Descripción:
In folktales told throughout much of the Brazilian Amazon, dolphins take human form, attend raucous dances and festivals, seduce men and women, and carry them away to a city beneath the river. They are encantados, or Enchanted Beings, capable of provoking death or madness, but also called upon to help shamanic healers. Male dolphins - accomplished dancers who appear dressed in dapper straw hats, white suits, and with shiny black shoes - reportedly father numerous children. The females are said to lure away solitary fishermen. Both sinister and charming, these characters resist definition and thus domination; greedy and lascivious outsiders, they are increasingly symbolic of a distinctly Amazonian culture politically, socially, economically, and environmentally under seige.

Candace Slater examines these stories in Dance of the Dolphin, both as folk narratives and as representations of culture and conflict in Amazonia. Her engaging study discusses the tales from the viewpoints of genre, performance, and gender, but centers on them as responses to the great changes sweeping the Amazon today. According to Slater, these surprisingly widespread tales reflect Amazonians’ own mixed reactions to the ongoing destruction of the rainforest and the resulting transformations in the social as well as physical landscape. Offering an informed view of Brazilian culture, this book crosses the boundaries of folklore, literature, anthropology, and Latin American studies. It is one of the very few studies to offer an overview of the changes taking place in Amazonia through the eyes of ordinary people.


CONTENTS:

Acknowledgments......IX

Invitation to the Dance......1

1. Time and Place......17

2. The Storytellers......39

3. Stories and Beliefs about Dolphins as Special Fish......59

4. Stories and Beliefs about Delphins as Supernatural Beings......89

5. Questions of Performance......118

6. The Dolphin as Encantado......138

7. The Dolphin as Lover......166

8. The Dolphin as White Man......202

9. Transformation and Disenchantment......233

Appendix 1. Glossary of Selected Terms......257

Appendix 2. Portuguese-Language Originals of Stories in the Text......261

References......291

Index......303