Of Cannibals and Kings collects the very earliest accounts of the native peoples of the Americas, including selections from the descriptions of Columbus’s first two voyages; documents reflecting the initial colonial occupation in Haiti, Venezuela, and Guyana; and the first ethnographic account of the Taínos by the missionary Ramón Pané. This primal anthropology directly guided a rapacious discovery of the lands of both wild cannibals and golden kings.

Of Cannibals and Kings: Primal Anthropology in the Americas (Latin American Originals)

Literature & Fiction

Whitehead, Neil L.

History & Criticism

Penn State University Press

The Discoverie of the Large, Rich and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana (Exploring Travel)

"The Discoverie", by Walter Raleigh, narrates his expedition to South America in quest of an indigenous 'empire' in the highlands of Guiana. Military encounters with the Spanish, diplomatic encounters with native kings, and enigmatic encounters with monstrous marvels, are woven into a near-mystic quest for hidden gold. However, because of these apparently fantastical elements, this key text on the European expansion into the Americas remains poorly understood. Newly transcribed and annotated, this edition for the first time provides an anthropological commentary of the original edition of "The discoverie" and challenges existing evaluations of both Raleigh and of early travel texts more generally.

Raleigh, Walter

Travel

Manchester Univ Pr

Dark Shamans: Kanaima and the Poetics of Violent Death

On the little-known and darker side of shamanism there exists an ancient form of sorcery called kanaimà, a practice still observed among the Amerindians of the highlands of Guyana, Venezuela, and Brazil that involves the ritual stalking, mutilation, lingering death, and consumption of human victims. At once a memoir of cultural encounter and an ethnographic and historical investigation, this book offers a sustained, intimate look at kanaimà, its practitioners, their victims, and the reasons they give for their actions. Neil L. Whitehead tells of his own involvement with kanaimà—including an attempt to kill him with poison—and relates the personal testimonies of kanaimà shamans, their potential victims, and the victims’ families. He then goes on to discuss the historical emergence of kanaimà, describing how, in the face of successive modern colonizing forces—missionaries, rubber gatherers, miners, and development agencies—the practice has become an assertion of native autonomy. His analysis explores the ways in which kanaimà mediates both national and international impacts on native peoples in the region and considers the significance of kanaimà for current accounts of shamanism and religious belief and for theories of war and violence. Kanaimà appears here as part of the wider lexicon of rebellious terror and exotic horror—alongside the cannibal, vampire, and zombie—that haunts the western imagination. Dark Shamans broadens discussions of violence and of the representation of primitive savagery by recasting both in the light of current debates on modernity and globalization.

Politics & Social Sciences

Anthropology

Duke University Press Books

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Books by Whitehead, Neil L.