In Darkness and Secrecy: The Anthropology of Assault Sorcery and Witchcraft in Amazonia by Neil L.

Whitehead; Robin Wright Review by: Steven Rubenstein Journal of Anthropological Research, Vol. 61, No. 3 (Autumn, 2005), pp. 403-405 Published by: University of New Mexico Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3631335 . Accessed: 08/08/2013 23:13
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unfortunate backdropto the "survival"of some core Amazonianlife way. stressesthatso little is knownof the historical,regional Equally,Heckenberger networksand hierarchieswithin which the XinguanoArawakanshe studies were embedded that these Xinguanos cannot be assumed to fall within some earlier andpoliticallogic. As Heckenberger reminds notionof Amazoniansocial formation us (p. 20), the term "chiefdom"was originally coined by Karl Obergwith regard to the social formationsof this region, only laterbeing spreadby JulianSteward and his students Marshall Sahlins and Elman Service. For these reasons Heckenbergerconnects his work with other currentresearchon the "Arawakan diaspora" (Hill and Santos-Granero 2002) and the central, even state-like significance of the men's ceremonial house, rather than with the existing ethnohistorical models of indigenous sociopolitical dynamics, such as those andManuela developedby PierreClastresfor the Guaraniof Brazil andParaguay, Carneiroda Cunha and EduardoViveiros de Castro for the Tupi of coastal and Brazil.Inboththe lattercases the logic of indigenoussociopoliticalsystems southern is towarda constantdissolutionof the power of a chief throughshamanicprophecy and millenarianmovements. Such a debate in itself signals a new phase in the anthropologyof Amazoniain which this authorhas certainlyestablisheda critical and leading role. REFERENCE CITED eds. 2002. Comparative Arawakan D., and Fernando Santos-Granero, Hill, Jonathan and area in Urbana: culture Amazonia. histories: University Rethinking languagefamily of IllinoisPress. Neil L. Whitehead of Wisconsin-Madison University

In Darkness and Secrecy: The Anthropology of Assault Sorcery and Witchcraft in Amazonia. Neil L. Whiteheadand Robin Wright,eds. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004, 327 pp. $79.95, cloth; $22.95, paper. According to Neil Whiteheadand Robin Wright,this collection is motivatedby the irony that the currentobsession of "urbanmiddle classes aroundthe globe" with shamanismcoincides with an erasureof the less savory,yet defining,features of Amazonian shamanism(p. 1). Alas, anthropologistshave been writing about the moral complexities of shamanismfor a long time, and it is unlikely that the essays of this volume, filled with technicaldescriptionand subtleanalysis, will be any more effective in shaping popular discourse. But this is not a fault of the volume so much as a side-effect of its virtue.The editors'real argumentis thatthe violent dimensionsof shamanismarecentralto the constitutionof native societies,
Journal ofAnthropologicalResearch,vol. 61, 2005

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which is why colonial authoritieshave persecutedshamanismand why shamans in turn are well-situated to play a major role in "resisting, ameliorating, and the courseof indigenousandcolonialcontactsandsubsequent histories" influencing (p. 2). The various articles make a significant contributionto recent attemptsto theorize shamanismin terms of historicalengagements,and Amazoniancultures as historicallydynamic. Thus, Whiteheadand Sylvia Vidal argue that popularparticipationin local and regionalpolitics in Guyanaand the VenezuelanAmazon often takes the form institutions.In Venezuela,this of occult practicesratherthanformal"democratic" was largely the result of the adoptionof Arawakanbeliefs by Criollos. When the state expandedits presence in the Amazon in the 1970s, Arawakanshamanswere able to use their influence to help their clients get state-salaried jobs, loans, and In in elections. on the Amerindians often other hand, Guyana, responded support to colonial marginalization by turningagainst themselves. The shaman-prophet AwacaipuinternalizedcertainChristianbeliefs and preachedthat if his followers killedone another, afterthreedaystheywouldbe resurrected as Whites.Conversely, after colonial authorities disarmed Amerindian village leadership, kanaimds mutilatedandkilled Indianswho had convertedto Christianity. (sorcerer-assassins) volume's attention to history does not always take the form of Western, This GeorgeMentore'sevocativeessay on Waiwaishamanism chronologicalnarratives. engages PierreClastres'suggestionthat "thehistoryof peoples withouthistory is the history of their struggle against the state" (Clastres 1989:218). Against a commonview thatin healingindividuals,"light"shamansalso heal ruptured social bonds,Mentoredisplacesthis functiononto darkshamans.Whenhealingshamans invoke a dark shaman to explain illness, he suggests, they invoke a force that of political power at "activelyfunctionsagainstany possibility of a concentration a rigid center"-which preventshealing shamansfromusing theirpower over life to institutethemselves as centralpolitical powers (Mentore2004:141). In an equally nuanced chapter,Donald Pollock explores how shamanicand non-shamanic sorcery among the Kulina representenduring tensions between political and domestic domains. Membersof a village considerthemselves to be siblings, which is the basis for conviviality. But villages are endogamous;social reproductionoften requires siblings to redefine themselves as affines, which threatens conviviality. Interhouseholdconflicts are often followed by multiple outbreaksof illness thatrequireshamanichealing-and ritualsin which members of the village dance all night and sing of beautyand order.Non-shamanicsorcery (to which all men have access) coincides with courtshipand seduction:a young man may apply an infusion of ayahuascato a woman's hammock,anticipatingits aphrodisiacaleffects, but exposureover several days can cause a life-threatening illness. Together,these two forms of sorcery express the fragilityof siblinghood and the threatof affinity. This is but a small sample of the rich offerings of this volume. By exploring complex beliefs about illness and power that are played out througha variety of social actors, it takes us far beyond earlier models of shamanismthat opposed healing to harming.In a thoughtfulcomment on the volume, E. Jean Langdon
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reminds readersthat classifications of shamanshave not proved very useful or meaningful. I believe that taken together,their main value is precisely to reveal beliefs and practicesare not is. "Shamanic" how hollow a category"shamanism" constitute structuresthat coordinate for individual agency; they only grounds in and ethical concerns highly localized, and thus ontological, epistemological, be the real This lesson variable, ways. may anthropologistshave to offer the proponentsof the "New Age"-to remindthem that however much they borrow from others,the world in which they live and act is still of their own making. REFERENCES CITED 1989.Society ZoneBooks. Pierre. Clastres, againstthestate.New York: 2004. "Theglorious of silenceandtheresonance of shamanic Mentore, George. tyranny
in In darknessandsecrecy: Theanthropology breath," ofassault sorceryand witchcraft

in Amazonia. andRobinWright, Edited by Neil L. Whitehead pp. 132-56.Durham, NC:DukeUniversity Press. Steven Rubenstein Ohio University

Modern Inquisitions: Peru and the Colonial Origins of the Civilized World. IreneSilverblatt. NC: DukeUniversityPress,2004, 299 pp. $45.00, cloth; Durham, $22.95, paper. Silverblatt'sintentionsarebold as the purposeof ModernInquisitionsis "to come to termswith the colonial origins of the modernworld"(p. 22) in orderto expose its violent tendencies, including contemporary rationalizationsof privilege. The authorarguesthatthe workingsof the Inquisitorial courtin the Peruvian viceroyalty a significant modem element of the Spanish exposes Inquisitorsas bureaucrats, colonial state.Throughculturalmanifestations, naturalized statepower Inquisitors those who threatened "national throughpublic performancesagainst security"(p. 90). Then, Inquisitorsand clergy reduced a diversity of European,Andean, and African peoples into "two racial designs" (p. 136) of "New Christian= Jew = Portuguese"and the polluting effects of "Indians"and negros, anothermodern labels "racethinking." Lima'sInquisitors, as representatives componentSilverblatt of the Spanish state, perceived "New Christians" and "Indians" as threats (Jews) to colonial stability. Nonetheless, demonstratingthe hegemonic nature of the Andeans integratedthemselves into the cultural "modernworld-in-the-making," colonialprojectby employingits symbols,language,andideologiesfortheirdefense and, ultimately,in rebellion. Extending HannahArendt's search for origins of state violence, Silverblatt locates the emergence of the modem state in the colonization of the Spanish
Journal of AnthropologicalResearch,vol. 61, 2005

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