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8 Retention of Traditional Knowledge In defining traditional knowledge of any sort, one of the components is age: tradition implies antiquity. Traditional ethnobiological knowledge (TEK) in Ama­ zonia, for the present purpose, denotes specifically pre-­Columbian objects of un­der­ stand­ ing that have survived to be documented ethnographically. Borrowings of ethnobiological knowledge by any one ethnic group from non-­ Amazonian sources that have occurred since 1492 can therefore be excluded as TEK, assuming such borrowings can be detected. Written records are of­ten lacking and archaeologi­cal data do not necessarily yield an unbroken record of TEK to the present. ­ Indeed, TEKhasbeenlostautochthonouslyinAmazonianprehistory.Itisimportanttherefore to be able to make comparisons based on his­ tori­ cal linguistics and modern ethnology as a proxy window onto the Amazonian past. It is sometimes implied that ethnobiological knowledge is thousands of years or“hundredsof[human]generations”old,simplybecausebiologicalresourcesthem­ selves, such as varieties of domesticated and semidomesticated species, are that old (Brush1993, 660).It isassumedthatthe knowledge about thoseresourcesmust be as old as the resources themselves. Yet knowledge of the uses of wild species in Ama­ zonia may be more difficult to classify as traditional, in the sense of great age, becauseittendstobemorelabile .Namesforwildplantsseemtoberetainedovertime lessthanarenamesfordomesticatedandsemidomesticatedplants(BaléeandMoore 1991, 1994). It is more problematic to reconstruct uses of wild species without linguistic evidence, because such uses, if the same between disparate groups, could have been borrowed or independently discovered, unless the cultural employment of them is richly detailed and has its source in arcane knowledge. The finer the degree of detail in the usage, together with supporting correspondence from comparative linguistics and ethnology, the more likely the knowledge of the wild species in question will be traditional. The uses of species and varieties that have been extinct for a lengthy period of time in a cultural repertoire will be obviously even more remote from observation. Iflossofbiologicalreferentsinvolvesagraduallossofknowledgeaboutthem,much native knowledge of plants must have vanished, since (as Charles Clement [1999a, 1999b] has shown) many crop genetic resources in Amazonia have disappeared since 1492. They have been lost in the Andes in both prehistoric and contemporary times too, because of monocropping and changing technologies and market conditions (Zimmerer 1996, 84–88). In addition to species, ancient technologies have been lost as well in Amazonia. Cropping of ridged fields in the Llanos de Mo- Retention of Traditional Knowledge 133 jos, and the exact uses to which prehistoric features such as causeways, canals, and dikes were put, disappeared for the most part by 1200—that is, well before the conquest (Denevan 1966; Erickson 1995). Although they all used fire captured from the hearths of other groups or lightning strikes and had ways of maintaining it, the actual technology of fire making was definitively lost by the Tupí-­Guaraní– speaking Guajá, Sirionó, Yuquí, and some of the Parakanã (Balée 2001), as well as by the Carib-­speaking Akuriyo (Kloos 1977, 120), and no doubt by other peoples at one time or another (Balée 2001). These groups are mainly hunter-­ gatherers or trekking peoples who had been subjected over time to the progressive loss of other aspects of aborigi­ nal technology, such as the use and processing of bitter manioc, in addition to other domesticated crops. Regardless of the causes for the loss of TEK, time in general effects an erasure where there is no record keeping. Even record keeping can be destroyed, as when astronomical and calendrical systems, numeration, and writing perish with withering civilizations, even though some semblances of past esoteric knowledge (such asarithmetic)maybepreservedinspeechandshared(but,onartificialdevices,unrecorded ) knowledge (Urton 1997). The Rosetta stone for TEK in Amazonia is not made of rock; rather, it is to be found in living native languages and cultural practices. For that reason if for no other, these phenomena urgently require skillful and meticulous documentation, preservation, and protection. Knowledge itself definitely changes, as do memories of the past. Some sorts of knowledge are more ephemeral than others. Genealogies in Amazonia seem especially subject to loss (Murphy 1979). It must be remembered that in Amazonia social standing is almost never based on who one’s putative ancestors were, since anyone is a potential “somebody” and the kin who count are one’s living, co­ resident consanguines, affines, and affinables (Basso 1988 [1973]; Rivière 1987). Although Darcy Ribeiro (1996) reported that one Ka’apor informant possessed generationally deep genealogical information, I was unable to document similar knowledge among the contemporary Ka’apor, and it seems to be an isolated case in Amazonian native societies. Ascribed...

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