Review

Reviewed Work(s): The Palm and the Pleiades: Initiation and Cosmology in Northwest
Amazonia by Stephen Hugh-Jones; From the Milk River: Spatial and Temporal Processes in
Northwest Amazonia by Christine Hugh-Jones
Review by: Thomas Gregor
Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 84, No. 3 (Sep., 1982), pp. 678-679
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/677368
Accessed: 26-06-2018 17:15 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

American Anthropological Association, Wiley are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,

preserve and extend access to American Anthropologist

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 26 Jun 2018 17:15:36 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 678 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [84, 1982]

The tools),
series on the making of stone areas of culture
and that the Hugh-Joneses
many
other aspects of culture. Thedescribe
text areis complementary.
clearly writ- In From the Milk
ten and helpful. We can only River, Christine
thank the Hugh-Jones
authors looks at many
for this invaluable contribution,
facets of and share
Barasana their
symbolic life to demonstrate
regret that this will be "thethat
lastthe "Indians conceive
substantial of and organize all
body
the processes
of data about [the Htta] that will evergoverning the development and
appear"
(p. 355). maintenance of both the physical body and
social groups as if they had a fundamental
similarity" (p. 278). This demonstration rests on
sets of metaphorical equations that link objects
The Palm and the Pleiades: Initiation and and activities in one sector of life with those in
Cosmology in Northwest Amazonia. Stephen
another. For the most part the equivalences oc-
HughJones. Cambridge Studies in Social
cur at aAn-
fairly high level, so that a house is lik-
thropology. xvi + 332 pp. $19.95 (cloth).
ened to both a womb and the human body, not
only because of aspects of its appearance, but
From the Milk River: Spatial and Temporal
also because of its function. Thus, material ob-
Processes in Northwest Amazonia. Christine jects enter the front door of the house, are util-
Hugh-Jones. Cambridge Studies in Socialized,
An-and ultimately discarded as trash, much as
thropology. xx + 302 pp. $19.95 (cloth). the human body digests and eliminates food.
Ideas about procreation, nourishment and
Thomas Gregorresidence are thereby woven into one symbolic
Vanderbilt University
vocabulary.
In a particularly intriguing chapter, Christine
The native peoples of the northwest AmazonHugh-Jones argues that manioc processing is
are among the most fascinating of the symbolically
tribal the "female counterpart" of male
societies of lowland South America. In this initiation. The stages in the production of flour
region, the cultural differences between bear resemblances to the physiology of the
language groups have been reduced to the ex- human body, which is itself a model for the
ten that the traditional markers of the tribal creative and transformational powers of the
identity blur and merge. At the heart of this men's Yurupary initiation ritual. The emer-
process is intermarriage between exogamous, gence of dried fiber from the tipiti manioc press
patrilineal descent groups that speak different(a kind of "vomiting") is equated with the pro-
languages. Hence in a Barasana longhouse,cess of initiation which "hardens" mature boys,
Stephen Hugh-Jones writes, we may find that and "vomits" them into seclusion compart-
"the men and their married sisters will all speak
ments. Ultimately, the metaphors originating in
a common language whilst their wives may
body imagery and ordinary activities such as
speak up to three other languages" (p. 27). This
food processing spiral upward through the rela-
setting defies conventional anthropological tionship of the sexes, kinship, and the organi-
descriptions of "tribes" and the boundarieszation
of of descent groups to create an entire
social units. world view.
Christine and Stephen Hugh-Jones meet the The unified picture of Barasana culture that
challenge of making the peoples of this region
emerges from this original portrait is richly tex-
tured and coherent. On occasion, however, I
intelligible to us by focusing on one community
of Barasana, a Tukano-speaking group onhad thesome difficulty ascertaining the significance
Cano Colorado River. Although this communityof the equivalences identified by the author.
is a small one (it would seem the populationThe
wasstructuralist models she generates are dis-
only 19 at the time of their research), theytant from the data and certainly well beyond
found an intact and rich culture which they
the conscious awareness of the Barasana. In-
studied over a period of 22 months. Duringdeed,this the approach is so uncompromisingly
time they immersed themselves in Barasanacultural-symbolic
life that it is hard to measure it
and learned to speak their language: "We lived
success or failure other than by its internal con-
inside the longhouse, ate only the food they sistency.
ate,
observed their food taboos and other restric- Part of the difficulty I had with From the
tions, dressed like them, and worked with them Milk River may be related to presentation.
in the daily tasks of house-building, agriculture,
There are few who expect structuralist anthro-
hunting and fishing" (S. Hugh-Jones, p. xiii). pology to be good reading, but my guess is that

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 26 Jun 2018 17:15:36 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 CUL TURAL/APPLIED 679

most will find this

gourd book heavy
of wax. Through going.
other symbolic equa-
author coins and uses idiosyncratic
tions "this implies . . . the conjunction terms
of the
before they are clearly defined.
sexes in reproduction, Theof line
the conjunction men o
argument is and women
sometimes in productive activities,
difficult to followthe con- a
moves back and forth from "emic" to "etic"
junction of the two major seasons in an annual
levels of analysis without adequately preparing
cycle, and the conjunction of the Sun and the
the reader. And there are too many sentences
Sky. . . . Thus the He House is not simply a rite
that occasion an involuntary double take.of initiation; it also has a life-giving and life-
I hope that these problems do not limit the function" (p. 192). Ultimately, the
ordering
use and impact of the book, because it contains
meaning of the ritual lies in the men's effort to
both valuable data and convincing analysis.
"control the processes of life itself' (p. 256).
The method of analysis used by Stephen
Taken as a whole, From the Milk River is surely
the most thoroughgoing and intricate of any
Hugh-Jones is structural. At times, from my
structuralist accounts we have of Amazonian more general perspective, he is distracted by the
cultures. It deserves a wide audience. method and overly caught up in the cross-
The subject matter of Stephen Hugh-Jones's
cultural analysis of particular symbols. And, as
The Palm and the Pleiades is the Barasana in the case of From the Milk River, I am occa-
sionally
ritual of initiation, Yurupary. His intention is toperplexed as to the significance of the
author's interpretations. At what level do the
provide the first intensively detailed description
of a native South American ritual, and use this participate in all this intellectual ac-
Barasana
material as a key to Barasana cosmology. tivity? Are the models in any sense predictive, or
Yurupary, which is widespread through the mainly thematic and even literary
are they
northwest Amazon culture area, consists of a analyses of culture? In the main, however, the
secret men's cult utilizing sacred flutes and author's interpretations are close enough to the
trumpets taboo to the women. In the course of data so that his findings are persuasive and
the cult's initiation ceremony, participants act stimulating. Moreover, the ethnography of the
out Barasana creation myths and play ritual ritual is accessible to readers with a wide range
parts that correspond to the major social roles of interests, and the wealth of data (such as the
within the community. The elaborate symbol- 45-page collection of myths) is of enduring
ism of the ritual encompasses the fundamental value. The Palm and the Pleiades is a splendid
human concerns of birth and death, mascu- book.
linity and femininity, and the nature of the Thanks to the Hugh-Jones's efforts we now
social group. By condensing many meanings have a greatly expanded view of the remarkable
within a ceremonial context the rituals are "the symbolic life of the native people of the north-
highest expression of the religious life of thewest Amazon. We congratulate the authors on
Barasana" (p. 4). this impressive accomplishment and look for-
Fundamental to the religious system is theward to their future publications.
concept of He, a term that at once refers to the
sacred flutes and trumpets, and the mythical
ancestors of the Barasana. Continuing to live in
a static, frozen world alongside the present, the
He ancestors are increasingly separated fromDeveloping the Amazon. Emilio F. Moran.
the living Barasana with the passing of each Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981.
generation. The author's informant uses the im-xiii + 283 pp. $22.50 (cloth).
age of leaves piling on top of one another on the
forest floor to depict the succession of genera- Darrel L. Miller
tions. The He ritual compresses the pile "so that College of William and Mary
each generation of initiates is brought into
direct contact with, and adopted by, the first This book addresses the thorny issue of the
ancestor" (p. 249). development of the world's last great frontier
The author presents a detailed analysis of areas. It is a cultural ecological analysis of
each of the major symbolic objects associatedBrazil's Transamazon Highway colonization
with the He ritual, and often finds that theyproject which chronicles the successes and
have an oppositional character. The trumpets,failures of the project in terms of both the in-
for example, are primarily masculine in naturedividuals involved and implications for future
and are brought together with the feminineAmazon development. As the author notes, this

This content downloaded from 157.253.50.50 on Tue, 26 Jun 2018 17:15:36 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms