From the Enemy's Point of View

Humanity and Divinity in an Amazonian Society

Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Catherine V. Howard

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English

University of Chicago Press
15 July 1992

Other non-Christian religions; Alternative belief systems; Anthropology

The Araweté are one of the few Amazonian peoples who have maintained their cultural integrity in the face of the destructive forces of European imperialism. In this landmark study, anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro explains this phenomenon in terms of Araweté social cosmology and ritual order. His analysis of the social and religious life of the Araweté—a Tupi-Guarani people of Eastern Amazonia—focuses on their concepts of personhood, death, and divinity.

Building upon ethnographic description and interpretation, Viveiros de Castro addresses the central aspect of the Arawete's concept of divinity—consumption—showing how its cannibalistic expression differs radically from traditional representations of other Amazonian societies. He situates the Araweté in contemporary anthropology as a people whose vision of the world is complex, tragic, and dynamic, and whose society commands our attention for its extraordinary openness to exteriority and transformation. For the Araweté the person is always in transition, an outlook expressed in the mythology of their gods, whose cannibalistic ways they imitate. From the Enemy's Point of View argues that current concepts of society as a discrete, bounded entity which maintains a difference between ""interior"" and ""exterior"" are wholly inappropriate in this and in many other Amazonian societies.

By: Eduardo Viveiros de Castro
Translated by: Catherine V. Howard
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 23mm, Width: 15mm, Spine: 2mm
Weight: 652g
ISBN: 9780226858029
ISBN 10: 0226858022
Pages: 428
Publication Date: 15 July 1992
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational , A / AS level , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Eduardo Viveiros de Castro teaches anthropology at the Museu Nacional of Rio de Janeiro. Flávio Gordon and Francisco Araújo are PhD students at the Museu Nacional of Rio de Janeiro. Catherine V. Howard is an anthropology translator from French, Portuguese, and Spanish into English. She conducted ethnographic fieldwork among the Waiwai in the Amazon and earned her PhD from the University of Chicago.