Comparative Arawakan Histories: Rethinking Language Family and Culture Area in Amazonia

This penetrating study is the first to synthesize the writings of ethnologists, historians, and anthropologists concerned with contemporary Arawakan cultures in South America and the adjacent Caribbean basin. Before they were largely decimated and dispersed by the effects of European colonization, Arawak-speaking peoples were the most widespread language family in Latin America and the Caribbean, and they were the first people Columbus encountered in the Americas. "Comparative Arawakan Histories" examines social structures, political hierarchies, rituals, religious movements, gender relations, and linguistic variations through historical perspectives to document sociocultural diversity across the diffused Arawakan diaspora.