Chiefs, Scribes, and Ethnographers: Kuna Culture from Inside and Out

by James Howe

The Kuna of Panama, today one of the best known indigenous peoples of Latin America, moved over the course of the twentieth century from orality and isolation towards literacy and an active engagement with the nation and the world. Recognizing the fascination their culture has held for many outsiders, Kuna intellectuals and villagers have collaborated actively with foreign anthropologists to counter anti-Indian prejudice with positive accounts of their people, thus becoming the agents as well as subjects of ethnography. One team of chiefs and secretaries, in particular, independently produced a series of historical and cultural texts, later published in Sweden, that today still constitute the foundation of Kuna ethnography. As a study of the political uses of literacy, of western representation and indigenous counter-representation, and of the ambivalent inter-cultural dialogue at the heart of ethnography, Chiefs, Scribes, and Ethnographers addresses key issues in contemporary anthropology. It is the story of an extended ethnographic encounter, one involving hundreds of active participants on both sides and continuing today.

360 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Born 1944

James Howe is professor of anthropology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Reviews

[Traci · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay so I cant stop thinking about the Guna and all the people I met on Niadub this March. Apparently James Howe hangs out on the same island and has been doing ethnographic research there for 20+ years. He has been adopted by one of the chiefs. I'm reading this book of his first, as I'm really interested in how the Guna have taken charge of their portrayal in ethnographic literature and the deep history they have as intellectuals. So far it is freaking amazing. There are some very interesting parallels between how intensely studied both the Guna and Maya people are, and their centuries of deliberate interactions with outsiders. Squee!