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The roles of material culture in the colonization of the Orinoco, Venezuela

Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, USA

Kay Tarble de Scaramelli

Escuela de AntropologÌa, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Venezuela and Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, USA

The analysis of exchange and commerce, the introduction and consumption of foreign manufactures and technologies, and the process of commoditization of Native material products, service and labor, provides the background for the examination of long-term historical process and Native cultural response in the face of different colonial and post-colonial circumstances in the Middle Orinoco. Our analysis focuses on the exchange relations and the forms of incorporation of Western objects and practices into Native cultures in the region. We trace the impact of certain material items as they contributed to the transformations undergone by local indigenous societies, and offer examples of the differential consequences of the incorporation of foreign manufactures and practices into Native structures of consumption and systems of values. The two cases analyzed in this article concern the incorporation of items of Western dress and the introduction of alcoholic beverages. Through insights derived from the archaeological record, historical accounts, and ethnographic descriptions, we discuss the way in which these commodities served as the medium for the articulation of strategies on the part of the Native and colonial agents. While the colonial strategy was designed to create and perpetrate relations of dependency and domination over the local population, the indigenous strategy aimed at increasing personal political power and enhancing status.

Key Words: colonialism • drinking practice • exchange • identity • material culture • social body

Journal of Social Archaeology, Vol. 5, No. 1, 135-168 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/1469605305050152


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