The Yuqui Connection: Another Look at Sirionó Deculturation

Abstract

Allan Holmberg's ethnography of the Sirionó Indians of eastern Bolivia depicts this group as one of the least complex human societies known. In recent years, anthropologists have argued that Sirionó cultural poverty may be due to deculturation rather than to their failure to develop a more complex culture as the result of environmental stresses. Previous efforts to explore this hypothesis have been limited by the lack of additional data on the Sirionó since Holmberg's early work. This study draws on new information derived from ethnohistorical sources and fieldwork among a recently pacified group known as the Yuquí. I demonstrate that the Yuquí and Sirionó share the same cultural heritage and that, while the Sirionó are now acculturated, the Yuquí only recently are undergoing this process. For this reason, the Yuquí case offers a parallel and current example from which new inferences can be made concerning the theory of Sirionó deculturation.ALLYN MACLEAN STEARMAN is Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816.