The Indians and Brazil
by
Mercio Pereira Gomes First published with great success in Portuguese in 1992 and widely praised in Brazil, this work is an "insider's view" of Indian-Portuguese relations in Brazil. The author, a respected Brazilian anthropologist who spent years doing field research on his country's indigenous populations, emphasizes the perspective of the surviving Indians, provoking debate about the role of the anthropologist today and the need for the discipline of anthropology to take into account the survival of those who once were known as primitive people.
The Brazilian Indian population is increasing and, Gomes reveals, in many areas an ethnic renaissance is taking place. He introduces the idea of an Indian mode of production, in contrast to the capitalist mode of production, and convincingly argues that everyone has something to gain from the Indian way of thinking and living. Stressing the quality of resistance that characterizes the way many groups maintain their identities, he calls on his fellow Brazilians to build a new paradigm--one of cultural multiplicity--which he hopes will allow Brazil's Indians to survive into the coming millennium. 2000. 320pp. 6 X 9. Foreword to the English translation, appendixes, notes, bibliography. 0-8130-1720-3 Cloth, $49.95s
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"This is a seminal book. It is one of the first to bring attention to the turnaround in Brazilian Indian demography. . . . The author is the first to discuss it in terms of what it means for Brazilian and Indian interethnic relations--and for anthropology as a
discipline."--Emilio F. Moran, Indiana University |
