The Life and Times of Grandfather Alonso: Culture and History in the Upper Amazon / Edition 1

by Blanca Muratorio

Overview

In Blanca Muratorio's book, we are introduced to Rucuyaya Alonso, an elderly Quichua Indian of the Upper Ecuadorean Amazon. Alonso is a hunter, but like most Quichuas, he has done other work as well, bearing loads, panning gold, tapping rubber trees, and working for Shell Oil. He tells of his work, his hunting, his marriage, his fights, his fears, and his dreams. His story covers about a century because he incorporates the oral tradition of his father and grandfather along with his own memories. Through his life story, we learn about the social and economic life of that region.

Chapters of Alonso's life history and oral tradition alternate with chapters detailing the history of the world around him—the domination of missionaries, the white settlers' expropriation of land, the debt system workers were subjected to, the rubber boom, the world-wide crisis of the 1930s, and the booms and busts of the international oil market.  Muratorio explains the larger social, economic, and ideological bases of white domination over native peoples in Amazonia. She shows how through everyday actions and thoughts, the Quichua Indians resisted attacks against their social identity, their ethnic dignity, and their symbolic systems. They were far from submissive, as they have often been portrayed.     

                       

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813516851
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	10/01/1991
Series:	Hegemony and Experience
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	312
Sales rank:	616,423
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

BIANCA MURATORIO is an associate professor in the department of anthropology and sociology at the University of British Columbia. 

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Forest Travelers
2. Ethnicity, Language, Culture
3. Family and Youth
4. The Forest and the River
5. The State, Missionaries, and Native Consciousness, 1767-1896
6. Christianity and the Missions
7. Liberalism and Rubber: The Early Twentieth Century in the Oriente
8. The Days of the Varas, the Apu, and the Patrons
9. The Company and the Auca
10. Gold, Oil, and Cattle: The Twentieth Century in Tena-Archidona
11. My Friends the Yachaj
12. Dreams and Death
Reflections
14. The Cultural Bases of Resistance
Epilogue
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Notes
Glossary
References
Index