The Indians and Brazil (review)

The Indians and Brazil. By Mercio P. Gomes. Translated by John W. Moon. (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2000. xvi + 300 pp., preface, introduction, appendixes, notes, bibliography. $49.95 cloth.)

Mercio Gomes’s The Indians and Brazil was originally published in 1988 in Portuguese. The translation of the third edition into English will provide the book with a wider audience, which it deserves. Gomes covers the history of the relationship between Indian and non-Indian Brazilians from the time of early European exploration to the present. He draws on a diverse range of historical and anthropological materials, including his own fieldwork among several Brazilian Indian groups. The central thesis of the book is a challenge to what he calls the “paradigm of acculturation.”

At least since Franz Boas, the apprehension has existed that cultural anthropology was a race to document the lifeways of indigenous peoples before they disappeared altogether. Somewhat reminiscent of George Marcus and Michael Fischer’s critique of the salvage motif in anthropology, Gomes considers it to be ethnocentric to assume that acculturation is an inescapable consequence of culture contact. He argues that the acculturation paradigm is no more than a recasting of late-nineteenth century cultural evolutionist thinking whereby less advanced cultures were thought to inevitably give way to more advanced ones. Paradoxically, much of Gomes’s recounting of Brazilian history would seem to contradict his own thesis. He makes no attempt to downplay the events that have threatened Indian cultural survival (e.g., loss of habitat, enslavement, and forced religious conversion) or even their literal survival (e.g., infectious diseases, warfare, and outright genocide). However, it makes his thesis all the more intriguing that, in spite of this, he is still able to provide convincing evidence against a model of simple acculturation.

The primary evidence Gomes uses to counter the acculturation paradigm in Brazil is the recovery of the Indians from introduced diseases. Exposure of indigenous populations to Old World diseases has led to natural selection for more resistant phenotypes among contemporary Indian groups. In addition, advances in medical care have led to widespread vaccination, improvements in health care provision, and consequently, a degree of general herd immunity in Brazil. Although there are a few notable exceptions (such as the Guajá), the Brazilian Indian population, as a whole, has been increasing since the 1950s.

In addition to the demographic changes, Gomes presents other aspects of Indian and non-Indian relations in Brazil that makes one question the adequacy of the acculturation paradigm. For example, the motto of the early-twentieth-century SPI (Indian Protection Service) under Cândido Rondon was, “die if you must, but never kill.” Another example is the “incarnation” practice of the CIMI (Indigenist Missionary Council) over the last twenty to thirty years, which arguably bears resemblance to anthropology’s participant observation. Rather than proselytizing, the goal of these missionaries is to attempt to understand the Indian religious experience by living among indigenous cultures. Gomes also expresses cautious optimism for the eventual demise of agribusiness in the Amazon region. He argues that since cattle ranching and plantation agriculture are not environmentally sustainable, they consequently have not been economically sustainable due to their inability to generate long-term profits. In the long run, the only viable option may be what he calls the “Indian mode of production,” which involves small-scale swidden agriculture with subsistence hunting/fishing/collecting. In addition, indigenous issues have received more attention in recent years due to increased activism, organization, and representation of ethnic Indians in Brazilian politics.

The broader question here is the significance of Brazil to indigenous peoples in other parts of the world. Gomes suggests (and admits this is conjectural) that a “phenomenon of ethnic historical reversion” is occurring worldwide. That is, there is a trend away from the homogenizing effects of Western society toward cultural heterogeneity and ethnic reaffirmation, which he suggests is due to changing world attitudes toward indigenous peoples. Trends in attitudes cannot be measured as easily as demographic statistics, and certainly one could make...