Paper short abstract:

This paper considers the deployment of documents by an Amerindian people in dealings with the Brazilian state and with hydroelectric dam companies. The exchange of documents is one aspect of a dynamic of diplomatic opening and closure via which the Enawene demand recognition from powerful outsiders.

Paper long abstract:

The use of the term 'diplomats' with reference to Amerindians may be surprising at first. I owe the impetus to an early essay by Lévi-Strauss (1949), in which he discusses the delicate tension between aggression and cooperation among Nambikwara bands. He argues that the appropriate analogy between our own treatment of foreigners and the Nambikwara's would not be found in our warfare, but in 'all the arts that we ourselves place at the service of foreign diplomacy' (Lévi-Strauss 1949: 150). In this paper I want to defend the idea that Enawene-nawe interactions with the state are best understood as diplomatic in nature. Specifically, I am interested in how documents serve as a central part of a diplomatic repertoire. The pragmatics of document exchange involve a to and fro movement and a turn-taking rhythm that chimes with Enawene-nawe communicative rhythms (in speech and gift exchange), with their emphasis on symmetry, recognition, appropriate time delay, and measured, thoughtful self-expression. These marked qualities of Enawene-nawe communication relate to well-documented features of 'ceremonial dialogue', a linguistic genre whose diplomatic quality has been extensively documented in Amazonia.