The Canela: Bonding Through Kinship, Ritual, and Sex (Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology)

This ethnology follows the lives of the Canela Indians of Barra do Corda, Maranhao, Brazil from the 1890's to the present. Based on more than five collective years of fieldwork since 1957, the book relates how this surviving nation of the Timbira group has retained its traditional culture, including an elaborate bonding system of kinship, ritual - including daily meetings and complex festivals and sex. This case study challenges Western conceptions of socialization for sex as well as adult sexual behavior.

Bill Crocker graduated from Yale University in 1950 and was the first of George Spindler's students to earn his M.A. in anthropology from Stanford in 1953. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1962, having made the first of many visits to the Canela in 1957. In 1962, he joined the Smithsonian Institution as Associate Curator for South American Ethnology in the Department of Anthropology of the National Museum of Natural History. He continued his study of the Canela, making 20 trips to the field over the years, totaling 74 months of living with the tribe. Although Bill has missed teaching, he appreciates the opportunity for intensive and long-term research his career at the Smithsonian has provided. He is the author of numerous articles on the Canela, and in 1990 his comprehensive monograph, THE CANELA (EASTERN TIMBIRA), I: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC INTRODUCTION appeared as number 33 in the Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology series. Bill's work also contributed to the 1999 video on the Canela, MENDING WAYS, and to an extensive Canela website, launched in 2002, that is linked to the Smithsonian anthropology's web system. In 2001, Bill spent three months with the Canela, and he hopes to spend a few weeks every other year with them, continuing the study of long term cultural change.

Jean Galloway Thomas married Bill in 1987 and has since collaborated informally with him as an editor. She earned her B.A. in English from Stanford in 1960 and her M.A. in English from Georgetown University in 1971. She taught literature and writing in college preparatory schools for 20 years. Jean accompanied Bill on his 1991 trip to Brazil and lived with the Canela for three weeks. For this case study, and its revision, Jean used her teaching experience to orient the text for the college student. She helped organize the material and wrote some sections. Since Bill is the anthropologist, however, Jean has preserved his voice as the single narrative "I."