NATIVE LATIN AMERICANS
(ANTH 150)
Prof. Vincenza Kay
(  kayv@mail.montclair.edu   )

Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss has written that "...for us European earth-dwellers, the adventure played out in the heart of the New World signifies in the first place that it was not our world and that we bear responsibility for the crime of its destruction; and secondly, that there will never be another New World...."

REQUIRED TEXTS:

1. From Indians to Chicanos, Vigil, J.: Waveland.
2. To the Mountain and Back, Glittenberg: Waveland.
3. Yanomamo, Chagnon, N.: Harcourt Brace.

Your course of study on Native Latin Americans will analyze Latin America vis-a-vis the past, the current life, and indications for the near future.

Within the limits of what one course can cover, we will study representative peoples of Central and South America and the Caribbean. We will, of course, focus on the anthropological perspective.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

Class attendance is central to the successful completion of this course.

Two essay exams - a mid-term and final.
One reaction paper - 6 double-spaced pages.
Short reading analyses throughout the semester, based on your texts.
You are responsible for being up-to-date on current events of our area of study.

ALL DUE DATES TO BE ANNOUNCED IN CLASS.

COURSE OVERVIEW:

1. The Past

A. The Conquest

1. First contact
2. How different indigenous groups reacted to conquest
3. Lasting effects of the conquest
4. The Conquistadors
5. Colonization: repartimiento, encomienda, haciendas

B. The Glorious Ancestors: Olmec, Toltec, Aztec, Maya, Chibcha, Inca, Guarani, etc.

1. Their culture before and after "contact"

a. Subsistence strategies: hunters and gatherers, horticulturalists, campensinos
b. Family organization
c. Social organization
d. War, conquest, politics
e. Cities, states of the past

2. Native Latin American Today

A. Maya of Amatenango del Valle, Zinacantecos, Chichen Itza; (Yaqui of Sonora, Mexico). Quichi Maya of Chichicastengango, Guatemala. The Miskito of Nicarague, etc.
B. Jivaro, Yanomamo, Shavante, Mehinacu, and Kayopo of Brazil, Guajiros of Columbia, etc.
C. Politics, guerrilla movements: Castro's Cuba, Sandinistas, Sendero Luminoso, Mesurasatas, F.M.L.N., Tupac Amaru, etc.
D. European assimilation: cultural, political, and religious.
E. United States involvement in Panama, El Salvador, Nicarague, Haiti, etc.
F. Immigration (legal, illegal)

3. Implications for the Future

A. Industrialization vs. Los Indios
B. Demise of the rain forest habitats: implications for Native Latin Americans and for the world in general
C. The majority as a minority: from the assimilation of the Guarani of Paraguay to the extinction of the Tierra del Fuegans. (Is extinction unavoidable?)
D. "Reservations": a solution or a problem? Gold strikes on reservation lands, bust or boom?
E. Gunboat diplomacy vs. other options for peace.

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