Hugh Jones (1989)

Core argument

• The Barasana of Amazonia maintain myth and historical narrative as complementary, coexisting ways of knowing the past.

• They did not need Western contact to develop historical consciousness and had their own sophisticated forms of it,

Two narratives

1. Myth → Stories of ancestors/spirits

2. Historical narrative → Stories of specific people/events located in time relative to the present

Incorporation of white people

• White people fit into a pre-existing cosmological opposition via the Wãrībi cycle

• A key episode sees a common ancestor chose the bow and ritual ornaments over the gun, leaving Whites the gun.

• White superiority is presented as the result of Indian choices, not inherent inferiority.

Containment through Myth

• By routing all knowledge of White contact through the Wãrībi cycle, the Barasana domesticate the impact of colonialism

• New phenomena (submarines, football, writing) are retrospectively inserted as things 'always already there'.

Criticism of levi-strauss

• Lévi-Strauss distinguished 'hot' (history-conscious, Western) societies from 'cold' (timeless, mythical, tribal) ones.

• The Barasana's dual system (myth + historical narrative) demonstrates sophisticated historical thinking

Advance beyond Wolf

• Wolf argued indigenous peoples had history but Western discourse denied it.

• Hugh-Jones shows they had their own forms of historical consciousness independent of Western contact