra Rajada
San Isidro
Stone, wattle and

daub and adobe
buildings
Wattle and daub
Small seed
beads
Cornaline
dAleppo
Faceted beads
Black beads
with white and
yellow appliqu
(Dutch)
Gooseberry
Forge knives
Nails
Buckles
Musket part
Lead bullets
Harpoons
Fish hooks
Machete
Square gin
bottles
Onionshaped
bottles
Possible
mirrors
Late Colonial
Pueblo Viejo
17681829
Pueblo Viejo
La Pica
Stone, wattle and

daub and adobe
buildings
Salt glaze
Olive jar
Delft
Bartmann
(Bellemine)
Faience
Arauquinoid (San
Isidro Style)
Valloid
Caraip
Fine sand temper
Pearl ware (English)
Shell Edge (1780
1820)
Early hand-painted
Annular ware:
Mocha
(17951860)
Boerenbont (Gaudy
Dutch)
Transfer print (1756
1820)
Caraip
Fine sand temper
Ground sherd
Sponge spicule
Drawn faceted
Russian
beads
White heart
Seed beads
Buckles
Knives
Coins (date
1812)
Spear point
Square
bottles
Demi-johns
Cylindrical
wine
bottles
Engraved
glasses
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Date
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Phase
Period
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Table 1 Archaeological phases and associated artifacts in the study area
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Table 1 continued
Ceramics
Beads
Metal
Glass
Republican
Caripo
18301920
Corocito de Caripito
Palomo
La Achaguera
Caripito
Piedra Rajada
(re-occupation)
Parrilla del Piln
No evidence
Pearl ware and

white ware
Shell edge
Transfer print
Stencil (18151835)
Boerenbont (Gaudy
Dutch)
Annular ware
Sponge stamped
Ginger beer bottles
(Nineteenth
Century)
Caraip
Find sand temper
Very few small

and spherical
blue beads
Cans:
Bottles:
kerosene
beer
gun powder
wine
sardines and medicine
canned
perfume
meats
tonic
Thimbles
Medallion
spoons
Knives
Manioc
graters
made of
punched
tin cans
Spearpoints
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Constructions
3:08 pm
Sites
25/1/05
Date
Phase
Period
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of drink, the feminine role was associated with the preparation of

fermented beverages, while the masculine was related to the capacity for
consumption in large quantities; only adult males consumed the stronger
beers, while women and children could partake in lighter versions
(Viveiros de Castro, 1992). As the gods were invited to partake in the festivities, drinking was a form of communion. In some cases, excessive indulgence was intended to produce vomiting, which could be interpreted as a
form of purging or as an offering to the gods (Monod, 1975; Viveiros de
Castro, 1992).
It is clear, then, that among lowland societies there was a social
construction of thirst (Dietler, 1990, 1995) that pervaded the symbolic
order of the aboriginal world and, at the same time, actively contributed to
the construction and reproduction of the social order. As Dietler (1995)
points out, in colonial situations the incorporation of exotic beverages
builds upon the drinking practices already established in the receiving
culture. Therefore, in the Orinocan case, it appears that the Native custom
of offering beer on the occasion of inter-communal reunions paved the way
for the acceptance of the exotic distilled beverages presented by the Europeans as a part of their strategies to establish initial contact and gain
entrance into the area.
This is visibly demonstrated in the archaeological sequence in the
increasing incorporation of foreign manufactures such as glazed ceramic
and glass bottles into the archaeological record (Figure 2). Significant quantities of these bottles were recovered from the mission site in Pararuma and,
significantly, in the neighboring indigenous settlements dating to the early
colonial period (Table 1); this has been interpreted as evidence for the
incorporation of alcoholic beverages into the exchange system that developed during this period. The consumption of alcohol can be inferred from
the presence of salt-glazed ceramic jugs, Spanish olive jars (also used for
wine and other liquids), and a variety of glass bottles including squarebased bottles used for gin, and squat broad-bottomed bottles used for wine,
liquor and mineral water (Klein, 1974; Figure 2). During the latter half of
the seventeenth century, these glass bottles came to replace the salt-glazed
ceramic jars that had prevailed up to this time to transport liquids.
During the late colonial and Republican periods, when wine, bottled
beer, and spirits became available through the market on a more regular
basis, the archaeological record shows an increase in the variety and
quantity of bottles. Wine bottles continue to appear, while beer bottles and
large demi-johns are introduced in the Republican period. The latter are
identified by local residents as bottles used to store rum or aguardiente
brought by traders in the early decades of the twentieth century. Beer
drinking is inferred through the presence of ceramic ginger beer bottles,
which are later replaced by glass beer bottles brought in from many
different parts of Venezuela and abroad. Although these bottles may have
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CHRONOLOGICAL DISTRIBUTION OF CERAMIC JARS AND GLASS

BOTTLES USED FOR BEVERAGES
A.D.
Years
1930
Republican
Period
1830
Late
Colonial
Period
1767
Early
Colonial
Period
1680
Contact
Period
Beer bottles
fully automated
Beer bottles/
hand finished
lip
Ceramic ginger
beer bottle
Oval
demijohn
Cylindrical
bottom with
high kick
Square bottom
gin bottle
Dumpy
bottoms
Olive jars
Salt-glaze
and Bartmann
Jars
Ceramic
chicha pots
1535
Figure 2 Chronological distribution of ceramic jars and glass bottles used

for beverages
been used for purposes other than to store alcoholic beverages, and many
surely must have been reused as receptacles for other substances, the
archaeological evidence clearly shows that liquor bottles were present
throughout the sequence, and increased in variety and quantity over time.
The documentary evidence for the presence of alcoholic beverages
during the colonial period must be read with care, since much of the liquor
consumed in the colony was obtained through contraband or through
clandestine distilling (Rodrguez, 1983), and this practice is not usually
confessed in official histories and administrative documents. Although
there are numerous references to drinking and drinking parties, the
missionaries are not very explicit as to where the Indians obtained the
beverages. The shape and type of bottles found in the sites suggest that
many may have been of British or Dutch origin, and may have been
obtained from the nearby colonies in Guayana or the Antilles through
contraband.4
Although the missionaries themselves did not mention liquor as one of
the items used to seduce the Indians to join the missions, other sources
do make explicit reference to this tactic by the Europeans as a means to
establish contact. On the one hand, the Dutch included liquor with the box
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of goods that they distributed to the Carib traders, in return for captive
slaves.5 The Dutch of Essequibo often gave rum to the Indians in payment
for services rendered, and in exchange for dyes, foodstuffs, boats, wood,
and other wild products that they brought to trade (Whitehead, 1988: 160).6
The English colonies in the Demarara were also cultivating sugar cane
and distilling rum, which they traded in contraband to the Spanish colonies
in exchange for cocoa and silver (Lucena Giraldo, 1991: 158). They also
traded rum to the Indians in order to gain their allegiance against the
Spanish. To counter these activities, the Spanish missionaries on the Lower
and Middle Orinoco established their own sugar cane plantations, and
began to distill aguardiente which they distributed in an attempt to dissuade
the alliances between the Indians and the Dutch, English and French
competitors in Guayana (Lucena Giraldo, 1991).
Further descriptions of the mission involvement in the production and
distribution of distilled beverages are found in Alvarados report on the
Jesuit missions in the Middle Orinoco (Alvarado, in Rey Fajardo, 1966:
2445). Alvarado was a member of the Expedicin de Lmites sent by the
Spanish Crown in the mid-eighteenth century, to determine the boundary
between Portuguese and Spanish holdings in the Orinoco/Amazon basin.
As a secular representative who was charged with the task of evaluating
the missions and their administration, he had no scruples about describing
the strategies used by the missionaries to entice the Indians into joining the
mission (Alvarado, in Rey Fajardo, 1966, and in Lucena Giraldo, 1991). He
vividly describes the sugar plantation where the cane was processed into
molasses and aguardiente, and observes that both European settlers and
Native neophytes were insatiable drinkers (Alvarado, in Rey Fajardo, 1966:
244). Alvarado also describes how the Jesuits used aguardiente and other
rescates or items of enticement beads, fishhooks, machetes, etc. (Rey
Fajardo, 1966) in their incursions to bring back new Indian recruits for
the missions.
It can be argued that although alcoholic beverages partook of different
spheres of the colonial exchange system (conceived of as inclusive of the
two previously independent spheres), the value accrued to them did not
necessarily accompany them as they changed hands. Indeed, depending on
context, the beverages, either in the form of wine, beer or harder liquor,
assumed the role of value peculiar to each sphere, as icons of social reproduction in the indigenous value systems and as mediums of exchange value
in the monetary-based European economy. Through time, however, a new
regional economy arose that responded to the exigencies of both spheres,
even while transforming each, as new dependencies and needs dictated
modifications of the overall system. This is particularly evident in the transformations that took place in the productive system. The colonial period is
characterized by a strong emphasis on manioc products, evidence for which
can be found in the indigenous material assemblages mainly characterized
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by manioc griddles, cooking pots, drinking bowls and large pots probably
used to ferment chicha (see Figure 2). The evidence from the early colonial
period seems to indicate the maintenance of traditional forms of consumption with the gradual incorporation of European products, including alcoholic beverages. A significant change in indigenous consumption occurred
at the end of the colonial period when large chicha pots are no longer found
associated with the habitation sites. The presence of large griddles and the
substitution of stone graters by perforated sheet metal graters during the
late nineteenth and twentieth centuries seems to indicate a continued
emphasis or even increase in manioc production, whereas the rise in
frequency of imported beverage bottles points to greater dependency on
distilled liquor.
This evidence seems to indicate, then, the early incorporation of distilled
liquor into Native systems of consumption and hospitality. The locally
brewed beverages, in the form of chicha, cachiri or yarake, were produced
by domestic units, and used in feasts and other ritual contexts to display
the productive power, generosity, and hospitality of the host. The prestige
that accrued to the sponsor of the drinking party was restricted to those
men who were able to mobilize through the labor of their wives the
large amounts of beer required for these festivities. It is likely that the
stronger, distilled spirits were incorporated into these displays as prestige
items that enhanced the status of the host. However, once imported beverages replaced the consumption of locally produced drinks, the hosts were
obliged to obtain them through exchange with outside agents (Alvarado,
in Rey Fajardo, 1966: 246). As a result, the adoption of distilled spirits and
other imported items led to increasing dependency on the cash-cropping of
manioc and professional gathering of items such as dyes, honey, quinine,
latex, and sarrapia (tonka beans), in order to obtain money or goods to
exchange for the newly created needs. The outlets for the sale of the desired
items were often monopolized by European agents, who could charge the
Indians arbitrary prices and entrap the consumers into relations of debt
peonage (Arvelo-Jimnez and Biord, 1994: 68).
In summary, we have discussed the role of alcoholic beverages in the
tactics used by Spanish colonizers to entice the indigenous population into
the mission regime. These enticements to enter the mission system resulted
in profound transformations in the traditional productive modes both
economic and symbolic. The missionaries offered, in the form of commodities, items that hitherto had been produced through a domestic mode of
production that relied on a division of labor in which women played a major
role, especially in regard to agricultural activities. This was modified under
the missionary rule; the division of labor was forcibly reversed men were
expected to labor in the fields, while women were constrained to domestic
tasks. Polygyny was forbidden, and the access to surplus, with its concomitant symbolic capital achieved through the drinking parties, was therefore
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restricted. Feasting, dancing, and other pagan activities were also

suppressed. Missionaries assigned political offices with little or no respect
for traditional status roles. In other words, the entire indigenous political
economy (Rivire, 1983/1984) was dismantled and replaced with an incipient capitalism, directed by the Europeans and Criollos.
Drink became a commodity a product that had to be bought, rather
than produced. Surplus agricultural production was exchanged for the
coveted trade goods, including liquor, rather than used to produce chicha
to drink. Alcohol continued to play a central role in social life, though not
as a means to gain prestige through display of productive ability, but as a
compensation for labor, an ephemeral prize for the cultivation of surplus
for the colonizer. In this context, despite the fact that the adoption of exotic
beverages was based upon established patterns, it ultimately led to dependency and exploitation, which were clearly unintended consequences. On
the other hand, as we will show in the second example, the incorporation
of other items, such as beads, served to reinforce indigenous identity and
values, and enhance the Native exchange system that still flourishes in the
Guyana and Amazon hinterlands.
NATIVE SOCIAL BODY AND IDENTIT Y IN A LONG-TERM

PERSPECTIVE
Our second case concerns the trajectory of beads and other forms of bodily
adornment, which even to this day constitute essential items for the
construction of self and the acquisition of value in many indigenous
societies of the Tropical Lowlands (Howard, 2000; Overing, 1989; Turner,
1977, 1984; Viveiros de Castro, 1998). The archaeological sequence offers
evidence for the importance of these items in the strategy used to attract the
indigenous population to the missions and their role in the colonization of
consciousness, in which new modes of dress and modesty were imposed as
a part of the civilizing process. Both indigenous and colonial sites include
a considerable number and variety of glass trade beads and other items of
body adornment and dress (Figures 3, 4). Some of these artifacts may have
belonged to the colonizers, particularly in the mission sites where foreign
clothing and rosaries were common. Those found in Native settlements,
however, offer material evidence of their incorporation into the exchange
system that developed during colonial times (c. 17301830). The circulation
of these items through time and space serves to illustrate the transformations
that were taking place in Native colonial value systems in the realms of body
and beauty, prestige and wealth, attire and cosmetics.
At the same time, the sequence illustrates the contradictory trajectories
and differential consequences of the adoption of certain goods by
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Figure 3
Glass trade beads from the Early Colonial Period (16801767)
Figure 4
Buckle and thimble from the late Republican Period (18801930)
indigenous populations. Certain colonial strategies designed to create and

perpetuate relations of dependency through enticement seem to have
collided with the indigenous strategies constructed to enhance personal
status and political power. In fact, the incorporation of European trade
goods into customs surrounding body, prevalent in the Orinocan societies
prior to contact, initially produced an enhancement of traditional practices
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and value systems. Beads and cloth came be incorporated into indigenous
systems of value and prestige, building upon and expanding prior expressions of dress and adornment.
Table 1 summarizes the data as to the type of beads and other items
related to body and dress encountered at the different sites in the study
area, according to time period. The artifacts include body stamps, stone and
glass beads, pendants, crucifixes and talismans, mirrors, bottles for perfume
and hair lotion, buckles, thimbles, buttons, and other body oriented items.
The information from the two pre-contact sites included in our study allows
us to infer several forms of body adornment including body paint, jewelry,
and woven items, as indicated by the presence of roller stamps, beads, bead
polishers, and spindle whorls. The beads found at the two pre-contact sites
were made of stone and include spherical, tubular, and barrel-shaped
beads. Grooved stone or ceramic bead polishers, similar to those described
in the chronicles for the production of shell beads, indicate the use of these
adornments as well. Ceramic roller stamps, with intricately excised designs,
were used for body painting. Other items of feather, bone, shell, seeds and
woven materials must have existed, but were not preserved in the archaeological record, due to the highly acidic soils.
During the early colonial period, foreign beads were rapidly incorporated into Native social life. Some types tended to replace previous forms,
and the number and type of beads per site increase dramatically. Beads are
commonly found in both colonial settlements (missions and fortresses) and
adjacent Native communities. In the five sites assigned to the period of
Jesuit occupation, glass beads are among the most frequent foreign artifacts, and proved to be excellent chronological markers. These include
several kinds of small seed beads, Cornaline dAleppo, large faceted
beads, wound beads with trailed appliqu, and gooseberries that date to the
eighteenth century (Deagan, 1999; Table 1). It is interesting to find that
ceramic roller stamps and bead polishers are still found during this period,
pointing to a continuity in traditional practice in spite of the missionaries
attempts to impose notions of Christian modesty and proper attire.
At Pueblo Viejo, located on the Parguaza River, and dating to the late
eighteenth/early nineteenth century (Late Colonial Period), imported glass
beads are still frequent, although they differ in style from those found at
the earlier sites. During this period, the most common beads were drawn
faceted Russian beads, white heart, and seed beads. We also found
perforated ceramic disks made from imported pearl wares, similar to those
illustrated for the early twentieth century in Koch-Grnberg (1981) as used
in armband adornments.7 Three silver coins were recovered from this site,
with holes drilled for suspension. Talismans in the form of hands or fists
made of lignite also appear in this period; this is an item that was originally
imported by the Spanish (Deagan, personal communication, 1999), but
adopted by indigenous (Petrullo, 1939) and criollo populations alike, and
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are still used to ward off the evil eye. In many parts of Guayana and the
Amazon, glass beads continued to play an important role in indigenous
dress well into the twentieth century and even today (Howard, 2000).
Several groups from the Orinoco continue to trade in beads and wear them,
incorporated into necklaces, aprons, and arm and leg bands (MansuttiRodrguez, 1986). In certain areas, however, a rupture with these practices
occurred following the War of Independence in the early nineteenth
century.
Our archaeological sequence indicates what seems to have been an
important turning point in Native costume, as shown in the dramatic
decrease in the number of beads per site in the Republican period
(1830present). Likewise, roller stamps and shell bead polishers disappear
from the sequence at this time. We found just a few beads dating to the late
nineteenthearly twentieth century, while the presence throughout the
Republican Period of buckles, thimbles, scissors, buttons, and other foreign
dress items signals the increasing utilization of Western-style clothing
among local Native communities (Figure 4). The initial effect of cultural
enhancement, in which Native systems of value and status were reinforced
and promoted through involvement in the colonial situation, seems to have
disintegrated in the communities most closely affected by the colonial
project and by the War of Independence (for discussions of other cases, see
Grumet, 1984; Sahlins, 1988; Schrire, 1985; Trigger, 1984; Wilmsen, 1989).
To understand the initial appeal of beads, and the significance of their
eventual abandonment, we must turn to the examination of the indigenous
value system and its material manifestation in the form of valuables.
European items were incorporated into an already existing indigenous
system of exchange that placed high value on hard, sharp and shiny objects,
many of which were used for bodily adornment. Recent studies show that
items such as green stone pendants and beads, stone axes, and copper,
bronze and gold items circulated in the lowlands, probably imported from
the Andes (Boomert, 1986; Myers, 1977; Whitehead, 1990). The Amazonian Argonauts, as dubbed by Catherine Howard (2000), covered lengthy
routes, as can be seen in the distribution of green stone artifacts throughout the Amazon, into Guayana and even the Caribbean (Boomert, 1986;
Boomert and Kroonenberg, 1977; Cody, 1993). Although the archaeological record gives insight only into the non-perishable items, ethnographic
and historical sources give an idea of the variety of other items that may
have been circulating during this period, including hammocks, manioc
graters, blowguns, shell beads, parrots and parakeets, turtle oil, resins, chica
and onoto (both used for body paint), and curare (Arvelo-Jimnez and
Biord, 1994; Coppens, 1972; Howard, 2000; Mansutti-Rodrguez, 1986;
Morales Mndez, 1990; Morey and Morey, 1975; Thomas, 1972). The
importance of these findings is that they provide clear precedents for the
trade in exotic items prior to colonization.
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Following contact, Jesuit chroniclers also comment upon the widespread

use of quiripa, a type of shell bead, manufactured in the Llanos from a
freshwater shell, and used as a medium of exchange throughout the
Guayanas and as far as Trinidad and the Amazon basin (Gassn, 2000). We
have tentatively associated the grooved stone and ceramic polishers with
the manufacture of these beads. This continued to be common practice in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when European coinage was
scarce, and, for the indigenous groups, undesirable, except as an occasional
item of adornment. In general, trade was carried out as the exchange of
objects, without the use of money, and there were definite preferences as
to the objects to be given in payment, with a particular passion for beads
(Gilij, 1987, Vol. 72: 267).
The question remains, why were beads so esteemed by the local population? Turner (1984, n.d.), and other ethnologists (Arvelo-Jimnez, 1974;
Carneiro da Cunha and Viveiros de Castro, n.d.; Gow, 1991; Overing, 1989;
Overing and Kaplan, 1988; Rivire, 1983/84; Viveiros de Castro, 1992) have
argued convincingly that production in the segmentary societies of the
lowland tropics must be seen in terms of re-production of society, rather
than in terms of ecological adaptation or subsistence practices, as stressed
in various forms of cultural ecological and Marxist analyses. Following
Turner (1984), in these societies, social value is measured in terms of the
status derived from the size of the household that the mature head of an
extended family (at least two generations) is able to attract and conserve.
Two axes of social value coincide in the persona of the head of this extended
family: a vertical axis of dominance (especially in the form of an exploitative relation with sons or daughters-in-law, and in the prerogatives of being
a senior member of the community), and a horizontal axis of beauty,
defined variably as complete mastery of style or knowledge, and manifested
in the ownership of special names, ritual objects and roles, knowledge, and
trophies. This value system is, at the same time, manifested in the formalized patterns of social space and time, or cosmograms, which are replicated
at all levels of the social formation, ranging from the embodiment in the
individual person through the local kin-group, community, to the cosmos
(Turner, 1984). Rather than considering this to be a static structure, it is
more enlightening to conceive of this model as a dynamic hierarchy, which
is actively produced and reproduced through the productive and ritual
agency of the social units.
In lowland societies (once again, generalizing broadly), horizontal
relations are designed to expand the personal sphere, and incorporate the
external other as the person matures. Beauty, or completeness, implies a
dominion of the social self that begins with the individual, and gradually
extends, generally through diadic relationships, to the community and
beyond, often following potentially affinal lines. Many mechanisms exist
through which to extend the social self, and vary according to different
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groups and through time: exchange of marriage partners, invitations to

intertribal feasting and ceremonies, formalized trading partners, victim
oriented warfare, vengeance, sorcery and cannibalism. The common factor
in all these mechanisms is that they emphasize the circulation, not the
accumulation of symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1977: 17181), be it in the form
of captives, prestige items, ritual knowledge, or conspicuous consumption
of food and beverage. The value is in the performance (Turner, 1984).
Symbolic forms of value, such as certain hair styles, oratorical manner,
ritual paraphernalia, body decoration and, of particular interest to our
argument, beaded neckpieces, necklaces and aprons, serve simultaneously
as media of circulation and representations of value (Turner, 1984).
We will present two ethnographic examples to illustrate the role of beads
as symbolic forms of value: the Waiwai, a Carib-speaking group of the
Guayana highlands (Howard, 2000), and the Piaroa, a member of the Sliva
linguistic family, located on the eastern drainage of the Orinoco, just south
of our study area (Overing, 1989; Overing and Kaplan, 1988).
During the 1990s, according to Howard (2000), the Waiwai considered
beads to be their most valuable wealth items, a value which Howard attributes to their having gone through the greatest number of transformations
in the exchange network. Beads are valued for their tangible qualities of
hardness, shininess, and evaluated according to size (small is best), color,
number, and heaviness of the bundle. The hardness of beads denotes durability, control, and, ultimately, immortality; the shininess evokes light,
cleanliness, social order, and power of attraction. They can be considered,
then, as qualisigns, defined as objects that serve as sensory anchors for
intangible criteria referring ultimately to social values (Munn, 1986:
74104).
Beads have gender and age specific roles in social reproduction. They
serve as visual signs of the progressive socialization of members of the
community, and embody the cosmogram on both the horizontal and vertical
axes. Babies, children, adolescents and adult women use beads on different
parts of their bodies, progressing from the outer limbs to the genital area
through their lifetime. Similarly, only fully adult men, who have acquired
the social status required to take part in public oratory, wear the beaded
hair sheaths and multiple neck chokers that signify the hardness and
supreme control of the fully mature person. Beads, then, are tangible signs
of the status of the individual on both axes of social value; on the vertical
axis they denote the persons position in the life cycle, and on the horizontal
axis they represent the progressive expansion and completeness of the
social self.
Among the Piaroa, a Sliva speaking group of the Orinoco, studied by
Overing in the latter decades of the twentieth century, beads also played a
role as qualisigns. In this case, they serve as outward icons of beauty,
defined in terms of mastery of productive skills and moral capabilities
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(Overing, 1989). Along with body paint, and other adornments, they illustrate, on the surface of the body, the productive skills contained within the
person. Facial and body markings of men and women are specific pictorial
representations of forces or creative capabilities held within their bodies.
The stamped body markings of women represent their knowledge of reproduction, while the markings of men speak of their productive knowledge
of hunting, fishing, chanting, curing and protecting (Overing, 1989: 167).
All productive powers are cultivated from infancy and require progressive maturity to master them. They are considered to be potent, dangerous,
and potentially poisoning, and lead to greed, violence and promiscuity
when not properly mastered. They are stored within his/her internal beads
of life, which also came from the crystal boxes of the gods. The quantity
of necklace beads worn by a person indicated the quantity of internal beads
of life they had thus far acquired. In this case, abundance alone did not lead
to beauty; beauty was always tied to the notion of moderation in the use of
creative capabilities. Piaroa ethical standards associated the social and the
morally good with the clean, the beautiful, and the restrained, while asocial
behavior and wickedness were tied to dirt, ugliness, madness and excess.
Since productive powers were potentially poisonous, the beads of life that
contained the poisonous knowledge and capabilities were also dangerous.
Aesthetic knowledge can be understood then, for the Piaroa, as productive
knowledge made beautiful, or civilized (Overing, 1989: 170), and affluence
was not measured in terms of the accumulation of goods, but in the ability
to create and maintain a community large enough to allow cooperation,
flexibility in work schedules, and high morale.
In both of the ethnographic examples cited above, beads are charged
with extraordinary value. As qualisigns, they embody the utmost social
values in each society: mastery of knowledge, a controlled social self, and
a mature, hardened soul. In both cases, beads are imported with the idea
of incorporating locally the foreign potency they embody. Their value is
in their display, a display that is both determined by and determining of the
social status of the bearer.
At the same time, the accumulation of beads was not seen as a sign of
wealth in the Western sense of mercantile capitalism. Their exchange, for
the Waiwai, was a means to accrue status that was found not in the ultimate
ownership, but in the display of the knowledge and maturity necessary to
partake in the exchange system. Likewise, for the Piaroa, although to be
laden with beads was a sign of wealth, it was a wealth of knowledge and
beauty, not of monetary value.
Hamell (1983) and Miller and Hamell (1986) discuss similar symbolic
meaning of beads and the reasons for their rapid acceptance by the Northeastern Woodland Indians. As they state,
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It is not too surprising, then, that when delft, glass, and other European
items that were deliberately imitative of natural lustrous minerals were
introduced into North America, they were received into native semantic
categories as crystal and shell and were used as such. To the Indians,
however, the similarity of appearance was greatly reinforced by a putative
similarity in origin. Like the traditional ceremonial items, European wares
initially also appeared other-worldly. Thus the objects and their bearers were
entirely consistent with familiar aspects of the aboriginal world. (Miller and
Hamell, 1986: 31920)
We must bear in mind, however, that the two examples cited refer to small
groups who opted through time to maintain distance from the centers of
colonization, and whose value systems and exchange transactions therefore
reflect centuries of evasion, and rejection of direct contact with Western
society. Just how much of the ethnographic present can be inferred in the
archaeological and ethnohistorical past is difficult to evaluate. However,
both the precedents in the archaeological record, mentioned earlier, for a
widespread lowland feasting/trading/raiding complex, and certain references in the historical documents, lead us to underline similarities within
the realms of value and social production. These similarities make sense
out of the voracious appetite for beads, and other hard and shiny objects
that Europeans offered to the Native population.
From the above discussion, we argue that the initial adoption of beads,
blades, bottles and other hard and shiny, durable objects can be understood
as a continuation and embellishment of the indigenous value system. It even
may have been reinforced, from the indigenous point of view, by the observation of the role that these objects played in the advancing colonial society.
Beads, in the form of rosaries, were visual signs of the power of the missionaries, who, inexplicably, were immune to the diseases that they brought in
their wake. Since shamanic power, curative and endangering forces were
conceived as being contained in such objects as clear quartz crystals, it
would not be difficult to place similar powers on the foreign beads.
Likewise, knives and other metal weapons may have been seen to be
imbued with powers beyond their technical efficiency (which, in the case of
firearms, has been shown to be dubious in the hands of unknowledgeable
owners). We could conclude, then, that the archaeological record (in the
earlier post-contact sites) testifies to a period of interaction in which
indigenous values dictated the adoption of foreign goods, which were incorporated alongside more traditional means of expressing value: body paint,
as manifested in body stamps, and the manufacture of locally made beads,
as attested to in the presence of bead polishers.
Among many groups this period of interaction was long lasting; but this
situation was relatively shorter in the sites located near the mission posts.
Although imported dress items continued to be frequent in the archaeological record, the trade beads, body stamps and bead polishers disappeared
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in the late colonial period (17681830). Decoration of local ceramics

declines radically, apparently replaced by a preference for decorated
imported ceramics. It would seem that a new concept of body and beauty
was being formed under the influence of the missionaries and other colonial
forces. Even though the missionaries were uncertain as to their success in
converting the indigenous population to Catholicism, they effectively made
inroads in the realm of attitude toward body, prestige, and the social
relations of work, politics and wealth (Comaroff and Comaroff, 1991, 1992,
1997). Through time, money became an increasingly common medium of
exchange and the use of quiripa gradually disappeared.
By the nineteenth century, Western-style clothing had come to be
perceived as a need by the indigenous populations who dealt on a regular
basis with the criollos. Once again, access to these commodities depended
on new modes of production, which included professional gathering of
forest products, as well as the production of surplus manioc to be sold in
the form of casabe. It is tempting to suggest that these transformations in
social reproduction and productive modes, in combination with other
modes of colonization of consciousness (Comaroff and Comaroff, 1991,
1992, 1997), contributed to the loss of indigenous identity on the part of
most of the groups that had been proselytized in the Jesuit missions. Following the War of Independence (18101830), nearly all of the mission groups,
including the Tamanaco, Sliva, Achagua, Otomaco, Guamo, and Pareca,
disappear as distinctive ethnic identities (Morey, 1979; Perera, 1992).
Other indigenous groups opted for retreat to the more remote areas of
the Venezuelan Amazon. In this case, they were able to acquire the desired
trade goods through trading partners or through raiding parties, and
pirating. By maintaining distance from the criollo centers of population, the
indigenous communities were in a better position to accommodate the
transformations wrought by contact, and to incorporate exotic items into
local value systems that demonstrate resilience through time.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

In the preceding pages, we have focused on the analysis of exchange
relations and the ways that Western objects and practices were incorporated into Native cultures in the Orinoco region within the span of 400 years
following contact (15351935). We presented two examples to illustrate
different consequences of the incorporation of foreign manufactures and
practices into Native structures of consumption and systems of values, and
the transformations in these systems over time. We attempted to show how
the incorporation of certain goods into customs surrounding body and
drink, prevalent in the Orinocan societies prior to contact, initially
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produced an enhancement of traditional practices rather than mere disruption, and how, through time, new dependencies and needs dictated modifications in the overall system.
These processes are not conceived as independent, or autonomous, but
rather as intimately intertwined. In both cases, material goods were the
medium through which antagonistic goals were perpetuated by those
involved: domination and conversion, on the part of the Europeans, and
attainment of prestige, power, and beauty, on the part of the Natives. In
the first example, we discussed transformations in traditional drinking practices, which provide material testimony for increasing involvement of
indigenous societies in the emerging market economy and the resulting
relations of dependency following contact. This process reveals one of the
most effective means for enticement employed in the Orinoco: the
promotion of sugar cane as a cultivar and its consumption in the form of
sugar, but particularly as aguardiente. Aguardiente proved particularly
amenable to the analysis of the nature and consequences of contact in the
Orinoco, where changing consumption patterns illustrate the kind of transformations the Native groups experienced following the initial encounter,
and the unintended consequences of involvement in the colonial system.
In the second example, the colonizers used glass trade beads as a strategy
to seduce the aboriginal inhabitants of the Orinoco. Once again, indigenous values and desires played an important role in shaping the transactions
and the choice of objects involved, and we have argued that the preference
for certain goods was determined by the conception of power and prestige
of the consuming culture.
The case under examination not only exemplifies the problem of what
happens to a society when exposed to alien technologies and goods, but
also provides insights into the role of certain items in the reinforcement of
social relations and traditional practices regarding beauty and knowledge,
aspects that mobilized the whole political economy among Native groups
of the Orinoco. In this case, the body was the focal point of symbolic value
mediated through display, which can be inferred from the emphasis given
to body paint, glass beads and other ornaments. Beads were appropriated
into local systems of meaning, and circulated far beyond the reach of
colonial impositions. The vast quantities of beads woven into wrist, ankle
and knee bands, aprons, and necklaces by no means indicate acculturation, as might be inferred under certain models of contact as measured by
the count rather than the context.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the Comunidad Mapoyo de Palomo for their support
and guidance in the field, and our students in the Universidad Central de Venezuela
for aid in the laboratory. We received many helpful comments from Alan Kolata,
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160
Michael Dietler, Neil Whitehead, Robert Preucel, Kathleen Deagan, Santiago

Giraldo and Diana Bocarejo. We would like to express out gratitude to the referees
of this article for their detailed and stimulating suggestions.
Notes
1 The Mapoyo are an indigenous community of some 200 members, who have
been reported as occupants of the study region since the time of contact.
Several members of the community still speak Mapoyo, a language of the Carib
family. The Mapoyo community has played an active role in our archaeological
investigations, as both informants and as participants in the different phases of
archaeological fieldwork.
2 While we are aware that this is a relatively late date compared with colonial
occupations for other regions, the systematic colonization of the Middle
Orinoco commenced with the establishment of the first Jesuit missions in 1680.
For this reason, we refer to the period as Early Colonial.
3 This section is based on the paper Caa: The Role of Aguardiente in the
Colonization of the Middle Orinoco, by Franz Scaramelli and Kay Tarble,
presented at the Meetings for the Society of American Ethnohistory, London,
Ontario, Canada, 1822 October, 2000. A revised version appeared as a chapter
in Histories and Historicities in Amazonia, Neil Whitehead (ed.), NE:
University of Nebraska Press, 2003.
4 That alcoholic beverages were a frequent import item in the latter area can be
inferred from the following list of the inventory of the Boxel plantation on the
Upper Surinam River in 1820 (Klein, 1974):
7 cases of Muscatel
2 cases of Noyeau
35 cases (23 bottles each) of sherry
5 jars and 5 bottles of black current whisky
50 cases (12 bottles each) of red wine
33 bottles of Muscatel
1 case of gin
9 bottles of anisette, 5 cases of champagne
24 bottles of Rhine wine
2 cases containing 83 bottles of Rhine wine
7 cases of arrack
1 case of cordial
14 jars of Cologne water
16 bottles of Ratafia
9 jars of castor oil
5 Items in the box included 10 axes, 10 machetes, 10 knives, 10 bunches of strings
of beads, a piece of silver to hang on the guayuco, a mirror, and a pair of
scissors to cut the hair; and, outside of the box, a shotgun, gunpowder and
bullets, a bottle of firewater, and other small items such as pins, fishhooks,
needles, etc. (Gumilla, 1944, Vol. II: 90).
6 See Whitehead (1988: Chs VII and VIII) for a detailed discussion of
Dutch/Spanish relations and the political manipulation of the Carib
involvement in the slave trade.
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7 Koch-Grnberg (1981) refers to the manufacture of these items among the

Taulipang and Makusch in the following: En los brazos llevan por lo general
slo un cordel de cuentas blancas o un cordel de algodn blanco y en los das de
fiesta un disco redondo de concha de caracol . . . Lamentablemente se ven
tambin discos de loza inglesa (Wedgewood) tallados y pintados, Del Roraima
al Orinoco 3: 45.
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FRANZ SCARAMELLI is a PhD candidate in the Department of

Anthropology at the University of Chicago. His publications and research
focus on the archaeology, history and ethnography of the Orinoco,
Venezuela, where he has concentrated on the study of the late precontact, colonial, and republican periods. Broader research interests
include the archaeology of colonialism and the role of material culture
in contact situations, representations of the past, and memory.
[email: fscarame@midway.uchicago.edu]
KAY TARBLE DE SCARAMELLI is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago and has taught in the
Escuela de Antropologa of the Universidad Central de Venezuela since
1985. Her current research and publications center on post-contact transformations in the indigenous societies of the Orinoco as manifested in
the ceramic record. Other research interests include contextual analysis
of material culture, stylistic analysis of rock art and pottery, and the
construction of cultural space.
[email: kfscarame@cantv.net]

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Journal of Social Archaeology

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The roles of material culture in the

KAY TARBLE DE SCARAMELLI

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from the archaeological record, historical accounts, and ethnographic

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Scaramelli & Scaramelli

The roles of material culture in the Orinoco

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emphasis on the individual and on interest groups as actors in the process,

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Scaramelli & Scaramelli

The roles of material culture in the Orinoco

THE CIRCULATION OF MATERIAL CULTURE IN THE

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groups, threats of retaliation, and physical attacks on colonial settlements

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Scaramelli & Scaramelli

The roles of material culture in the Orinoco

of Western goods, as well as by the protection they offered against the

MATERIAL AND METHODS

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Study area map showing archaeological sites

Table 1 summarizes the data as to period, type of site, type of artifact,

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Scaramelli & Scaramelli

The roles of material culture in the Orinoco

BOT TLES AND SPIRITS 3

Pueblo de los Espaoles

Stone, wattle and

Stone, wattle and

Journal of Social Archaeology 5(1)

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Table 1 Archaeological phases and associated artifacts in the study area

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Pearl ware and

Very few small

The roles of material culture in the Orinoco

Scaramelli & Scaramelli

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Journal of Social Archaeology 5(1)

of drink, the feminine role was associated with the preparation of

06 JSA 050152 (to/d)

Scaramelli & Scaramelli

The roles of material culture in the Orinoco

CHRONOLOGICAL DISTRIBUTION OF CERAMIC JARS AND GLASS

Figure 2 Chronological distribution of ceramic jars and glass bottles used

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Journal of Social Archaeology 5(1)

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Scaramelli & Scaramelli

The roles of material culture in the Orinoco

06 JSA 050152 (to/d)

Journal of Social Archaeology 5(1)

restricted. Feasting, dancing, and other pagan activities were also

NATIVE SOCIAL BODY AND IDENTIT Y IN A LONG-TERM

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