An Historian in the Amazon

Abstract

However private they may seem, emotions depend for their meanings on the communities in which they are expressed. But if emotions are shaped by and for their communities, how can we account for emotional change? After briefly surveying how historians have (1) defined the communities in which emotions have been expressed and (2) explained how and why emotions have changed, this article turns to the community of the Waorani of Amazonian Ecuador. It explores whether anthropological explanations of emotional change in that “test case” may help the historian. The answer is not entirely positive. The article concludes with some thoughts about what sorts of collaborations between historians and anthropologists might be more productive for emotions studies.

Keywords:

• Emotions
• Anger
• Waorani
• Civilizing Process

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to Christina Lutter for the invitation to write this paper, Riccardo Cristiani for commenting on it in many drafts, and members of the VISCOM audience, who heard it in abbreviated oral form and offered excellent questions and suggestions.

Notes

1 Psychologists generally argue that emotions are universal and therefore constant (see, for example, Rimé 2010). On the historicity of emotions, see Eustace et al. (2012). This historicity in part is due to the fact that, like “ethnicity”, the term “emotion” has been and remains a subjective term subject to multiple definitions. See Geary (2014).

2

“The pressure of court life, the vying for the favour of the prince or the ‘great’; then, more generally, the necessity to distinguish oneself from others and to fight for opportunities with relatively peaceful means, through intrigue and diplomacy, enforced a constraint on the affects, a self-discipline and self-control, a peculiarly courtly rationality” (Elias 1994, 268).

3 Wouters (2007) gave the name “informalization” to this contemporary manifestation of the civilizing process.

4 Other studies of this sort include: Stearns and Stearns (1986) and Stearns (1999).

5 The notion that changing conditions drive changes in emotional life informs some anthropological and sociological approaches as well: see Padilla et al. (2007, x) for the general question of “how contemporary shifts in late modern economies and the forces of globalization influence intimate experiences—even, perhaps, ‘love’”.

6 “A speech community is a group of people who share a set of norms and expectations regarding the use of language.” See as well Patrick (2002). The classic exposition is Gumperz ([1968] 1972). But, unlike Gumperz, linguists no longer demand that members of speech communities engage in “frequent interaction”; they need only share speech norms. I thank Daniel Smail for pointing out to me the similarities between emotional communities and speech communities.

7 On the lack of emotionality in the letters, see, for example, Dalrymple (2001, 16–28) and Davis (1963, xix).

8 “Item, I wold ye shuld speke wyth Wekis and knowe hys dysposysion to Jane Walsham. She hathe seyd syn he departyd hens but she myght have hym she wold neuer be [deleted in MS] maryyd; hyr hert ys sore set on hym. She told me þat he seyd to hyr þat ther was no woman in þe world he lovyd so welle. I wold not he shuld jape hyr, for she menythe good feythe, and yf he wolle not have hyr late me wete in hast and I shall purvey for hyr in othyr wysse. As for your harneys and gere that ye left here, it ys in Daubeneys kepyng. It was neuer remeuyd syn your departyng be-cause that he had not þe keyes. … I sent your grey hors to Ruston to þe ferrore, and he seythe he shall neuer be nowght to rood nowthyr ryght good to plowe nore to carte. … Your grandam wold fayne her sum tydyngys from yow. It were welle do þat ye sent a letter to hyr howe ye do as astely as ye may.”

9 For bibliography on Margery, see Rosenwein (2012, 260, n.1).

10 “I wyl not be displesyd wyth þe whedir þu thynke, sey, or speke, for I am al-wey plesyd wyth þe. And, ȝyf I wer in erde as bodily as I was er I deyd on þe Cros, I schuld not ben a-schamyd of þe as many oþer men ben, for I schuld take þe be þe hand a-mongs þe pepil & make þe gret cher þat þei schuldyn wel knowyn þat I louyd þe ryth wel. For it is conuenyent þe wyf to be homly wyth her husbond. Be he neuyr so gret a lorde & sche so powr a woman whan he weddyth hir, ȝet þei must ly to-gedir & rest to-gedir in joy & pes. Ryght so mot it be twyx þe & me, for I take non hed what þu hast be but what þu woldist be. And oftyn-tymes haue I telde þe þat I haue clene for ȝoue þe alle thy synnes. Þerfore most I nedys be homly wyth þe & lyn in þi bed wyth þe. Dowtyr, thow desyrest gretly to se me, & þu mayst boldly, whan þu art in þi bed, take me to þe as for þi weddyd husbond, as thy derworthy derlyng, & as for thy swete sone, for I wyl be louyd as a sone schuld be louyd wyth þe modyr & wil þat þu loue me, dowtyr, as a good wife owyth to loue hir husbonde. & þerfor þu mayst boldly take me in þe armys of þi sowle & kyssen my mowth, myn hed, & my fete as swetly as thow wylt.”

11 See Varisco (2014).

12 For example, see Powell (1653). For particulars, see Rosenwein (2012, 258–60).

13 The full argument for this must await the publication of my book on the history of emotions, 600–1700.

14 I argue this for Columbanus's impact on the emotional community of the Neustrian court in Rosenwein (2006, Chapter 5).

15

“Of the reported deaths spanning up to five generations only two individuals purportedly died of natural causes in old agé. Forty-four percent of the deaths were a result of intratribal spearing, and 5% were due to infanticide. Seventeen percent were a result of cohuori [outsider; also spelled kowudï] shootings and captures; snakebite accounted for another 5% and illness 11%” (Yost 1981b, 687). See also Yost (1981a, 101, Figure 2).

16 The lower rate has not been claimed for one group, however, the “Tagaeri”, which is the focus of Smith (1993, Chapter 3). This group remained largely isolated from tourism and other encroachments by outsiders.

17 I thank the Robarcheks for their help and advice via e-mail. Rival (2002, 55–67) notes that “intratribal warfare is explained by invoking a form of anger (pïï) that drives men to make spears and to use them to kill enemies … or even at times their own kin”. But see below for Rival's very different approach to the “change” that the Robarcheks seem to document. Yost (1981a, 110) says that the reason the Waorani give for their internal warfare is “vendetta … a long series of revenge killings”, mentioning nothing whatever about anger.

18 Omënï is a pseudonym, as are all the names in the Robarcheks' accounts.

19 This book was issued in various editions and under slightly different titles.

20

“Whereas fewer than ten men had worked for oil companies prior to 1977 [and thus within the period of the change described here], by late 1978 33 men, or 27% of the work-eligible male population in the protectorate, had gone out to work on at least one occasion … By late 1979 this percentage had grown to 60%” (Yost 1981b, 699).

21 But for Rival (2002, 52–55), Yost's “curiosity” and “fear” hardly compassed the essential attitude of the Waorani towards outsiders. For her, Waorani (human beings, victims) and outsiders (predators, non-humans) made up the essential categories in the Wao social universe. The Waorani and kowudï constituted different species. Giving up this view would have deprived the Waorani of their identity.

22 Smith (1993, 19) points out that the Tiwënö community was “founded in 1959 … . The SIL [Summer Institute of Linguistics] and Dayuma [=the Robarchek's Wiba] brought various Huaorani groups from the surrounding area to form this community”.

23 Rival (2002, 47–49) reports on an actual spearing that took place during her fieldwork.

24

“Like a pair of miinta [a beautiful macaw] always flying together/ you two will be,/Wanting my miinta' he takes her and flies,/ Like a pet he takes her, his qui [marriage partner]/ Seeing the beauty of the miinta, he looks upon her./ When it rains he will bring food/ and she will eat;/In the forest thirsting for drink, he will return,/ his miinta will give him drink.”

25 See Varisco (2014).

26 I find no articles on emotions in Anthropology Today, 2000–present; a few articles in recent issues of Current Anthropology touch on the topic (e.g. on envy, on maternal sentiments) but the last one that was fully focused on emotions in general was by an historian (Reddy, 1997).