Where rocks grow and God has shoes: Reflections and shifting realities in the Venezuelan Amazon.

This study takes a reflexive approach to understand Western concepts about the primitive and the implications these have on social and environmental practices. These concepts are then compared to the social behavior and world view of the Hoti Indians of south-central Venezuela and their immediate neighbors. The presentation begins with a personal examination of the author's concept of the primitive and moves to the broader historical basis for the development of this concept. Included are the effects hierarchy, class friction, theology and technological advancements have had on the West's definition of and reaction to those designated as primitive. Subsequent chapters discuss the ethnographic record of the Hoti, and then situate them in the social and environmental present according to the participant observations of the author. Included are commentaries on: subsistence patterns; social interactions among Hoti and between the Hoti, neighboring Indian groups, Christian missionaries and the author; a description of observed rituals and magical-healing practices; and a comparison of groups of Hoti living in small villages in the forest and those concentrated at a mission. A chapter is then dedicated to an analysis of the missionaries, centering on their interests in and methods of conversion. It is shown how these goals and actions relate to the conflicts in Western epistemology and how they differ from those of the Hoti. In summation I argue that a wide range of human thought and action is based upon a few elemental concepts about the world that are learned at an early age within a social context. These concepts are reinforced by the apparent reality they create in the more sophisticated adult world. Any inequities, conflicts or paradoxes in the elemental concepts will be present in the sophisticated thoughts and actions of the mature individual. In the West, a long history of social division and conflict reflect (and recreate) primary assessments of the world that elevate objective (particulate) knowledge over intuitive (holistic) knowledge. On the other hand, the Hoti are able to integrate these two broad forms of knowledge, reflected by their intensely personal approach to the objective world. This effects, and is effected by, personal relationships and their relationship with the natural environment. The study of the enculturation process shows that an increasing adoptation of Western concepts increases social atomization and environmental degradation.PhDAnthropologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/104640/1/9542874.pdfDescription of 9542874.pdf : Restricted to UM users only