Amazonia : Man and culture in a counterfeit paradise (Meggers 1971)

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Autor:	Meggers, Betty J.
Data:	1971
Título:	Amazonia : Man and culture in a counterfeit paradise
Detalhes:	182 p., ilustrado Chicago: Aldine Bibliografia Crítica da Etnologia Brasileira, Volume III (Hartmann 1984)

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Meggers_1971_Amazonia_ManAndCultureInAnCounterfeitParadise.pdf	PDF document	40.24 MB	Info

Drawing upon more than 20 years of study and field research, the author examines in detail the patterns of cultural adaptation among the peoples of the two main ecological zones of the Amazon: the terra firme (Amazon basin) and the varzea (floodplain). The book shows clearly how human societies develop and survive in what appears to be a luxuriant Garden of Eden but is really a "counterfeit paradise." The author analyzes adaptations in technology, social institutions, and ideologies, and the theoretical basis for this analysis is provided in a lucid and provocative statement of evolutionary theory applied to culture.

On the terra firme, which comprises 98 per cent of the area, climatic and soil deficiencies are mitigated only by the protective cover of the vegetation, and when this is removed, fertility rapidly declines. Food resources are varied and adequate under proper use but tend to be scattered and readily depleted. Successful adaptation to the terra firme involves developing an annual subsistence round that incorporates essential nutrients and assures an adequate amount of food while causing minimal irreversible damage to the environment. In contrast, on the varzea, the detrimental effects of local conditions are counteracted by an annual deposit of fertile silt. As a consequence, and although the varzea has an area of only 23,000 square miles, its subsistence potential is greater than that of the surrounding terra firme. Whereas the major adaptive problem of the terra firme is prevention of irreversible deterioration of the habitat by man, the challenge of the varzea is to minimize the detrimental effects on the human population of sudden and unexpected reductions in the normal level of subsistence support.

This book shows how these environmental constraints result in the cooperative utilization of resources, control of population size, and other socioeconomic aspects of the life of the Amazonian inhabitants. Analyzed in the framework of environmental imperatives, practices such as infanticide, sorcery, head-hunting, warfare, and polygyny can be understood as devices for maintaining population size and density at levels compatible with long-term productivity of the environment. Patterns of community mobility and sexual division of labor are other aspects of culture with adaptive significance. When culture is viewed as a special kind of behavior susceptible to the action of natural selection rather than as a voluntary human creation, many seemingly irrational practices become intelligible.

The conclusion emerges that the aboriginal population reached a state of equilibrium with the environment, in which resources were being exploited at the maximum level consistent with indefinite productivity. The author also shows that the arrival of European colonizers upset this equilibrium and threatened the aborigines' survival. [Das orelhas]

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