Fisher-2015-The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology

Social Organization as the Framework for
Interpreting Demographic Measures of

Urban Emigration among the Canela of
South Central Maranhão, Brazil
By
William H. Fisher
College of William and Mary
Resumen
Este trabajo procura indagar en las razones por las cuales, a pesar de décadas de famil-
iaridad, oportunidad y establecimiento de redes sociales que conectan áreas urbanas
y rurales, sólo una fracción de los casi 2.000 Ramkôkamekra Canela del Maranhão,
Brasil, se ha trasladado a las ciudades. La evidencia histórica y etnográfica resalta la
importancia de las interacciones con vecinos regionales y con autoridades estaduales y
federales para lograr la supervivencia de una tribu. La historia de estas interacciones
regionales demuestran que las mitades con clases de edad y la autoridad derivada de la
posición jerárquica dentro de dichos grupos continúan siendo cauces para la influencia
colectiva y personal dentro del ámbito urbano. Dentro de la economı́a polı́tica regional,
el sistema ceremonial Canela produce individuos de elevado estatus que sirven de in-
termediarios con la élite local no-indı́gena. La organización ceremonial configura las
motivaciones personales y, al mismo tiempo, las formas organizacionales que reúnen
los fondos sociales distribuidos por el gobierno federal y estadual, y el dinero resultante
de la venta de recursos naturales y productos de las tierras indı́genas. Este trabajo anal-
iza cómo estos factores desincentivan la migración. [Brasil, pueblos indı́genas, ritual,
organización social, urbanización]
Abstract
This article attempts to answer the question of why, despite decades of familiarity,
opportunity and established social networks bridging urban and rural areas, have only
a handful of the almost 2000 Ramkôkamekra Canela, Maranhão, Brazil, moved to
cities? Historical and ethnographic evidence regarding survival strategies point to the
The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 34–56. ISSN 1935-4932, online ISSN
1935-4940.
C 2015 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/jlca.12137
34 J ournal of L atin A merican and C aribbean A nthropology

importance of engagement with their neighbors and with central authorities. The his-
tory of regional engagement indicates how Canela age class moieties and the authority
that derives from standing within the age class continue to be the vehicles for col-
lective influence and personal influence within the urban sphere. Within the regional
political economy, the Canela ceremonial system produces high-ranked individuals
who intermediate with the local Brazilian elite. Ceremonial organization largely forms
the motivational and organizational nexus for the contemporary pooling of govern-
ment transfer payments and the sale of resources located on indigenous lands and the
commitments arising from these social transactions, as well as the dearth of income-
generating alternatives has the effect of discouraging emigration. [Brazil, indigenous
people, ritual, social organization, urbanization]
Geographers McSweeney and Jokisch (2007) have recently compiled evidence

on emigration from many rural indigenous societies to the metropolises of the
Amazon, Central America, and the Caribbean region. They identify a number of
factors that contribute to the decision to leave rural areas, such as access to health
care, employment, and education. Additionally, some indigenous communities
have been displaced from their ancestral territory and forced to relocate. Others
suffer from the hardship associated with population increase given the limited
resource capacity of their territories. In some respects indigenous emigration
appears to be a reaction to the same sorts of problems that plague many dwellers in
the Amazonian countryside, namely, a lack of government services and economic
opportunity, along with environmental degradation. However, in other respects,
the outflow of indigenous peoples appears to be linked to their distinctive forms
of community, the depredation and neglect to which indigenous territories are
subject, and the difficulties of exercising the rights of citizenship far from centers
of power and administration. In other words, the maintenance of a viable home
territory in rural areas entails an urban presence as well, at least by some of the
groups’ leadership.
Indigenous presence in urban areas has long constituted a challenge for an-
thropology in terms of documentation, field methodology, and theory (e.g., Mayer
1961; Mitchell 1966; Oliveira 1968; Strathern 1975; Waddell and Watson 1971).
However, in contrast with past studies, contemporary environmental concerns
and the association of indigenous territories with conservation have given the is-
sue of indigenous emigration a new significance. McSweeney and Jokisch link our
understanding of this issue with an assessment of the current and future success
of creating environmentally protected areas. For example, the support indigenous
people receive from conservation groups may be contingent on permanence on
Canela Urban Emigration 35

their land and a refusal to engage in certain kinds of extractivist and industrial
activities. The efficacy of ecological/economic zoning in providing a stable plan for
balanced conservation and economic development is also called into question if
natives leave their territories of origin (Sombroek and de Souza Carvalho 2002). In
short, while anthropologists have long sought to study indigenous and tribal peo-
ples’ translocation to urbanity (e.g., Redfield 1953), including under conditions of
colonialism (e.g., Malinowski 1945), contemporary studies in Latin America have
taken on an added dimension because of the way in which indigenous territories
have been linked to conservation efforts.
Given the association between indigenous reserves and environmental conser-
vation (Schwartzman et al. 2013), the ability to discern whether indigenous peoples
move to the city for reasons different from those of other rural people provides
one important diagnostic of the future of protected areas. McSweeney and Jokisch
(2007:160) suggest, “The processes and paths by which individuals from lowland
populations are entering migrant streams seem different in several respects from
those of other rural Latin Americans.” If indigenous people are leaving to search
for employment, the result may be an emptying out of the reservation population,
leaving the area vulnerable to invasion by extractive interests or squatters. On the
other hand, if the establishment of an urban presence is aimed at gaining adminis-
trative leverage over decisions regarding the reservation, this may contribute to its
vitality as a space for enduring community. In particular, McSweeney and Jokisch
(2007:174) are at pains to point out that urban emigration need not represent an
abandonment of a place-based identity. They argue that an urban presence may
be necessary to protect indigenous homelands and that indigenous politics may
be an understudied factor in understanding movement to urban areas.
This article takes a historical approach to describe how indigenous social
organization sets the terms of engagement within which an indigenous people
interacts with surrounding urban and rural populations in Northeastern Brazil.
I attempt to build on McSweeney and Jokisch’s insights, which focus on the
processes occurring in rural areas that shape indigenous emigration. I argue for
an expanded understanding of indigenous politics to take into account intra-
group processes as well as movements aimed at influencing government pol-
icy. Within the regional political economy, indigenous people are not linked di-
rectly to services, markets, or employment. Rather, their distinctive social or-
ganization and the history of regional interaction must be understood to form
the contexts in which indigenous individuals and families decide to emigrate.
Variables such as waged employment, education, or access to medical care may
have quite different behavioral outcomes depending on the indigenous society
in question.
On the other hand, anthropologists are reminded by quantitative analyses
such as those of McSweeney and Jokisch that numerical trends are indeed the

product of individual decisions to emigrate. Thus, we have to go beyond a de-
scription of society as a collective project in order to understand demographic
trends, and our description of social organization should highlight the way it
produces quite different contexts for social action for different families and in-
dividuals. In the case described in this article, the ceremonial system produces
high-ranked individuals who intermediate with the local Brazilian elite. The exis-
tence of the ongoing relationship between high-ranked indigenous males and the
local upper class has decisively shaped the relationship between the indigenous
group and surrounding populations and largely forecloses emigration as an op-
tion for lower ranked individuals unless they sever ties completely with their group
of origin.
The present article describes the Ramkôkamekra-Canela living on the eastern
fringes of the Amazon in the central part of Maranhão state in Northeastern
Brazil. Why, despite decades of familiarity, opportunity, and established social
networks bridging urban and rural areas, have only a handful of the almost two
thousand Canela moved to cities? The Canela village includes people with vastly
different education, experience, and life goals, yet few have chosen the exit option
and moved permanently. Population density and social conditions would seem to
favor such an exodus, as would the increasing availability of education. Currently, a
large proportion of Canela youth have completed secondary education and harbor
ambitions to earn wages. The elderly population—women over 55 and men over
60—receives cash pensions. The population level in the main village is as high as
it has been for a century, and agricultural production requires dispersal for the
grueling clearing and planting of relatively unproductive gallery forest soils with
simple tools, such as axes and machetes (Gross et al. 1979).
Although the Canela have not opted to move permanently to cities, their case
helps us to see the kinds of larger influences and networks interpenetrating in-
digenous communities that, I claim, throw light on the urbanization trend. This
article calls attention to the relatively stable assimilation of the Canela within the
region, although Canela have not left the reservation to take up wage work or set up
commercial establishments outside of the reservation. As will be seen, the Canela
resist becoming dependent laborers. They obtain cash from non-indigenous out-
siders through the two mechanisms of borrowing (or indebtedness) and collective
pressure for government resources and services. For these mechanisms to be ef-
fective, Canela rely on their distinct ethnic status and resource base. They may be
seen to be part of a fairly stable ensemble of regional relations (no Canela adult is
without social relations, debt, or ethnic standing outside of the reservation), while
remaining segregated economically and occupationally. This article will describe
how such a situation has come about historically and how mobility, along with
the ceremonial system, plays a key role in maintaining the economic viability of
collective life. In particular, I suggest that the native system of inequality plays a

key role in Canela relations with outsiders. The Canela system of ranking sets the
terms within which individual Canela transact with the agrarian and commercial
sectors of the region, enabling individuals to contribute resources to the native
ceremonial system that validates their intratribal standing, without the dispersive
consequences entailed by wage labor outside of the reservation.
During five months spread over the summer and fall of 2009, 2010, and 2011,
I resided in the Canela village of Escalvado. During fall 2009, I visited and pho-
tographed 200 residences, during which time I systematically recorded experiences
of household residents off the reservation. I kept full records of the comings and
goings of my adopted family. Once I established the differences in relative pres-
tige within the village, I sought, through informal but systematic questions, to
learn about the finances and logistics of travel and the sources of board, lodging,
and transportation, as well as the motivations leading individuals to leave and re-
turn to the village. I collected life histories from five elderly Canela men who were
well traveled. It must be stressed that decisions about when and where to move are
made by individuals (and sometimes families), and the methodology employed
provides ample evidence for this. I also interviewed non-Canela service personnel,
such as health postworkers and drivers, regarding patterns of mobility; I accompa-
nied Canela to settlements and cities in the vicinity of the reservation. Aside from
my own census data, William Crocker of the Smithsonian Institute generously al-
lowed access to previous census data that included photographs of Canela dwellings
in Barra do Corda that were later abandoned. Previous fieldwork with the Gê-
speaking Xikrin of Pará contributed to my perception of social relations and preat-
tuned my ear to Canela phonemes and phonology, although such experience also
carried the danger of attributing “Gê-ness” to Canela through perceptual inertia.
Canela Home Territory and Relations With Urban Areas
The Canela are one of a number of closely related peoples classified as “Eastern
Timbira” by ethnologist Nimuendajú (1946), whom he included among the ranks
of Northern Gê speakers. At the beginning of the 19th century, the eastern fringes
of the Amazon were dotted with great circle-shaped villages of Gê-speaking
peoples in what are today the states of Maranhão, Pará, and Tocantins. These
savanna villages ranked among the largest of terra firme settlements known in
the Amazon region, housing anywhere between 1,000 and 1,500 individuals. The
conditions of endemic warfare between different villages apparently made large
size and military organization a distinct advantage (Wüst and Barreto 1999). Such
communities aggregated a large number of people, but their inhabitants dispersed
for part of the year—in kin groups, age classes, or war parties. Ultimately,
the ability to maintain large villages rested on the alternation of dispersal and
unification. During times when everybody reassembled in the villages, large

ceremonies required abundant food and participation. The Escalvado village today
continues to exhibit the millennial qualities of Gê occupation. Male councilors
meet each day on their spot in the plaza center. Log races and competitions of
other sorts are frequent. Village space is conceptually reconfigured during the
yearly cycle through the activation of moiety and plaza groups based on various
principles and memberships. The village empties during the height of garden
work and fills up for the ceremonial pageants that are the high point of Gê peoples’
collective life.
Today the Canela occupy a reservation of some 1,200 square miles in the re-
cently founded municipality of Fernando Falcão (2009 population 8,765 persons),
of which they make up about 20 percent of the entire population. Within the
reservation, most families maintain houses in agricultural areas in addition to
those in the central village. The reservation is surrounded by small settlements
comprised of cattle ranchers, small-scale agriculturalists, and several large estates.
Canela have compadres here, and they shop and visit, but they do not maintain
houses in the area surrounding the reservation.1 However, in the urban areas of
Barra do Corda, some 40 miles north of the reservation (estimated 2009 popula-
tion: 81,329) or in Teresina, capital of the neighboring state of Piauı́, a little less
than 200 miles distant, there are dwellings rented or owned outright by Canela.
The number of these is small at any one time and real estate is acquired and dis-
posed of fairly rapidly. One exception is the men’s council age-set leader whose
long-held dwelling in Barra do Corda serves as a meeting point for Canela in
the city.
The Canela grow most of their own food, but this is supplemented with cash
purchases. According to data published by Gross et al. (1979), the amount of
work required for a decent swidden plot is much greater for the Canela than for
peoples inhabiting tropical forest areas. The Canela reservation contains many
areas that are of only marginal fertility, even within a region of generally poor
soils. Presently, the Canela must spread out to areas quite distant from the central
village in order to farm the gallery forest regions along the watercourses that
traverse the reserve. However, although systematic measurements have not yet
been made, there would appear to be a great deal of variation in crop productivity
in these areas. There are some 26 garden communities scattered throughout the
reservation territory, ranging from groups of a couple of dozen to over a hundred
people. These communities vary greatly with respect to the input and machinery
used in gardening, and in their ability to transport crops to the village or the
market. Under these conditions, some Canela may do quite well and sell their
excess crops to outsiders or other Canela.
Cash enters the reservation economy through a number of channels. As
mentioned above, older Canela collect pensions, while mothers over the age of 16
receive a lump payment on the birth of a child, although this decreases with each

additional offspring. Mothers with children in school and up-to-date vaccinations
are also eligible to receive payments (Bolsa Escola). As of 2010, there were 42
men and 2 women receiving salaries for services performed on the reservation,
including schoolteachers and health workers. Additional monies are earned from
the sale of agricultural surplus and crafts, such as baskets.
In general, able-bodied men of working age have little access to cash if they
do not receive one of the few salaries offered on the reservation. Younger men
marry into the homes of their wives and contribute to the household economy
presided over by their in-laws. When these latter pass on, men assume direction of
the household in their own right. Young people of both sexes have learned to read
and write at a basic level in reservation schools. Most know basic mathematics and
some have experience with computers. They form a layer of people in the prime
of working life, yet with little access to cash or consumer goods. Many of them
have spent time in schools off the reservation as well. Canela are committed to
education as a means to raise their standard of living and cope with the challenges
of dealing with non-Canela. Today, in addition to those who attend high school
on the reservation, over 60 young people make a daily 60 km round trip in
order to attend night classes at the high school in Fernando Falcão, returning
after 11 p.m.; their travel time is spent standing in the crowded bed of a small
pickup truck.
Longstanding regional norms dictate that educated people do not engage in
manual labor (Freyre 1951), yet a future in farm labor awaits almost all young
Canela. In conversation, young Canela quickly reveal a wide array of ambitions
for themselves and for prospective offspring. Most of these entail specialized, paid
occupations of some kind. The life of young people appears to follow two tracks—a
desire to have a family and to become accomplished in traditional pursuits, such as
log racing or healing, and a parallel ambition to get paid for skilled work in careers
that range from film animator to mason. The near universal desire for salaried
work among young Canela males (but also among some females) and the almost
complete absence of paid work opportunities on the reservation would seem to
make an urban exodus inevitable. It has also created an indigenous labor market
whereby those Canela with salaries use part of their pay to contract other Canela as
day workers on their farm plots and for other local products, such as the collection
of palm thatch for roofs, the making of adobe bricks for building, and charcoal for
cooking. Educated young people with desires for salaried occupations would seem
to be prime candidates for urban migration.
Canela Urban Emigration in Comparative Perspective
Canela hold much that the city offers in high regard, and they rue the dearth of
Canela-led manufacturing or commerce on the reservation. In general, Canela

express confidence regarding their intelligence, stamina, and abilities relative to
outsiders and other indigenous peoples. Those Canela who have returned to the
reservation after work experiences seem to have chosen to do so because of their
preference for reservation life rather than an inability to cope with life beyond the
tribe. Indeed, since the 1960s many Canela have undertaken paid work outside
of the reservation as clerks, tailors, bakers, security guards, heavy equipment
operators, and administrators and interns for the Indian Service. At least one
man has been employed in a factory in Rio de Janeiro. William Crocker (personal
communication, 2011) and I have independently documented a number of cases
of Canela who have established lives off the reservation. For instance, one works as
a domestic in Brasilia, another owned a filling station outside of Brası́lia, another is
a Seventh Day Adventist pastor in Terezinha, Piauı́. However, these are exceptions.
Most Canela return to live on the reserve.
The option to live in Escalvado itself entails a high degree of regular mobility
between different settings outside the main village. According to descriptions of
Amazonian lifestyles by Browder and Godfrey (1997) and Alexiades (2009), mobil-
ity forms an intrinsic part of Amazonian society and work. The remainder of this
article describes a confluence of factors associated with the regional political econ-
omy and Canela social organization that draw Canela into the city and cause them
to circulate frequently among town, hamlet, garden settlement, main village, and
further afield. It will be seen that movement enables the reproduction of the age
classes and the matri-uxorilocal organization and unified plan of the main village.
Canela are now bound by two sets of intertwined obligations—one oriented in-
wards, toward the relations that organize the ceremonial life of the community, and
one oriented outwards, which draws in the resources—monetary, transportation
and technological, and especially credit—needed to maintain traditional organiza-
tional forms. The specific forms taken by these obligations derive from the history
of the Canela in the backland Northeast.
Their substantial investment in youth initiation has the effect of binding Canela
within age classes, while bestowing prestige on older people for their contributions
to youth initiations and collective life. Older people indebt themselves to non-
Indian outsiders in order to assemble the resources needed to underwrite the
expenses of ceremonies. Given the constraints on the possibility of earning money
in the city, they come to learn that the social ties, natural resources, and access
to pensions and other benefits enjoyed on the reservation are essential. For older
people, it appears to be hypothetically possible to use retirement income to live
in the city, but such an income on its own would not in fact allow retirees to
support the extended family of which they are heads. Retirement payments do not,
therefore, supplant the security provided by continued extended family residence
on the reservation.

“Rural–Urban” Mobility and Obstacles to Urban In-Migration
While anti-Indian prejudice may provide part of the explanation for Canela rela-
tions with non-Canela, in accounts of their own experiences Canela also emphasize
that they are beneficiaries of those who “like” Indians. Moreover, Portuguese flu-
ency and a phenotype that does not differ greatly from the mixed-race backland
peasantry of Brazil’s north enable many Canela to “pass” as non-Indians if they
are willing to conform to the dress and appearance of the non-Indian setting (see
Crocker and Crocker 2006). Certainly, the gushing love notes received by young
Canela males in school, passed along by non-Indian females, indicate something
about the romantic potential of life outside the reservation for young people.
Young Canela especially seem to find the balance tilts to acceptance over prejudice
and some even complain that their skills or even their good looks are appreciated
more in town than on the reservation. Lack of fluency in Portuguese appears to be
more of a barrier to free movement outside of the reservation than anti-indigenous
prejudice.
In the Maranhão backlands, indigenous inhabitants, such as the Canela, in
common with their nonindigenous neighbors, circulate between household, farm,
city center, and work locations, over what are often long distances. Canela cross
paths with non-Indians in Escalvado and the hamlets surrounding the reservation,
as well as in residential and commercial areas of Barra do Corda. When accom-
panying Canela on their travels, it is a simple matter to inquire about the origin
of the relationship with a friend or acquaintance by asking, “where did you two
first meet?” It was commonplace for the parents of Canela and non-Canela to have
initiated the relationship. The means of arriving at agreement and an exchange of
favors between Canela and non-Canela does not seem to be very different from
the backland codes that are in force in the region. The threat of violent reprisal,
rather than the threat of the law, is the guarantor of debt and other contracts; the
poor are bullied and the rich (Canela and non-Canela alike) are threatened with
confiscation of their cattle or other property. Canela frequently purchase meat
from non-Canela as well as from other Canela. A web of indebtedness spans the
rural areas with the Canela holding the position as debtor, either to non-Canela or
to other group members.
Other poor rural folk face many of the kinds of problems cited by the Canela.
There is a general lack of wage work and reasonably priced quality schooling. Costs
of house rental are not high, but take up most of what retirees receive by way of
pension income. For those without income, in addition to a lack of wage work,
there is a lack of credit and lack of land, even for squatting. Canela reported that
the money they received for manual labor would not enable them to survive in the
city. Street gangs in Barra do Corda are a development of the last decade and a half,
and the gangs’ targeting of Canela is cited as a factor in lowering Canela presence

in the city. Barra do Corda has not experienced anything like the explosive growth
of some other cities of the interior and offers scant opportunities to in-migrants.
Although slowly changing, the region remains in the grip of the traditional families
and the structure of the latifundia common throughout Brazil’s northeast; this has
had a significant effect on the kind of urban growth that has occurred in the interior
of Maranhão.
The part of south central Maranhão occupied by the Canela is an area of large
estates; cattle herding occupies the highest rung in the local gradient of prestige.
As is true of many such regions, power in urban centers tends to be an extrusion
of the countryside into the city rather than a spreading of urban influence into the
hinterlands. The local elite draw their standing from landholdings and property
ownership, and property and family name remain the chief sources of prestige.
Politics appears to revolve largely around the maintenance of the conditions that
generate prosperity for the rural elite, so initiatives linked to development, such as
diversification of the economic base, are quickly squashed. The succession in 1986
of the municipality within which Canela lands are located enabled one sector of
Barra do Corda’s powerbrokers to capture federal and state resources. It illustrates
perfectly the continued influence of the rural landholding elite within regional
politics. As we will see, the Canela gain some standing from federal recognition
and support, but their demographic weight within the new municipality also gives
them a new source of influence at the municipal level.
In many ways the region remains a backwater. The main roads are unpaved.
Livestock and domestic animals stroll down the main arteries, and vehicles can
often do little more than wait for them to pass. Despite the dilapidated state of the
roads, each morning and early afternoon sees a swell of traffic into and away from
the center of Barra do Corda. Individual cars are rare compared with larger urban
areas. Most of the circulating traffic consists of trucks, motorcycles, and motor
scooters. If not loaded with livestock, farm commodities, or supplies, the truck
beds are apt to be crammed with poor people. In the absence of bus companies,
popular transit is in the hands of truck owners who shuttle people back and forth
for a fee. Transport for the Canela operates the same way, and drivers are employed
who enjoy the confidence of the tribe. Each morning around 3 a.m. the Escalvado
village comes alive as three or four pickups or trucks with larger beds crisscross
the village, picking up passengers at their homes for the morning trip to Barra
do Corda. The trip takes three to four hours to cover the 120 km of road, almost
doubling the distance as the crow flies. The Indian service truck of the FUNAI put
at the disposal of the Canela often makes this run as well, since demand is heavy.
In all cases, passengers are required to pay; there are no free rides.
Within Amazonia, most populations appear to be mobile. In this respect, the
mobility of the Canela conforms to an Amazonian pattern, although they occupy
an adjoining region of Brazil’s northeast in which cattle herding and horticulture

are extensive and regional power is structured as a variant of the extended pa-
triarchal family with vast landholdings (e.g., Freyre 1951; Williamson 1992:188).
The names of some of the region’s prominent families, such as the Arrudas, Fer-
reiras, and Cravos, can be gleaned from a reading of the Canela ethnographers
Nimuendajú (Hartmann 2000) and Crocker (1990). The rhythm of life involves
going to the center for some special event or for the procurement of an official
document. Canela mobility parallels the mobility of the surrounding nonindige-
nous population in some respects. For instance, when the Canela come to buy
fabric for wrap-around skirts in Barra do Corda, they may choose to purchase
from a sales clerk who travels frequently to family homesteads in one of the small
hamlets on the boundary of the Canela reservation. Recent work on indigenous
lowland South Americans has complicated the rural/urban dichotomy by insist-
ing that mobility itself, along with alternating residence, activities, concentration,
and dispersal, constitute an enduring feature of indigenous lifeways (Alexiades
2009). In their study of Amazonian urbanization, Browder and Godfrey (1997:14)
have analogously discovered that “on the frontier permanent residence is a
rarity.”
While the Canela move through a number of different zones as a matter of
longstanding tradition, their Escalvado village is also the destination for merchants,
politicians, cattle men, preachers and missionaries, friends, debt collectors, and
financial middle-men, as well as for poor Brazilians interested in marketing their
crops. Evidently, such comings-and-goings have waxed and waned in settlements
since at least the late 19th century (see below).
Contact with the authorities and markets of the cities came to be of crucial
importance for the Canela because it served as a means to develop a degree of
independence from the threat of annihilation or subjugation at the hands of large
cattle estate owners. While large landholders were potential allies and protectors,
and held the most potential for delivering goods and influence, they also posed the
greatest threat to the Canela. Maranhão’s landholding class relied on their ability to
establish control over land and retainers through the use of force, the cultivation of
dependency, and the currying of favors from the governing center. The historical
experience of the Canela’s neighbors, the Apányekra, is illustrative of the Canela’s
choices. The proximity of the Apányekra to the powerful Ferreira ranch compelled
their adoption of Brazilian-style clothing and other cultural changes, although
their lands were more distant from the urban center than the Ramkôkamekra
Canela. The latter commonly went without Brazilian-style clothes well into the
1950s. In a letter to the then-director of the Museu Goeldi, ethnographer Curt
Nimuendajú remarked in 1927 that
The Canela do not act aggressively toward civilized folk, but in no circumstance do
they admit the possibility that the latter would impose their customs or social rules

on them. Surrounded and squeezed on all sides by the ‘Christian’, Canela continue to
dress today in the way that they appear in the photos I sent [namely, large wooden
ear disks; no covering of male genitalia or female breasts; indigenous hairstyles;
body paint on both genders]. I’ve already referred to the “hyperorganization” of
this tribe . . . no civilized folk who have observed the Canela have ever managed to
comprehend their complicated system, since we are not dealing with (and never are
among any of the Indians with which I’m familiar) organizations that are similar
or analogous to those that exist among civilized folk; above all, there is a lack of any
political or police organization. (Hartmann 2000:340; my translation)
The Canela as a group avoided being transformed into dependent peons

of powerful landowners—the fate of many indigenous communities throughout
Latin America over the centuries. Instead, individual Canela nuclear families cul-
tivated personal relations with Brazilian smallholders and, where possible, central
officials and merchants in various places were offered Canela support and busi-
ness. By maintaining their mobility, which included an alternation of residences
and periods of dispersion, the Canela were able to include the urban area within
their orbit without becoming urbanized. Wage work or piecework payment never
became more than a temporary strategy, usually undertaken for an acquaintance
within the context of preexisting relationships. Conflict with large cattle estates
forced Canela out of the eastern part of their traditional territory where better
agricultural lands were located. Nevertheless, as a rule, Canela resisted being made
dependents of cattle ranchers, turning into city dwellers, establishing homesteads
as nuclear families, or intermarrying with the surrounding population. Individual
Canela, of course, have done all of these things, but they are few in number, if
informants are to be believed.
Since the time of the Brazilian monarchy in the nineteenth century, Canela have
regarded federal and state governments as potential allies against local elites. Thus,
travel to governing centers has been an important survival initiative. Through
their ability to contribute able-bodied warriors to state-organized military action,
by the mutual aid and labor they provide to their neighbors, and even, as will
be seen below, through the products and services they have at times provided
for the surrounding population, the Canela have proven to be a force for order
and for subsistence security in an area where state services and law enforcement
were practically absent. An examination of the past two centuries can help us
to understand how Canela fortunes may rise and fall with the fortunes of their
region and with the influence of their most powerful competitors—the regional
landed elite. Today, due to recent policies enacted by the federal government, the
Canela are once again courted by local government, landowners, and even drug
dealers.

History of Contact and Military Organization
As early as the 1830s, Crocker (1990:70, 211) recounts, the office of chief was
imposed by decree by the backland elite: “Around 1835 a new kind of chief [pa?hi]
was imposed upon the Canela, a man chosen and supported by local backland
Brazilian authorities . . . Backland community leaders would choose an outstand-
ing tribal leader who spoke Portuguese fairly well and who could convince the
tribe to comply with the backlanders’ wishes” (Crocker 1990:211). A strong chief
could direct collective work activities, although not ceremonial activities, and help
mediate disputes. Additionally, he acted as a mediator between Canela society and
the surrounding rancher elite, government officials, and probably church figures
as well. The pa?hi is chosen from the kýrkhateye moiety and, until about 1980, was
installed for life. The moiety affiliation of the pa?hi meant that he could never be a
member of the council of elders (pró-khãmmã), which is formed by older mature
men of the opposing (háránkhateye) moiety. The pró-khãmmã oversees and directs
the performance of communal rituals. It meets on the western half of the central
plaza of the circular village, often twice daily, in order to make sure that village life
runs smoothly.
Since 1980, the pa?hi has been changed frequently. Some chiefs have stepped
down voluntarily after serving satisfactorily for a couple of years. Others have been
asked to step aside and some have quit. This undoubtedly reflects some of the
difficulties of dealing with a larger number of Canela in an increasingly complex
mediation role.
As early as 1838, the Canela contributed warriors to assist the recently indepen-
dent Brazilian state’s pacification of the Balaiada rebels (Crocker 1990:70). Later
they participated in actions again the Gamella peoples in 1850 (Crocker 1990:70).
By 1900, some Canela youth were interned in the local Capuchin mission in Barra
do Corda. In 1901, Canela provided 40 warriors to put down an uprising of the
Guajajara Indians after these exterminated a mission located in Alto Alegre, west
of Barra do Corda (Gomes 1977). A newspaper photograph at the time shows a
Canela in full combat gear wielding a bayonet. In his correspondence from the
1930s, Nimuendajú mentions that a local official came to the Canela during his
fieldwork seeking to deputize some Canela men to assist in the pursuit of a fugitive
from a jailbreak (Hartmann 2000).
In the decades preceding the assault on Alto Alegre, the Canela had been
relatively prosperous under the leadership of two chiefs, Major Delfino and Colonel
Tomasinho. Both engaged in commercial activities of different sorts. Crocker and
Crocker (2006:20) state,
Colonel Tomasinho made clay pipes and mended backlanders’ cauldrons and shot-
guns for a price. He even had a forge in which he soldered silver coins onto iron

implements to repair them for Canela and backlanders customers . . . The junior
chief, Major Delfino, had a business relationship with a firm in [the state capital]
São Luis, which he visited several times to deliver and sell homegrown cotton. He
transported his cotton on commercial launches and boats down the Mearim River
to São Luis, an undertaking that required a certain degree of sophistication in the
Brazilian business world. Major Delfino made enough money this way to buy and
maintain between 20 to 30 head of cattle.
The colonel and the major did not only deal with regional and state officials as
commercial agents, they also successfully petitioned for the restitution of protection
and free passage afforded to native peoples which, on the death of the Emperor
in 1889, had been repealed by the fledgling Republic. The Canela chiefs not only
regained their rights, but also a considerable quantity of presents, including cloth,
firearms, and tools, from the authorities in São Luı́s (Crocker and Crocker 2004:20).
As late as the 1930s, Nimuendajú (1946:94) mentions that the Canela maintained
a “tribal delegate” in São Luı́s.
Canela leaders are not always effective, though. When they are on their game
and conditions are right they are able to gain patronage and to commercial-
ize agricultural products and mobilize the agricultural labor needed to grow
large gardens. Relations between the Canela and their non-Indian neighbors may
alter significantly depending on factors relating to agriculture and the local econ-
omy. During Crocker’s fieldwork in the late 1950s and 1960s, he observed that the
Canela dispersed in small family groups to seek out work and food from neigh-
boring farms during the period between September and November, a time he calls
the “little hunger.” The millenarium movement of 1963—when Canela prophet-
ess Maria Castelo led her followers to prepare for the impending reversal of the
places of Canela and whites, in which the Canela would occupy the cities—clearly
represents a time of severe stress on the Canela (Crocker and Crocker 2004).
The notion of a world reversal makes some sense when it is understood that
within the time of historical memory Canela had enjoyed abundance compared to
their neighbors. In contrast to the time of “little hunger” encountered by Crocker,
Nimuendajú found that in 1932, when both Guajajara and non-Indians living on
the savannah were starved, many came to the Canela in order to work in exchange
for manioc flour:
In Barra do Corda the lack of foodstuffs was catastrophic when Canela entered in
the city with cargos and cargos of manioc flour, thus saving the day. Even now [June
1933] when I arrived in Barra and asked for manioc flour, the vendor answered, “We
have it and it’s of high quality—from the [Canela] village of Ponto!” (Hartmann
2000:194)

Distinction and Equality: The Two Paths
Canela today speak of walking two paths—that of tradition and that of “white”
society. This idea is expressed by informants of different ages and genders, and I
believe it to be a formulation oft-repeated in the men’s councils; it has become
something of a stock phrase. To more fully explore its meaning would entail an
exploration of how Canela conceive of their society in relation to Brazilian society,
which would undoubtedly reveal much of interest regarding historical and mythical
referents and cosmological conceptions, as well as future hopes and ambitions. For
the purposes of this article, however, the notion of two paths is relevant because it
was a way of framing responses to my questions about mobility when informants
may have harbored the notion that I would interpret their responses to mean
that they had ceased to be attached to a traditional lifestyle. I am convinced that
the importance of this turn of phrase is that it captures the dual and sometimes
contradictory values held by most Canela toward the central sources of authority
operating in their lives—the Brazilian state and tribal authorities. On the one
hand, there is a tendency to objectify Canela culture in terms of the ceremonial
system, which is sometimes referred to as nossa lei, our law. On the other hand,
Canela want parity and dignity, and equality of benefits and opportunity when
dealing with Brazilian civil society and the state.
Canela actions are often justified as assertions of citizenship and social inclusion
on a par with nonindigenous Brazilians. For example, Esclavado’s housing boom
(a 54% increase in new homes between 2005 and 2009, while the population in-
creased by just 12%) is a strategy for smaller family groups to attract more services,
since each family residence is entitled to its own water, electricity, and latrine from
the federal health service. Government programs aimed at low-income and rural
areas also target indigenous peoples living in demarcated reserves. These include
the Luz para Todos (Electricity for Everyone) program, as well as transfer payments
for prenatal and infant expenses, school children, and retirement pensions for rural
tillers of the soil, irrespective of whether they were paid or subsistence agricultural-
ists. Transfer payments are also made to caretakers of disabled children and adults.
All of these are now part of the fabric of everyday life. With the arrival of elec-
tricity, satellite television has also become a common feature of many, though not
all, households. Reforms at national and state levels in health and education have
also changed the way that health care is delivered and have expanded schooling on
the reservation under the administration of the county. However, the provision
of services has done nothing to decrease the need for cash and travel, although
this aim remains a clear objective in the government’s provision of services. The
cultural patterning of the alternation of mobility and village-based communal
organizations remains key to understanding Canela response to the new benefits
offered by the Brazilian state.

The other path—that of tradition—requires comment here as well, since it is of
equal importance in shaping Canela forms of engagement with Brazilian national
society. All Canela males are inducted into age classes through repeated periods
of confinement over the course of a number of years. The age class system is not
only the focus of collective organization and group authority; its coordination and
succession are organized through elaborate ceremonial pageants. The performance
and material contributions required of the community in support of these rituals
shape the motives and activities of Canela of all ages and all households. As
documented in the long-term fieldwork of William Crocker, the public ceremonies
oriented to age classes and plaza groups are the counterpart to individual or family
rites of passage at key transition points in the lives of both males and females.
Thus, age classes and plaza groups as well as the matri-uxorilocal organization of
extended families are promoted through coordinated ceremonial activities. The
Canela jealously guard their prerogatives over their young people, especially boys,
and do not let schooling become a distinct path for recognition in competition
with the age class system. It is not possible to overstate the importance of the
unity and cohesion thus far displayed by the Canela in the face of their social
insertion within the regional backland economy. No boy escapes the experience
of being sequestered for months over the course of a number of years in order
to become a full moiety and age class member. During these ceremonial periods,
school attendance must be interrupted; later, having been fully inducted, boys may
finish school. But at this stage, too, the need to mark rites of passage within the
family are strictly enforced and boys and girls will be pulled from school at the
dictates of parents and parents-in-law whenever restrictions are demanded, that
is, upon illness or the birth of a child.
Today, the ability to recruit younger Canela into corporate age classes by
means of festival initiation depends on the investment of outside support for the
reproduction of Canela social order. Thus, economic and political contacts with
outsiders have as an important goal the capture of resources to invest in ceremonial
activity. Ethnographic literature on other ranked societies point to a similar process.
Drucker and Heizer (1967), for example, observe that the commercialization of
fishing enabled the Southern Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka’wakw) elite to step up their
potlatching. Closer to the Canela, Lux Vidal (personal communication) and Cesar
Gordon (2006) have described an increase of name ceremonies underwritten
by the Gê-speaking Xikrin Kayapo elite’s administration of mineral and timber
rents.
While Canela demand parity of citizenship rights with non-Canela in the
region, within the context of the ceremonial system, distinctions of prestige differ-
entiate Canela from one another2 . Social standing as age class leader, ceremonial
sponsor, or high-ranking person permits a higher degree of entrepreneurship than
is open to those of less prestige. High-prestige Canela sell livestock, agricultural

produce, and even timber to local markets or within the tribe. The ability to cre-
ate obligations by means of kinship support or sponsorship within ceremonies
imparts greater latitude in the use of the soil and timber resources of the reser-
vation for commercial endeavors. Men who are heads of ceremonially prominent
households, or heads of age classes, may solicit labor and resources from their
followers; many hold coveted salaried positions on the reservation as well. How-
ever, a salary or pension can never furnish sufficient capital for the investments
needed to maintain standing within the ceremonial system.
As a result, elite Canela take on debt from rich and powerful non-Canela indi-
viduals in order to support ceremonial activities. They do so under very different
terms than do non-elite Canela because the collective weight of Canela organiza-
tion can be mobilized to act as a guarantor for high-ranked individuals. Canela
rank does not map directly onto Brazilian social class, but higher ranking Canela
interact with the regional elite and strike bargains with them in a way that would be
unthinkable for Canela of low rank. The ability of high-ranked Canela to mobilize
resources and labor and to influence public opinion within the tribe gives them
standing that extends beyond reservation boundaries.
In one case I witnessed, the Canela men’s council agreed to liquidate a property
in the state capital São Luı́s, which had been donated to the group by a German
NGO so that cattle could be purchased from a prominent age class leader. The
cattle were to be distributed during a ceremony, but the money produced would
suffice to pay the individual debt of the prestigious Canela. While not typical
because it involved property donated to the Canela as a group, this complex
transaction illustrates the way that the network of transactions can extend from
reservation to Barra do Corda and, in this case, to the state capital. What was at
one level the provision of sufficient meat needed for a ceremony also operated on
parallel levels to collectively reaffirm the status of high-ranked Canela and as a sale
of real estate nominally owned by the tribe.
Elite support does not exhaust the expenses associated with the ceremonial
system. It is a Canela ideal that every household should take on the obligations
of ceremony. The emphasis is not on the level of support per se, but on the idea
that maintenance of respect within the community entails shouldering significant
obligation for ceremonial activities. Lower status Canela who rely exclusively on
their own family labor may craft and sell basketry or necklaces, hunt game, or
sell a bag of manioc flour to raise smaller amounts of cash. In this respect it is
important to mention that Canela recipients of government cash transfers make
use of non-Canela financial intermediaries to assist them in accessing their benefits
and to smooth out cash flow problems by extending credit against future benefits.
Although financial intermediaries sometimes travel to Escalvado, the dates on
which pensions, maternity, and other payments are scheduled see many Canela in
towns and settlements off the reservation where they rendezvous and receive cash.

While intermediaries claim a large percentage of government support payments
as a transaction fee, nonetheless, Canela greatly value them because they are
indispensable sources of credit as well.
Government Redistributional Policies and Regional Development
Despite the fact that the region has retained its contours of cattle and small-scale
agriculture, the pulse of change is beginning to beat more rapidly here, as a con-
sequence of large-scale energy and mining projects and associated infrastructure.
Until recently, charcoal was manufactured on a large property near the Canela
reserve in great quantity for use in mineral smelting. Railway and transmission
lines cut directly through the region. Counties (municipios) are also operating
under new formulas for the receipt of federal funds. Under these formulae, the
Canela population numbers are an asset to the small municı́pio and bring added
revenue from federal government sources. This is a not inconsiderable portion
of the municipio’s total budget, given that they comprise some 20 percent of the
population. The municipio has an office of Indian Affairs to which a Canela is ap-
pointed by the mayor. Over the last few election cycles, one Canela has been voted
onto the six-member municipal council, despite the fact that Canela do not vote as
a bloc, but split their vote between two or more contending indigenous candidates,
each of whom is affiliated with competing national political parties. The school in
Escalvado is funded by the state secretary of education (SEDUC) that also provides
funds for Canela to travel to Fernando Falcão to attend municipal schools. The
payment for transportation alone amounts to about $200,000 annually, according
to Rose Panet (personal communication) of SEDUC. Patronage is part of the cost
of doing business: this income stream is also tapped by local officials and may be
considered as part of the income flowing to the reservation.
The shift in the center of gravity toward the new municipio adds a further
incentive against permanent residence in Barra do Corda. For those in a position
to use the new revenue streams from the county office, to market natural resources
found on the reservation or to avoid the requests of needy relatives for money,
the reservation has become the ideal site to generate cash. After all, any day of the
week, for a small payment, people can travel to Barra do Corda and return on the
same day. If someone becomes stranded on the road, there are almost certain to
be friends or compadres with whom they can spend the night if necessary.
Discussion
The region described in this article has remained isolated from some of the major
economic and political trends that have reshaped many other areas of Brazil. In
central Maranhão, rural agrarian estates continue to define the contours of regional

power, and the regional urban center, Barra do Corda, remains under the influence
of the same rural political forces that have dominated it for the past half-century
or more. The grip of landholders over territory is so strong that even the outskirts
of town have seen no erection of shantytowns or squatter settlements. In contrast
to the many peoples surveyed by McSweeney and Jokisch (2007), Canela who
have found their way to large cities have either returned to the reservation or
found themselves cut off from tribal affairs and, as a result, there exist few, if any,
permanently urbanized Canela. While Canela travel frequently to the urban centers
and, indeed, have included these centers within their orbit for generations, they
have not differentiated into “urban” and “rural” groupings, nor have they become
integrated into the class or occupational structure of the surrounding society.
Historical and ethnographic evidence point to the importance of Canela en-
gagement with their neighbors and with central authorities for the political survival
of the tribe. Amidst the backland oligarchy of large landholders, Canela leaders in
the 19th century attempted to establish a kind of parity by using the same badges
of military authority (such as “colonel” and “major”) bestowed on rural patri-
archs. For over a century, Canela leaders and common folk have traveled to seats
of authority and to large cities for a range of reasons: offers of military assistance
to the Brazilian state, pleas for protection or material assistance from governing
authorities, assertions of rights, commercial initiatives of greater or lesser scope,
or simply to gain experience in the outside world. Leadership negotiations with
various levels of government and influential powerbrokers have resulted in impor-
tant policy and material exchanges that have benefitted the Canela as a whole. In
contrast to these collective initiatives, individual and family mobility is ongoing.
Ceremonial and kin obligations take their place alongside financial obligations to
repay debt or obtain money, as the twin interconnected axes around which the
bulk of Canela movement is organized.
Transactions conducted in the course of travel have led to a web of relationships
that have bound Canela with their nonindigenous neighbors over generations. Al-
though of longstanding familiarity, relations could turn violent, as shown by the
persecution of Canela by local ranchers during the millennial reign of Canela
prophetess Maria Castelo, which led to the Canela being removed from their lands
for a number of years during the mid-1960s. The consequence of generations of
mobility is that movement outside of the village does not entail a transition to a
different regime of personal relations. Canela transact business and socialize in the
city of Barra do Corda in a register similar to that marking the transactions in the
towns and hamlets around the reservation. City relations do not imply the indi-
vidual freedom associated with operating within a purely “objective organization”
for which rules apply equally to everyone, and for which cash is the ideal currency
for anonymous transactions, as hypothesized by Simmel (2004:283ff). Nor does

Barra do Corda mark a distinct moral order and a distinct mentality in contrast to
Canela “folk society,” along what Redfield (1953) terms a folk–urban continuum.
The Canela have never integrated into urban society as permanent urban
residents. Their age classes and the authority that derives from an individual’s
standing within the age class continue to be the vehicles for collective and personal
influence within the urban sphere. The longstanding stability of the group
dynamics of ceremonial sponsorship and performance generate distinctions of
rank. The recognition of the stature and influence of high-ranked Canela within
the tribe makes them influential lobbyists, promising commercial partners, and
worthy of substantial lines of credit. Because they are known outside of the reser-
vation, the resources and relationships commanded by high-ranking Canela males
within the community may be drawn upon in order to contract debts or other
favors outside of the community. The consequence has been the elevation of the
Canela as a whole to a player in regional affairs, which has validated the presence of
individual Canela in the city, whatever their rank. The imbrication of Canela rank-
ing with Brazilian social class, as mediated by the ceremonial system, constitutes
the nexus through which Canela are collectively assimilated into regional power
structures.
Canela mobility and ongoing, if discontinuous, urban presence resonates with
recent works that note the salience of mobility and urbanization among indige-
nous Amazonians (Alexiades 2009; McSweeney and Jokisch 2007). The findings
of these studies of indigenous Amazonians confirm the general conclusions of
Browder and Godfrey (1997) who note the pervasiveness of mobility along Ama-
zonian frontiers that contributes to varying patterns of linkages with centers of
growth, which they term “disarticulated urbanism.” Ethnographic description en-
ables us to make fine-grained comparisons between the situations of different
indigenous peoples and to flesh out the idea proposed by Browder and Godfrey
that “diverse social spaces” exist in the Amazon region; the interaction among these
spaces produces a range of heterogeneous urbanization as a result of pluralistic
causes.
If we take a broad comparative view of the Canela’s multiple generational
history during which indigenous elites have negotiated the terms of engagement
for all Canela, it is interesting to contrast this pattern with the experience of the
Terena of Mato Grosso do Sul. The Terena’s urbanism, meticulously documented
by Cardoso de Oliveira and his research team in the 1950s and early 1960s, is
of a diametrically opposed type: the Terena divided into stable urban and ru-
ral populations that have endured over generations (Cardoso de Oliveira 1968).
Each division has maintained its respective orientation toward either the city or
countryside, while maintaining links with one another. Moreover, within the city
the Terena have integrated into the class hierarchy by taking up wage labor and

residing interspersed with non-Terena, often passing for nonindigenous in order
to avoid racial discrimination (1968: 222–223). A comparison of these cases does
more than reveal the different ways in which social organization, local political
economy, and history result in very different patterns of urban engagement on
the part of indigenous peoples. It also reveals the way in which these different
patterns shape the choices made by individual Terena and Canela. If we wish to
understand the reasons for urbanization, a comparative approach that focuses on
modes of regional interaction and history complements a demographic approach
that focuses on the quantification of discrete variables (education level, unemploy-
ment rate, and quantity and reliability of services, for example). Variables such
as employment, education, or territorial disputes may not capture either the trends
to which indigenous people are responding, or the way indigenous agency has
shaped the significance of such variables. It can scarcely be argued, for example,
that young Canela feel a less burning desire for occupational opportunities, or that
Canela require less cash for needed commodities than other indigenous peoples.
Nevertheless, variables such as unemployment or income level have not ignited a
trend toward urban emigration.
The reason for this seems to be that the ability to borrow and repay money
through the pooling of government transfer payments and the sale of resources
found on the reservation has largely preempted wage labor as a strategy for both
high- and low-ranked individuals. Ranking and ceremonial organization form
the key motivational and organizational nexus for such pooling. This does not
imply that Canela are able unilaterally to set the terms of engagement with their
surroundings. If, for example, credit dries up, it is difficult to foresee what people
may do, and urban emigration might become a trend.
Indigenous social organization, in the form described in this article, is not
another “variable” to be factored into regional models of urbanization. Rather, it
interacts with other constraints to impose the “terms of engagement” that structure
the reckonings of individuals as they navigate a heterogeneous cultural and natural
environment, choosing where to live and how to make a living. I would argue
that, as a complement to our understanding of the collective political projects of
indigenous Amazonians for rights, livelihood, and territory, we should also try to
understand the ways in which organizational forms shape the motivations of and
possibilities for individual action. Along with the comparison of organizational
forms and the way they contribute to mobility and urbanization, we should also
attempt to understand how they differently shape the lives of the people for whom
they comprise impositions and possibilities. Indigenous societies are not only
collective projects: they need to be understood as contexts for social action that are
reflected in specific measureable trends, such as those captured in recent research
on urbanization.

Acknowledgments
The author is deeply indebted to the following researchers for help with the
research or with commentary on the resulting manuscript: Bill Crocker, Daniela
Peluso, Jeremy Campbell, Odair Giraldin, Michelle Lelièvre, Severo Canela, Silverio
Canela, Silvano Canela, Marinaldo Canela, Beta Coelho, and Jorge Terukina, as
well as the anonymous JLCA reviewers.
Notes
1 For a recent review of compadrio or godparenthood in the Brazilian sertão “traditionally occupied
by extensive cattle breeding ranches combined with subsistence cultivation areas,” and more generally,
see Arantes (2011:73).
2 See Crocker (1990) for a description of the ceremonial system and its related distinctions of status.
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Social Organization as the Framework for

Interpreting Demographic Measures of

34 J ournal of L atin A merican and C aribbean A nthropology

Geographers McSweeney and Jokisch (2007) have recently compiled evidence

Canela Urban Emigration 35

36 J ournal of L atin A merican and C aribbean A nthropology

Canela Urban Emigration 37

Canela Home Territory and Relations With Urban Areas

38 J ournal of L atin A merican and C aribbean A nthropology

Canela Urban Emigration 39

Canela Urban Emigration in Comparative Perspective

40 J ournal of L atin A merican and C aribbean A nthropology

Canela Urban Emigration 41

42 J ournal of L atin A merican and C aribbean A nthropology

Canela Urban Emigration 43

44 J ournal of L atin A merican and C aribbean A nthropology

The Canela as a group avoided being transformed into dependent peons

Canela Urban Emigration 45

46 J ournal of L atin A merican and C aribbean A nthropology

Canela Urban Emigration 47

48 J ournal of L atin A merican and C aribbean A nthropology

Canela Urban Emigration 49

50 J ournal of L atin A merican and C aribbean A nthropology

Government Redistributional Policies and Regional Development

Canela Urban Emigration 51

52 J ournal of L atin A merican and C aribbean A nthropology

Canela Urban Emigration 53

54 J ournal of L atin A merican and C aribbean A nthropology

Canela Urban Emigration 55

56 J ournal of L atin A merican and C aribbean A nthropology

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