Suzanne Oakdale

History and Forgetting in an Indigenous Amazonian Community

This article explores a mode of historical consciousness constructed through mortuary rituals among a Brazilian Amazonian people. Paradoxically, the process of forgetting is argued to be crucial for this type of historical consciousness. The dual focus on historical consciousness and mortuary ritual shows how culturally specific notions of personhood, particularly those relating to life, death, and agency, are crucial for an adequate “ethno-ethnohistorical” understanding.