Papers by Astrid Steverlynck
Bloomsbury Academic eBooks, 2023
Available from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DN061270 / BLDSC - British Library Doc... more Available from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DN061270 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo
Ethnohistory, 2005
This article examines the role of amazon women during the first centuries of European exploration... more This article examines the role of amazon women during the first centuries of European exploration in lowland South America by analyzing the accounts produced by conquistadors, missionaries, and explorers from the sixteenth to early nineteenth centuries. The accounts are analyzed in the light of more recent ethnographical, archaeological, and ethnohistorical studies that reveal in these sources evidence supporting the existence of a native discourse on amazon-like women. It is suggested that Amerindians and Europeans entered into a ''dialogue'' through a discourse on amazon women. From the Amerindian point of view, this discourse involved ideas about the regeneration of society achieved through exchange, a model of creation that became especially relevant when confronting the European invasion. By relating the accounts to this wider context, the analysis provides a more thorough understanding of the situation of contact and the accounts themselves. On 6 January 1493, while on the island of Hispaniola, Columbus (1960: 140) learned that ''toward the east there was an island where there were women only.'' 1 By 13 January he had identified the island as Matininómodern Martinique-and a few days later he added that ''at certain time of the year men came to them from the . . . island of Carib . . . and that if they [the women] gave birth to a boy they sent him to the men's island and if to a girl they let her stay with them'' (152). Thus, the island of Matininó became the first abode of the amazons in the New World, with their male cannibal partners living on the neighboring island of Carib. Columbus's account related closely to Marco Polo's (1993: chap. 31, book 3) islands of Male and Female and served to support his claim that he had reached the Indies. 2 From this moment on, the amazons appeared in every exploration that the Europeans undertook in America. There is no question that the Amazon
Ethnohistory, 2005
... or Cunuris River. Felipe Salvador Gilij, another Jesuit who was destined to the missions on t... more ... or Cunuris River. Felipe Salvador Gilij, another Jesuit who was destined to the missions on the Orinoco in 1748, heard about the amazon women on the Cuchi-vero River, a right tributary of the middle Orinoco. According to ...
Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America, 2008
Cannibals and Amazons have been portrayed as part of the Amerindian world since the arrival of Co... more Cannibals and Amazons have been portrayed as part of the Amerindian world since the arrival of Columbus in the Caribbean. On the 6th of January 1493, while on the island of Hispaniola, Columbus learnt that "… toward the east there was an island where there were women only"(Columbus 1960:140). By the 13th of January he had identified the island as Matininó-modern Martinique-and a few days later he added that "at a certain time of the year men came to them from the … island of Carib … and that if they [the women] gave birth to a boy they sent him to the men's island and if to a girl they let her stay with them" (Columbus 1960:152). 1 Thus, the island of Matininó became the first abode of the Amazons in the New World, with their male cannibal partners living in the neighboring island of Carib (Columbus 1960:152). Columbus' description reflects a medieval worldview expressed through a European discourse of otherness and the unknown which, with roots in Ancient Greece, puts Amazons and anthropophagi on center stage. 2 It is on the basis of such European presumptions about the nature of the people to be found there that the Amazon and the Caribbean received their names. 3 In recent years, a native discourse on Amazon-like women and cannibalism has started to emerge in anthropological investigations of Amerindian societies, revealing a complex system of ideas. 4 In lowland South America Amazons and cannibals represent much more than otherness: they offer a metaphorical commentary on the world, as well as on the nature of being human and on social relations. If ideas about cannibalism relate to the relationship between men and the outside other, the discourse on Amazon-like women relates to the relations between men and women within society; both represent two essential links in the chain of social relations that enable society to reproduce. In this essay, I will explore the relationships between the discourse on cannibalism and the discourse on Amazon-like women in lowland South
Tipiti Journal of the Society For the Anthropology of Lowland South America, 2008
Cannibals and Amazons have been portrayed as part of the Amerindian world since the arrival of Co... more Cannibals and Amazons have been portrayed as part of the Amerindian world since the arrival of Columbus in the Caribbean. On the 6th of January 1493, while on the island of Hispaniola, Columbus learnt that "… toward the east there was an island where there were women only"(Columbus 1960:140). By the 13th of January he had identified the island as Matininó-modern Martinique-and a few days later he added that "at a certain time of the year men came to them from the … island of Carib … and that if they [the women] gave birth to a boy they sent him to the men's island and if to a girl they let her stay with them" (Columbus 1960:152). 1 Thus, the island of Matininó became the first abode of the Amazons in the New World, with their male cannibal partners living in the neighboring island of Carib (Columbus 1960:152). Columbus' description reflects a medieval worldview expressed through a European discourse of otherness and the unknown which, with roots in Ancient Greece, puts Amazons and anthropophagi on center stage. 2 It is on the basis of such European presumptions about the nature of the people to be found there that the Amazon and the Caribbean received their names. 3 In recent years, a native discourse on Amazon-like women and cannibalism has started to emerge in anthropological investigations of Amerindian societies, revealing a complex system of ideas. 4 In lowland South America Amazons and cannibals represent much more than otherness: they offer a metaphorical commentary on the world, as well as on the nature of being human and on social relations. If ideas about cannibalism relate to the relationship between men and the outside other, the discourse on Amazon-like women relates to the relations between men and women within society; both represent two essential links in the chain of social relations that enable society to reproduce. In this essay, I will explore the relationships between the discourse on cannibalism and the discourse on Amazon-like women in lowland South
Ethnohistory, 2005
... or Cunuris River. Felipe Salvador Gilij, another Jesuit who was destined to the missions on t... more ... or Cunuris River. Felipe Salvador Gilij, another Jesuit who was destined to the missions on the Orinoco in 1748, heard about the amazon women on the Cuchi-vero River, a right tributary of the middle Orinoco. According to ...
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2008
The Amerindian myths of Amazon-like women, widespread in lowland South America, refer to the prim... more The Amerindian myths of Amazon-like women, widespread in lowland South America, refer to the primordial exchange of particular ritual objects between men and women: ciba, greenstones, flutes, axes. This primordial exchange represents the socially creative moment that led to the establishment of society and provides a general model for social relationships. The ritual exchange or circulation of these objects in other spheres involving male-male relationships turns ordinary exchanges into socially creative exchanges by ritually recreating the exchange described in the myths. The myths shift the focus from male-male relationships to female-male relationships as the basis of society and provide a commentary on the significance of exchange and social relationships in lowland South America. Early European travellers in South America reported on their encounters with warrior women and on the stories they heard about women who lived by themselves away from men, whom they swiftly identified as Amazons. Faced with the elusive existence of these women, later explorers of the region dismissed these stories as mere fantasies or borrowed tales (Steverlynck 2005). But centuries later the stories still persisted, now collected by ethnographers and anthropologists, revealing that they were clearly not the result of fervid imaginations but philosophical musings on the very nature of society and its contradictions, a metaphorical commentary on the world. 1 In this article I explore the significance of these stories and argue that the Amerindian myths of Amazon-like women refer to a general model of human social relationships based on the reproductive exchange between men and women. 2 The myths relate that the women, who sometimes lived by themselves away from the men, possessed some cultural object essential for the establishment and continuity of society: ciba stones and guanin ornaments among the Taino (Pané 1999), greenstones in the lower Amazon, the Yurupari flutes among Tukanoan and Arawak groups (see note 24),
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Papers by Astrid Steverlynck