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CREATIVITY AND CONTROL: PROPERTY IN GUIANESE AMAZONIA Marc BRIGHTMAN * This art

CREATIVITY AND CONTROL: PROPERTY IN GUIANESE AMAZONIA Marc BRIGHTMAN * This article introduces the anthropology of property relations to indigenous Amazonia, where property has long been assumed to be absent, and shows that focusing on Amazonian forms of property can lead to greater understanding of native practices and institutions. The article begins by showing that the Trio, Wayana and Akuriyo of southern Suriname have a wide range of practices and values which can usefully be understood in terms of property. This provides the basis for a discussion of the analytical importance of the anthropology of property for Amazonia, followed by a consideration of the place of Amazonian forms of property in the context of anthro- pological theory. [Key words: Akuriyo, Amazonia, control, creativity, leadership, mate- rial culture, ownership, property, Suriname, Trio, Wayana.] Créativité et contrôle: la propriété en Amazonie guyanaise. Cet article traite de l’anthro- pologie des relations de propriété en Amazonie indigène. Alors que, dans cette région, le concept de propriété a été longtemps considéré comme absent, nous démontrons ici qu’en s’interrogeant sur les formes amazoniennes de propriété, il est possible d’atteindre une meilleure compréhension des pratiques et des institutions indigènes. On s’attachera, tout d’abord, à montrer que les Trio, les Wayana et les Akuriyo du sud-ouest du Suriname possèdent une large palette de pratiques et de valeurs qui peuvent être comprises en termes de propriété. C’est sur cette base que l’on peut entamer une discussion sur l’importance analytique de l’anthropologie de la propriété pour l’Amazonie et repenser la place que les formes amazoniennes de propriété prennent dans le contexte des théories anthropologiques. [Mots-clés: Akuriyo, Amazonie, contrôle, créativité, leadership, culture matérielle, ownership, propriété, Suriname, Tirio, Wayana.] Creatividad y control: la propriedad en Amazonía guayanesa. Este artículo trata de la antropología de las relaciones de propiedad en la Amazonía indígena, región donde la propiedad ha sido desde hace mucho tiempo presentada como ausente. Demostramos aquí que las formas de propiedad existentes en la Amazonía permiten una mayor comprensión de las prácticas e instituciones indígenas. Empezamos demostrando que * ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Oxford University, 51/3 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PE [marcbrightman@yahoo.co.uk]. Journal de la Société des Américanistes, 2010, 96-1, pp. ?? ¢ ??. © Société des Américanistes. 135 los tirios, los wayanas y los akuriyos del sur de Surinam poseen una gran variedad de prácticas y valores que pueden ser considerados en términos de propiedad. Esta parte descriptiva permite que se discuta la importancia analítica de la antropología de la propiedad en el estudio de esta región y nos lleva a concebir el lugar de las formas amazónicas de propiedad en el contexto de la teoría antropológica. [Palabras claves: akuriyo, Amazonía, control, creatividad, liderazgo, cultura material, ownership, pro- piedad, Surinam, tirio, wayana.] INTRODUCTION The idea of property is one of the fundamental elements of much political and social theory (Ryan 1986) 1. There has recently been a resurgence of anthro- pological interest in property (e.g. Hann 1998; Hirsch and Strathern 2004; Verdery and Humphrey 2004; Brown 1998, 2003; Kalinoe and Leach 2004; Moutu 2004; Posey 2004; Strathern 1999; Widlok and Tadesse 2006), to which Amazonianist anthropology has so far made virtually no signiﬁcant contribu- tion 2. This follows a tradition of Amazonian societies, even more than those of the rest of the Americas, being treated as though property were an institution alien to them 1. Even within anthropology, there has as yet been no serious attempt to understand what kinds of Amerindian concepts might correspond to what is understood in other traditions as property. In this article I will argue that Amazonian societies not only have forms of property recognisable according to widely accepted basic criteria, but that they also present distinctive forms of property which are worthy of anthropological attention. When the ﬁrst systematic studies of Amazonian societies began to be made around the middle of the 20th century, some authors included brief sections on property. Fock dedicates nearly two pages to property in his monograph on the Waiwai: he notes that men, women and children have « personal rights of property »; that a father « owns » larger objects used by the whole family, such as a canoe, and that personal property may be bartered using an oho chanting ceremony; that ﬁelds, or speciﬁc portions of ﬁelds, are « owned » by individuals (Fock 1963, pp. 205-206). For the Cubeo of Northwest Amazonia, Goldman (1963, p. 71) gives rather more detail, aﬀirming that « [w]ith respect to land it is dominion rather than ownership that we deal with », but that chagra gardens are a « well-deﬁned item of property » and « the domain of a particular woman » ; other types of cultivation belong to the cultivator while « the land on which they are grown has no standing as personal property » (ibid., p. 74; we shall see that there are parallels here with the Trio). Parts of the river are also staked out by men. Certain kinds of objects (those made for public use) are owned collectively by the community ; other objects are owned individually. Goldman (ibid., p. 75) also makes the suggestive observation that « possessions confer human status. That is, a person should own things ». Many authors refer to property only as a journal de la société des américanistes Vol. 96-1, 2010 136 synonym for moveable objects (e.g. Maybury-Lewis 1974 ; Rivière 1969); none interrogates the nature of property as understood by natives, and all appear to assume that property rights are unproblematic. A notable exception to this trend is Gregor, who notes the distinctiveness and complexity of possessives in Mehi- naku grammar and underlines the relationship between property and person- hood (« [t]he Mehinaku interest in ownership is...built right into the structure of their language »), owned objects being more or less closely associated with individuals (a fact expressed in the possessive forms of nouns) ; he also makes thoughtful observations on the role of scarcity as a measure of value, taking this as a point of comparison with « our own society » (Gregor 1977, pp. 120-121). It is only very recently that this potentially rich line of inquiry has been revisited, notably by Costa (2010 in this issue ; 2007), who shows the relationship between Kanamari personhood, leadership and ownership, and Fausto (2008a ; 2008b), who argues for the all-embracing importance of relationships of « mastership » in native Amazonian social and cosmological relations. I became aware of the work of Fausto and Costa only after having developed the basic argument presented here, and the fact that we independently decided that it was time to argue for the importance of native property relations in Amazonia testiﬁes to the strong foundations of the case. It therefore seems all the more justiﬁable to place the evidence presented here in the context of the wider literature on the anthropology of property. However, I prefer to avoid a « top-down » approach to this subject such as that taken by Testart (2003), which imposes a European notion of property against which indigenous institutions are measured. As Neale (1998) has pointed out, Western ideas about property are « ideologically and historically speciﬁc », and empirical study is necessary to « discover and report rules of access before, not after, we invent universal concepts of property » (ibid., p. 57). Treating jural deﬁnitions of property from capitalist states as a gold standard (instead of a special case) risks giving rise to an ethnocentric analysis with limited anthropological value 4. Instead, I will attempt to follow Rivière’s (1993) call for an « amerindianisation » of key anthropological concepts, using a « bottom-up » approach (see Santos Granero 2009) to outline the distinctively Amazonian forms of property. To facilitate this approach, I will begin by presenting the forms of property found among the Trio and their neighbours of southern Suriname. I will then discuss property in the broader context of Amazonia. Finally, I will consider the Ama- zonian case against the wider anthropological literature on property. POSSESSION AMONG THE TRIO The Trio, and the neighbouring (and in certain cases intermarrying) Akuriyo and Wayana, are swidden horticulturalist hunter-gatherers of the terra ﬁrma Brightman property in guianese amazona 137 uplands of the Guiana shield, most of whom have come from interﬂuvial areas to live in large villages that have grown up around missionary airstrips created on the banks of larger rivers in the last 50 years. Their transactions of objects and persons have come to involve cash purchase alongside sharing, barter and gift exchange, and transactions often lie mid-way between such categories. There are three principal « types of possession » in the Trio language, deﬁned, not by alienability/ inalienability (a distinction of importance in many langua- ges), but rather along « temporal parameters », which the linguist Carlin (2004, pp. 459-476) characterizes as: « immediate possession », « temporary controlled possession », and « permanent possession » 5. The ﬁrst type, for which Carlin gives the example of karakuri nai uploads/Management/ brightman.pdf