South America. WHAT.

So far, it looks like the vision for South America is to explore South American contact, its affects on the cultural and religious practices, and South America's eventual integration into the world system, now becoming popular with shamanic tourism. A potential issue is that South America is a pretty big place. We have not yet zeroed in on a specific area. Whether this will become a problem or whether we can effectively cover a few key areas has yet to be seen.

Have to admit, I'm pretty excited.

The article I summarized in my last blog post will be one of the major players in European affects on South American culture and religion. It's SO specific to the subject and displays change perfectly.

However, since the assignment is to summarize 2 sources, I'll include two more.

Joseph Bastien's Mountain of the Condor: Metaphor and Ritual in the Andean Ayllu also displays the integral, unique cultural and religious practices of South America.
The beliefs of Indians in the Andean ayllu is based on this metaphor of the body. They see the geographical layout of the land as a literal body and it permeates their beliefs in marriage practices - they must marry from a different level of the mountain in order to keep trade relations amicable because no one horizontal area is self sufficient.
Their belief in life cycles - the puna (top of the mountain ~ 14,000 m +) is seen as the head, or origin of the person. As life goes on, the person travels down the mountain in rivers. When you die, an underground river takes you back to the top of the mountain to be born again from the head or origin.
Their belief in sickness and witchcraft practices - the head is the origin, so if someone has access to your hair they are able to affect the rest of the body and it must be healed by an ayllu affected by water - the medium of the river of life.
Basically every aspect of life in the Andean ayllu is affected by this body metaphor of their mountainous environment.
The area Bastien writes about - the Kataan - is a relatively isolated area of Bolivia, difficult to get to in the dry season, but treacherous in the wet season. Therefore, not many visitors are received and their cultural practices remain healthy, but still have some outside threats. The Kataan healers and diviners have a kind of "power" modern science can't explain. Yet, missionaries try to shut down their practices and if they are seen be outsiders, insults like "dirty Indian with the medicine bag" are hurled at them.


Laura Fishman's Claude d'Abbeville and the Tupinamba: Problems and Goals of French Missionary Work in Early Seventeenth-Century Brazil is a resource displaying rituals and European contact with South America
Essentially, Claude d'Abbeville is a Capuchin (a reformed order of Franciscans) father and he goes to South America working under Portugal, Spain, and France, arriving in Maranhao in Brazil in 1612. D'Abbeville reported that the Tupi Indians received the French well, and went so far as to classify them as "great prophets of God," so d'Abbeville was convinced that the time had "come for God to be adored and recognized" there. His positive letters back to France served as propaganda in order to recruit more Capuchin missionaries in the area, but, in fact, the more time d'Abbeville spent with the Indians, the less he believed they were receptive to his cause and the more frustrated he became. Although the Tupi believed in spirits running and affecting their lives, the missionaries didn't believe that was really a viable religion. Missionaries spent time trying to educate the people in a specific area, but these people are nomads constantly looking for their utopia, making the radiation of education difficult. D'Abbeville, although disgusted by some of the Tupi practices like cannibalism, found a kind of peace within the Tupi. He writes that Indians offer “a good lesson for a Catholic family, who, even though they have received the light of faith and the sacrament of marriage, cannot live together in peace for a single day without quarrel, discord, and division." D'Abbeville laments that the French Catholics have strayed so far from the true essence of Christianity, while the Tupi, who are a "primitive" people live so well in the image of God. For this reason, he was not a proponent of baptism in the New World where the indigenous peoples would have to renounce their beliefs in order to be Christian. Still, d'Abbeville believed that Christianity was the only correct way to live, and wrote in letters back to France that contact with more civilized Christians than were already present in the New World (slavers and land owners) would aid in the conversion of the Indians. All in all, d'Abbeville renounced the ways of the Catholic Reformation mentality of the time, but still managed to show no respect for the native culture he had immersed himself in.