Revisiting first contacts on the Amazon 1500-1562
Abstract
This article revisits four well-known accounts of the first European encounters with Amerindians in the Amazon. The sporadic character of these encounters make the impact on Amerindian societies irregular and uneven. My analysis is directed to the present condition as encountered, especially the variety of contacts. This approach obliges the text be treated as a whole, rather than being read selectively. Maintaining the integrity of the text allows us to see the different kinds of relations in their contexts. My intention is to use these reports to search for the bridges across cultural separations. Each drew the other towards them, in their own ways. These steps opened the way for the “refounding” of indigenous riverine societies in the seventeenth century.
Citation
Harris , M 2017 , ' Revisiting first contacts on the Amazon 1500-1562 ' , Tempo , vol. 23 , no. 3 , pp. 508-527 . https://doi.org/10.1590/tem-1980-542x2017v230306
Publication
Tempo
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1413-7704Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2017, Publisher / the Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Collections
Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.