Amazon Gender Essay

8/3/2019 Amazon Gender Essay

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Compare and Contrast different propositions regarding the importance of

gender among Amazonians.

Comparatively, gender tends to occupy a greater importance in many small-scale,

tropical rainforest societies. This can been seen in many forms through social

relations, institutions, spatial patterns, division of labour, ritual, cosmology and

kinship. Lindenbaum (1987, 222 as cited in Thomas and Tuszin 2001, 8) in her

discussions on gender in Melanesia, goes so far as to describe these societies gender

inflicted. However, among Amazonian scholars there have been different

propositions raised over whether this is a category which is important to Amazonians

themselves, rather than in comparison to other contrasting types of societies. Some

Amazonian scholars have proposed that gender is an important category to

Amazonians by showing how it permeates and influences various significant areas of

Amazonian life such as the sphere of social interactions, the cosmological and ritual

spheres and Amazonians ideas of personhood. However, there are other scholars who

propose that in fact for Amazonians gender falls under more significant categories,such as kinship, concepts of alterity and natural characteristics and predispositions

and therefore in itself is not as important as these overarching categories.

Some anthropologists propose that the structural divisions between the sexes in social

sphere through, economic organisation as well as spatial and political separations

substantiate the importance of gender to Amazonians. This proposal is mainly centred

on the distinctive engendered division of labour that is prominent throughout the

Amazon. Peter Roe strongly supports the proposition that gender is highly significant

among Amazonians; the most meaningful distinction in these [Amazonian] societies

are those between male and female (1982, 265) and justifies this point through his

description of labour divisions among the Shipibo tribe of the Peruvian Montana. Thistribe have a strict system of labour division; womens tasks include cooking, pottery,

textiles, designs and basketry and mens work consists of hunting, making tools and

wood carving (1982, 266). Roe discusses how the Shipibo do not maintain these

divisions due to beliefs that either gender are incapable of performing certain tasks,

but because its social importance. For example men will cook for themselves on

canoeing trips, however, as soon as they reach a village they will find a woman to

impose their demands on (Roe, 1982, 267). He suggests that these divisions are based

on gender symbolism; associations of the hut and the hearth with women and the

forest and the river for men (1982, 266) and he shows how this can induce other

forms of social behaviour. For example no Shipibo man would help his wife carry

water if it was contained in a chomo container due to its shape, which hasassociations with the female form and he would not want his peers to think him

effeminate (Roe, 1982, 267). The division of labour means that men and women are

often found in different places, following different schedules and engaging in

different tasks group (Gregor, 1985, 22). This is exasperated by the gendered spatial

separation in many Amazonian village lay outs, such as those of the G groups, which

consist of a circle of outer peripheral houses and a central mens house. In his work

on the Suy (1981 as cited in Ewart, 2003, 262) Seeger also explains this pattern

through gender symbolism; men associate with social/ceremonial centre whereas the

outer is the more natural/domestic female space, this is a common analysis of spatial

divisions. This spatial separation also directly links to the political separations with

the politics within the village and with outsiders being played out in the mens houses

away from female attention. The separation within these social structures means that

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in many Amazonian societies women and men live strikingly separate lives meaning

that the majority of an Amazonian social interaction is within their gender groups.

Roe (1982; 265) suggests that this is so prominent that these groups should be

understood in the form of as not just one society but two; one for each gender.

Therefore, anthropologists such as Roe suggest that gender is important to

Amazonians because of how prominently it pervades the social sphere and thereforesocial relations and interactions.

A common topic in gender discussions is that of ritual and myth, which throughout

the Amazon are characterised by the sexual imagery, language and divisions. They

often emphasise the differences between men and woman and pitch the genders

against each other. Gregor, in his study of the Mehinaku, discusses how many rituals

have a dimension of aggression between the sexes in what he terms as gender wars

(1985, 120). An example of this antagonism is the Mehinaku rituals of the pequi

harvest, where the central theme is the opposition of the sexes (1985, 121). This

practice consists of a series of individual rituals relating to different pequi spirits and

alternate between aggression from one sex towards the other. For example in theHopa (scorpion) ritual the men impersonate the scorpion by spitting water, or deadly

Hopa venom, at the women. However, in the next ritual of Alukaka, the snake spirit,

women attack the men, who are impersonating the snake spirit in two long lines, by

grabbing at each until they are brake away from their formation and then wrestling

them to the floor where they are poked, tickled, dragged across the ground, pushed

into the ground etc. until reduced to tears of laughter, pain and embarrassment

(1985, 128). Gregor also puts a lot of emphasis of male domination in rituals and

myths, in his theory of the universal male (Gregor, 1985, 201), with the most

prominent example being that of the origin of male cults, a common myth in the

Amazon. The myth commonly tells of a primordial time when women possessed the

secret and powerful objects/instruments and used these to dominate men but the men

tricked/forced the women to give up the instruments which resulted in the patriarchal

structure and male cults of the present (Gregor and Tuzin, 2001, 14). This structure is

kept in place by the threat of gang rape if a woman were to see the sacred objects or

enter into the mens house. Gregor and Tuzin also point out that there are many

examples of women and men having different mythical origins. Anthropologists such

as T.Gregor and J.Bamberger see the content and themes of rituals and myths to be

highly relevant to Amazon society, Bamberger (1974, 274 as cited in McCallum,

1994, 94) stating that these should be seen as part of a complex set of cultural laws

establishing behaviours of everyday life. DisagreeMcCall..Therefore, for these

anthropologists the sexual antagonism and domination in rituals and myth show notonly that gender is important cosmologically but also in everyday life as well.

Anthropologists such as Celia McCallum dislike tendencies to use the social

institutions and ritual as reason for gender importance. She believes that gender can

not be portrayed as simple structural and static relations and disagrees with the use of

myths and rituals as blue prints for social relations, which she argues through

discussion on the disparity between the male domination of the Alto Xingu mens

house myth and the actually relations between men and women (McCallum, 1994,

91). McCallum and other anthropologists propose that instead gender is of

considerable importance to Amazonians because it is so interlinked to ideas of human

identity and personhood. For most Amazonian communities the body is separate fromthe social being and has to be socialised by an array of rituals and practices performed

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by a person and their kin. Gender is seen as an essential quality to be gained in order

to becoming a social, and therefore, real human being (McCallum, 2001, 48). In

McCallums work on the Cashinahua she discusses the Nixpo Pimpa ritual, which

marks the first step in a childs life towards growing up and becoming a social being.

A major element of this ritual is that it is the start of a continual process of the

deliberate creation of gender differences (2001, 48). Before the ritual boys and girlsare referred to as children, whereas after they are referred to by gendered terms such

as young man and unmarried girls (2001, 48). It is also only after this ritual that

they start to take on gender specific tasks and are taught the skills and knowledge

associated with male and female gender. Grandparents are given the important task of

producing the gender differences in the bodies of the children and so enabling them to

learn their relative gendered skills, such as weaving and cooking for girls and hunting,

fishing and gardening for boys. This responsibility of the bodily production of

adulthood is described by McCallum as of greater (2001,49) importance than that of

the parents initial responsibility to produce a childs body through the correct feeding.

For the Cashinahua the process of gendering a child is very important because only

gendered adults are complete persons (McCallum, 2001, 48) that can participate inconsumption and production and so be involved in social interactions. For this tribe

gender identities are so linked to that of humanity that they previously thought that

children that did not go through the ritual would die (Abreu 1941 as cited in

McCallum, 2001, 42). A parallel example is that of the response of the Mehinaku

tribe to hermaphrodites; they see male and female as the only classes of respectable

humanity and therefore hermaphrodites are killed (Gregor, 1985, 40). Therefore,

anthropologist such as McCallum propose that gender is important Amazonians

because it is a necessary to engendered a body in order for that person to be a full and

social human.

The process and maintenance of personhood are associated with ideas of the human

body and corporeal transformations such as growth, adolescent maturation, and

birth/pregnancy. Some anthropologists argued that gender is important because these

corporeal transformations can only take place through transactions with different

types of persons (Strathern, 2001). These transformations are linked with the flow of

substances such as blood, semen and breast milk between bodies, which cause

changes to body composition and have related social transformations (Conklin, 2001,

145). Both the corporeal and social effects are necessary for personhood and fulfilling

self-capacities. Conklin (2001) discusses these transformations through her study of

the Wari people of Western Brazil. For the Wari, in order for a girl to mature she

needs the cross-sex transfer of bodily fluid, semen, this strengthens and increases theamount of blood in her body, enabling her to menstruate, grow and fulfil female

capacities such as reproduction the participation in female work (2001, 153). Men are

said to grow (2001, 154) girls with their semen, in parallel to this is the idea that

substantial quantities of semen is needed to mix with a womans menstrual blood to

grow foetuses. Therefore female fecundity and identity is a cross-sex product (2001,

149). Male puberty is also linked to changes in blood in order to develop masculine

capacities, however, it is believed to be less natural than in females and so needs

human intervention which comes in the form of men making rituals such as the Wari

warrior seclusion (Conklin, 2001, 147). Wari believe that if a person kills, or

witnesses a killing of another person, the enemys blood/spirit swells up in the killers

abdomen and if not controlled properly will cause the death. To prevent this warriorspartake in a seclusion in order to control the spirit/blood and absorb its vitalising

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properties. This was done by drinking huge amounts of sweet maize Chicha, which

tames and establishes a kinship relation with the spirit (2001, 157). During seclusions

the warriors female kin have to put a great effort to create the copious amounts of the

sweet maize chichi, this substance is vital to the civilising of the enemy blood/spirit

and the warriors accept that the ritual could not be performed successfully without

this cross-sex transaction. The completion of a warrior seclusion takes men to highestof manhood status. Therefore, for these transformations which are necessary in order

it is necessary for the input from beings that are different from the self, and so the

differentiation between the sexes in gender is highly significant.poss

include fem repro themes and neg towards menst blood male dom by some.

- One of the main ways this is done is through blood management, for blood is a key

elementin the regulation of individual growth, health and productivity (Conklin,

2001, 147).

. Gender important because need mix of both equal but different gender substances to

make full men and womencombo both gender only way grow and matre

-Gender is very important to keeping this balance as it constructs how and what a

person needs to regulate. Blood is also engendered and this is used to explain whymen and women are suited to different tasks.

Some Amazon scholars suggest that gender capacities are so intrinsic to sex identities

and distinctions that they are simple not discussed or considered important to

Amazonians. Lorraine (2001) argues this point using division of labour among the

Kulina people of the South Western Amazon. In Kulina tribe men take the role of the

main provider; clearing and planting gardens, providing the main protein sources of

fish and meat, and making houses, canoes and market goods. In practice however,

both genders acknowledge that men can be lazy, unsuccessful in hunting or fishing,

preoccupied or drunk (2001, 268). Such behaviour has often caused periods of hungerand, due to the lack of attention to gardens, led to the whole village relocating and

relying on neighbouring villages until the next year. Lorraine suggests that this

division is held up by symbolic violence towards women expressed in rituals, myth

and shamanic practices and to a lesser extent every day life in the form of infrequent

domestic violence, as well as the symbolic association of male gentials with fishing

and hunting projectiles. For other than the forbidden use of hunting snuff womens

activities are not constrained, they could go out and hunt, fish and make gardens in

order to not go hungry or be forced to relocate. However, unlike men who often

partake in female activities, no amount of hunger (2001, 270) will make women

participate in these activities in order to improve their situation. Lorraine discusses

how, unlike other groups, the Kulina do not relate this labour division to femalereproductive systems, sexual dimorphism or gender incapacities to perform certain

tasks they simple find it does not need any explaining. She explains this through the

ideological effectiveness of symbolism, which in this group has transformed social

differentiations into natural distinctions. Therefore these labour differences are

commonsensical and intrinsically unquestionable (2001, 271) and so, Lorraine

argues, not an important topic to Amazonians.

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Lindenbaum, Shirley. 1987. The Mystification of Female Labors . In J. F.

Collier and S. J. Yanagisako, eds., Gender and Kinship: Essays Toward a

Unified Analysis, pp. 221243. Stanford: Stanford University Press

Strathern 2001 mel and ama book

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Amazon Gender Essay