the anthropological analysis of tourism: indirect tourism and political economy in the case of the...

A N N A L S OF T O U R I S M R E S E A C H Vol. IV, No. 3, J a n u a r y / F e b r u a r y 1977

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL ANAYSIS OF TOURISM

I N D I R E C T T O U R I S M A N D P O L I T I C A L E C O N O M Y IN T H E C A S E O F T H E M A M A I N D E O F M A T O G R O S S O , B R A Z I L

Paul L. Aspel in , P h . D . " The Cleveland Sta te Univers i ty Cleveland, Ohio, USA

ABSTRACT

Aspelin, Paul, "The Anthropological Analysis of Tourism: Indirect Tourism and Political Economy in the Case of the Mamainde of Mato Grosso, Brazil," Annals o f Tou/ism Research, Vol. IV, No. 3, January/February, 1977, pp. 135-160 --Tourists do not always directly descend upon a host culture but, in some cases, may only indirectly contact a people or an area. A particular example of this is presented as the type case of "Indirect tourism," defined as a situation wherein indirect contact between tourists and host is maximized at the expense of direct contacts. Data for the Mamainde Indians (a dialect group of the Nambicuara of Mato Grosso, Brazil), studied in 1968-71, illustrate that tourists could show they "visited the Indians" without directly bothering them at all, simply by purchasing Mamainde artifacts from Indian agencies located in the provincial capitals. This field data is analyzed in terms of cultural, economic, and political factors. Some models of cultural contact, provided by the Brazilian anthropologists Robert Cardoso de Oliveira and Darcy Ribeiro, are discussed and modified in tile light of this field data, resulting in a generalized model of cultural contact now also suitable for the anthropological analysis of tourism. Tourism, as one form of cultural contact, is placed clearly within the general domain of political economy and the ethics of dccision-makillg regarding the tourist industry are discussed for these types of cases.

* Dr. Paul Aspel in is p r e sen t ly Ass is tan t Professor of A n t h r o p o l o g y at Cleveland Sta te Univers i ty ,

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF TOURISM

Rl~SUME

Aspelin, Paul. "L'Analyse anthropologique du tourisme: Le Tourisme indirecte et l'ecotlomie politique dans le cas des Mamainde de Mato Grosso, Bresil. Annals o f Tourism Research, Vol. IV, No. 3, pp. 135-160 Les touristes ne descendent pas toujours directement sur une civili- sation hSte, mais, dans quelques cas, peuvent ne faire que prendre contact indirectement avec une r~gion ou avec un peuple. Un exemple de ceci se pr6sente comme cas typique du "tourisme indirect," ce qui se d~finit comme une situation o~u le contact indirect entre touristes et hotes se porte au maximum aux d6pens des contacts directs. Le cas des Indiens Mamainde (groupe dialectal des Nambicuara du Mato Grosso du Br6sil), que l'on a 6tudi6s en 1968-71, indique que les touristes pouvaient faire preuve d'avoir "rendu visite aux lndiens" sans les incommoder directement, tout simplement en achetant des objets faits par les Mamainde et vendus par des entreprises indiennes situ~es dans les capitaux provinciaux. Ces observations sont examinges scion leurs facteurs culturels, 6conomiques, et politiques. Quelques muscles du contact culturel, fournis par les anthropologistes br6siliens Robert Cardoso de Oliveira et Darcy Ribeiro, sont discutc~s et modifies ~a la lumi~re de ces observations, ce qui r6sulte en un mod~ele g6n&alis6 du contact culturel qui est convenable aussi pour l'analyse anthropologique du tourisme. Le tourisme, en tant que forme de contact culturel, se situe nettement dans le domaine de l'~conomie politique. L'~thique de prendre des decmons a l'~gard du tourisme est dlscutee pour ce genre de cas.

INTRODUCTION

The effects of tourism on host populations are both directly and indirectly generated. In economics, for example, indirect effects of tourism, such as that involving the income multiplier and other such mechanisms, have been shown to be in many ways at least as important for the host economy as a whole as are the actual direct effects of the initial capital investment and annual revenues generated in the tourist sector itself. Although economists still argue about some of the specifics of the income multiplier, to continue that example, they have at least begun to identify and investigate some of the mechanisms through which these indirect processes may operate (4, 14, 33).

This is unfortunately not as true for some of the other disciplines, such as anthropology, which are also presently investigating the phenomenon of tourism. It is fair to say that anthropologists have not yet achieved the degree of sophistication and insight into the indirect processes by which tourism affects host cultures that they have into more direct processes; nor have they reached the level of understanding of the indirect cultural processes operating in tourism that economists have

136 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH, Jan/Feb '77

PAUL L. ASPELIN

of the indirect economic processes for this same phenomenon. This paper attempts to contribute to the development of anthropological understanding of these important, though subtle, mechanisms of indirect effect in two ways: first, through the specific analysis of one particular case where tourism indirectly affects a host population and, second, through attempting to develop from that specific case a more generally-applicable model in which, it seems, the entire phenomenon of tourism can more universally be placed.

It would be incorrect at this point, however, to leave the impression that anthropologists have not for many years been concerned with the indirect, as well as the direct, mechanisms, processes, and results of the contact between two cultures. Actually, they have developed a considerable degree of insight into these types of relationships (e. g., 3, 24). As a matter of fact, the specific type of cultural contact which will be investigated in this paper, in which two cultures may come into contact and affect each other without their human representatives or bearers (that is, the societies embodying these cultures) themselves necessarily coming into direct contact, has actually been a part of standard anthropological understanding for quite some time (10, pp. 368-370). The understanding which anthropologists have of this type of cultural contact, however, may or may not hold true regarding tourism; it needs to be tested in that particular context. In this paper, then, some of the standard anthropological approaches to the theory of cultural contact will be tested against the particular case to be presented here and, through that attempt, modified as necessary to then render them more generally applicable to the study of tourism.

In this paper, tourism will be considered to be only one of several known types or means of cultural contact, through which two or more cultural units (either cultural wholes or their parts, i.e.: sub-cultures, ethnic groups, or the like) may come into contact, with resulting changes for both of them. The questions of why these contacts are initiated in any particular case, however, and of what courses of change will result for either or both parties to the contact situation are essentially larger questions of political economy. The phenomenon of tourism, that is to say, may usefully be viewed both in terms of more general models of cultural contact and in terms of the processes of political economy.

INTERETHNIC FRICTION AND CONTACT FRONTS

A particularly insightful model developed by the Brazilian anthropologist, Roberto Cardoso de Oliveira (19, 20), for understanding the structure of relationships involved in situations of cultural contact among the diverse cultural elements of Brazil, provides a basic framework within which to begin this analysis. When two disparate social entities come together, Cardoso says, they often meet in an embrace of antithetical, diametric, opposition, which will ultimately result in the elimmation of one or the other as long as the circumstances which originally brought them together persist. Figure 1 represents the various parts of this contact process. Unfortunately, any attempt to represent cultural processes on a two-dimensional

ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH, Jan/Feb '77 137


Figure I INTERETHNIC FRICTION Figure 1

(Part One) (Part Two)

Time 1:, C u l t u m A and8 appro4ch each other a t d t f f e rm l t (pos i t i ve or n e ~ t i w ) rates.

( E n l a r q e ~ t o f t ime 2)

A B i _ 4

T i m 2: A and B contact e~lch other , generating in te re thn ic f r i c t i o n .

Time 3: Local pressures and in terests generate increased f r i c t i o n between the contact f ronts an(I t h e i r larger wholes ~dlile in tens i fy ing the re la t ionsh ip between the ~ f ron t elements.

A B

1 3 8 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH, Jan/Feb '77

P A U L L. ASPELIN

Figure 1 (Part Three)

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Figure 1 (Part Four)

Time 4: Continuation of the process begun in time 3.

Time 5: Synthesis of the two contact fronts, dominated by that from the stronger cultural whole.

(culture contact arena) / ~

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i

ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH, Jan/Feb '77

Time 6: The process continues over time, resultin~ in the eventual disapPearance of the weaker of the original Cultures (A) and the generation of similar proc~ss~l t ies between each succeeding synthesi: {CI-Cn) and the remaining, dominant, ~ulture (B).

relationship of l established dominance

of generated [ conflict J

139


surface greatly over-emphasizes the importance of spatial relationships between the two cultures and may wrongly imply to the reader that the diagrams (and therefore the model they illustrate) are models primarily of spatial (or, at best, of personal) relationships. This would be in error. The diagrams actually represent at one and the same time,-though to different degrees, spatial, conceptual, ideological, economic, technological, political, legal, and interpersonal relationships taken together; i.e.: they represent cultures, which are much more than merely specific people in specific places.

Although the two cultures are brought together as wholes, in terms of the larger concerns that give them each their own direction and reasons for existence, in reality they of course often do come together in specific places at specific times through specific people. The specific parts of each culture which are actually involved in the particular contact situation, the specific people and the specific variants of the larger culture which they carry, are thus the local representatives and representations, respectively, of the larger cultures involved. Their influence on the development of the local contact situation is therefore a direct influence, one which is potentially great in quantity, although somewhat problematic in direction, depending on the case in question. It warrants our careful attention, Cardoso says, for it may be critical in determining the outcome of the overa[ll process of contact between the two larger entities themselves.

These local representatives have a lot of power in their local areas for, for a certain period of time, they are the agents through which the society which they represent can and often does act in those areas, when necessary. At the same time, however, they may become attuned to such an extent to the common interests and pressures of the local scene as to end up thinking and acting in manners actually discordant with or opposed to those of the larger wholes of which they were once undifferentiated parts and from which they draw their power of relatively independent local action. They may even join in a new synthesis, culturally united together in opposition to the larger (and still opposed) entities from which they came, although (it is important to note here) this embrace often results in changes for both, to different degrees, where the stronger partner essentially comes to cominate and exploit the weaker. Thus the process of interethnic friction, as Cardoso terms the establishment and operation of these sorts of relationships, generates conflict and conflicting and overlapping loyalties, motivations, and cultural orientations (the exact pattern of which varies with time), within each of the wholes as well as between them. It may also act to gradually create new syntheses from the original conflicting entities, thereby effecting the eventual elimination of the weaker of the two through this process of dialectical opposition and synthesis.

Additionally, it should be made clear that the translation of Professor Cardoso's terms here should not necessarily imply to the reader that this "friction" is just between "ethnic groups," as that category is commonly understood, nor that it is necessarily a term to be considered as bearing solely negative or pejorative connotations.


PAUL L. ASPELIN

It is rather an ethnological friction, a cultural friction, involving the very ethnos or sense of self-identity of a group and what it stands for, which may occur between any type of cultural or sub-cultural groups. Additionally, this process of friction need not necessarily produce heat and conflict, as the word friction implies in common English. Using it in its larger academic sense, where difference produces accomodation, even if only the accomodation of stalemate or perhaps that of positive as opposed to negative effects for one or both of the elements in contact, this is the friction of cultural difference, resulting from pressures which often may be of a friendly as opposed to a hostile nature. But, if any change or accomodation takes place in a situation of cultural contact, then there must have been pressures or forces to bring those results to pass; the interaction of these pressures or forces is, very simply, that friction of which Cardoso speaks.

This model is, of course, most easily understood for entities which have a hierarchical internal structure, so that, even when each is considered in isolation, different responsibilities, motivations, and sub-cultural orientations will characterize each level of remove from the apex or center of the hierarchy. Even where one of these entities is that of a supposedly egalitarian "tribe," however, there are often going to be differences of opinion, motivation, responsibility, values, and effective leadership between the various sub-groups of the tribe engaged in a particular contact situation at any particular time, and those not so engaged.

In an article originally published in 1957, the Brazilian anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro suggested that contact situations could generally be categorized in terms of the economic motivations of the numerically and politically stronger of the two units coming into contact (26). Specifically for Brazil, but very likely for other areas as well, Ribeiro found three categories of contact fronts to have characterized the meeting of aboriginal and national or colonial cultures: the extractive, the pastoral, and the agricultural. Contact is usually initiated by the stronger unit and usually results in its penetration of the area originally occupied by the weaker society.

The capacity of the national society to determine the fate of the Indians (Ribeiro says) varies with the forms that the former may assume . . . . Each segment of the economy is motivated by unlike interests in the exploitation of the environment: each is organized in terms of its own structural principles; and each imposes its distinctive constraints on the tribal groups it confronts.

The extractive economy mobilizes individuals detached from their communities of origin and consequently unfettered by the traditional forms of social control, to catapult them into unexplored territories . . . . In fact to face encounters with indigenous groups, these men tend to expel the Indians from their lands by force. Alternatively, if the situation permits, the extractors try to place the Indians in their service, compulsorily enlisting the m e n . . . This type of economy imposes a vast spatial dispersion of population . . . 1'~ ~s



possible, therefore, for a warring tribe to continue in conflict for many years, impeding the occupation of its territory at great cost to both sides.

The frontiers of pastoraleconomy are formed by populations supported by the natural environment, populations composed of family groups who advance across unexplored areas in search of new pastures for their herds. Essentially, their actions toward the Indian are motivated by the necessities of clearing the fields of their human inhabitants to turn them over to the cattle, and of preventing the Indian from substituting attacks upon the herds for the hunting of which he has been deprived. In such circumstances, the interaction of the Indian and the settler frequently assumes forms of bloody conflict and rarely gives way to direct living together . . .

Expanding agriculturaL frontiers generally involve both larger human masses and much more powerful equipment than are characteristic of the expanding extractive economy. Agricultural pioneers see the Indian as merely an obs~aGte to their expansion, and they resort to conflict to take possession of the lands he occupies and thus extend the area in use for agricultural production. Rapidly and drastically transforming the landscape, the frontiers of agricultural expansion create new ecological conditions in which the adaptive tribal system becomes inoperative. Within a few years, the Indians find themselves obliged to adopt new forms of eking out subsistence and surrounded by a relatively dense population to whose ways of life they must accommodate if they are to survive (26, pp. 94ff. Emphases mine).

Ribeiro's ideas of contact fronts and his understandings of the political economy of cultural contact situations were, it should now be apparent, incorporated to some degree with Cardoso's in the specific preparation of figure 1, above, for they are clearly closely related. Cardoso's picture is the larger, more global one. It considers total cultural contact rather than simply the social contact or the economic-and-social contact central to Ribeiro's discussion. Should Ribeiro's three contact fronts be seen, however, as merely three specific variants of the general phenomenon of the contact front, partially described and analyzed by him in terms of the particular (economic) characteristics which, for Brazilian history, he finds most (but not necessarily exclusively) important, then there should be little trouble in reconciling his model with Cardoso's. Ribeiro's contribution here is to have clarified some of the major attributes of one part (the contact front) of Cardoso's larger, more inclusive, scheme, for one area, for one period of time. In addition, it shows the degree of insight obtainable for any and each part of the larger model, as a goal towards which we might strive.

Ribeiro's contribution, at the same time, however, is also to place Cardoso's whole scheme clearly within the larger framework of political economy. What initiates the contact situation and what in many cases will result from it depend to a large degree, he says, on the original motivations and cultural orientations of each cultural unit. That


PAUL L. ASPELIN

is to say, these are questions of political economy, of dominance and subordinance and exchange relationships (cf.: 28, ch. S).

In examining the importance of motivations and relative power in these models of cultural contact, one is brought back to the phenomenon of tourism which obviously involves differing motivations and differing power and wealth relationships between the various parties to the tourist-host network. Ribeiro's later work becomes especially relevant, at this point. In the introduction to a later issue of the article in which he first discriminated the three types of fronts discussed above, Ribeiro reclassifies them in terms of the general nature of the motivations involved in people's decisions to begin such activities (27, P. 15). He now considers his original three fronts (the extractive, pastoral, and agricultural) to be three sub-types of a "direct or spontaneous" type of front, which arises on the basis of individual entrepreneurs' decisions as to how to operate their businesses (farms, ranches, or extractive firms). He then contrasts this direct type of front with the "'interference" type of front, which arises on the basis of decisions made by large national or supra-national organizations specifically interested in interfering in some way with the operation of the spontaneous-type fronts. Two major sub-types of interference fronts are government protectionist agencies (such as the Brazilian Indian Foundation, FUNAL which was formerly known as the Indian Protection Service, or SP[) and missionary organizations.

THE TOURIST FRONT AND INDIRECT TOURISM

To this scheme, one might also wish to add (especially since the early 1960's) a "tourist" front, which has clearly been active in the specific cases of several Brazilian tribes such as the Karaja (31, p. 447f.; 7, p. 25), the Mamainde (1), and the Xinguano tribes (30). In considering whether this tourist front should be classified as a direct or an interference type of front, however, one is led to question the actual discreteness of these two, which Ribeiro initially proposed as mutually exclusive categories. Close examination will show that they are not fully discrete. Interference fronts clearly have some direct interests and sometimes act in direct ways. Brazilian anthropologists (including Ribeiro, himself), for example, have clearly shown some of the interrelationships between the interests, organizations, and actions of firms of various sizes (the direct fronts) and those of the political and religious units of various sizes (the interference fronts) with which they interact (5, 11, 15, 18, 19 27: ch. V-VII, 29).

In the case of the tourist front, also, both direct or spontaneous and interference aspects can be seen to operate. The influx of tourism into frontier areas, especially that area called (sometimes inappropriately) "AmazGnia," is often directly stimulated by the Brazilian government tourist agency (EMBRATUR) which facilitates or arranges such incursions as that of the "Boatel" which brought tourists up the Araguaia River to the Karaja once a week or so (31, p. 448). Tourism is also indirectly stimulated by the "interference" type of front, as the government builds roads, airstrips, and communications facilities, and improves the health and sanitation conditions in frontier areas, thus consciously or unconsciously facilitating the tourist trade. The SPI/



FUNAI itself has at times encouraged tile interest of tourists in coming to frontier areas to see the Indians who live there by organizing dances and displays both in the major Brazilian cities (to interest the tourists while at home) and in some of the SPI/ FUNAI posts/Indian villages themselves, when the tourists arrive (7, p. 11: cf. also 31, p. 453f.) As opposed to the above-mentioned participation of interference agents in the tourist front, direct agents also operate, of course, as each individual tourist makes a decision as to where to go and what to do there, and as individual entrepreneurs establish tourist facilities in these areas. Thus, Ribeiro's analytic distinctions are useful in clarifying the various parts of the picture which operate in any one of the fronts, but they must ultimately be combined in any given situation as elements of several of them are often simultaneously interrelated in the same area. He has quite rightly suggested, though, that the degree of directness in a contact situation is clearly dependent, in large part, upon the motivations of the individuals and the orientation of the cultural units involved and that the degree of directness will be an important factor in determining the outcome of the overall contact situation as a whole.

In the case of tourism, there is clearly much interaction between direct and interference fronts, as well. In some cases, the interference front may act to bring to the tourists as much as possible of what they would like (or think they would like) to see and experience in the host's environment, without allowing them to enter that - environment at all. For example, the French government may sponsor high-quality photographic essays of Lascaux, if it is considered unwise for the tourists to continue to enter the cave to see its paintings in person. Or, the Brazilian government may open shops in its major cities to allow tourists to purchase traditional Indian artifacts without their descending in droves upon the isolated villages of the producers. This has been the case for the Mamainde.

In such cases, any direct personal and cultural relationship between tourist and host becomes impossible or at least very unlikely. That is to say, if in a contact situation involving tourism, both direct and indirect mechanisms might exist to link tourist and host, and thus both direct and indirect effects may be said to occur, then, in these cases where an interference agent has effectively eliminated all direct linkages and effects, only indirect linkages and indirect effects would remain. The case of the Mamainde, then, may be said to represent that extreme, polar, or theoretically ideal condition in which the indirect end of the direct-to-indirect continuum of cultural linkages is reached (or at least closely approached). A relationship of this type may appropriately then be called one of "indirect tourism": this may then be defined as a relationship between tourist group and host group in which the indirect linkages are maximized and the direct linkages essentially eliminated.

It is important to note here that indirect tourism does not involve simply the elimination of direct linkages, of direct social or personal contact. More importantly, it involves the elimination of many or most of the cultural linkages which are themselves brought about through the direct contact of people from one culture with people of another. Indirect tourism does not involve the total elimination of all contacts,

144 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH, Jan/Feb ' 7 7

P A U L L. A S P E L I N

however, for then there would be no contact situation left, by definition, nor any interaction between tourist and host worthy of being called tourism. Indirect tourism may only be said to exist for the Mamainde, for example, if they remain in some important way linked to the tourist phenomenon, to tourists, and to the culture of the tourist-producing societies.

The key point here is that indirect tourism involves the maximization of, or at least a quasi-exclusive reliance on, the indirect linkages of cultural contact, or at least some of them. Although, as in this case, the tourist and the host are socially and spatially separated, if important cultural linkages are still maintained, then it is still appropriate to speak of a situation of cultural contact. The significance of this inquiry is then in the examination of a case in which those linkages and effects sometimes but not usually considered of most important (the indirect ones) are the only ones which do exist. Through an understanding of such ratified cases, it will then be possible to more effectively understand the operation and importance of indirect linkages in whatever direct-indirect combination they might elsewhere be found. No claim is made here, that is to say, to having discovered that tourism has indirect effects on a host culture, only to having presented and discussed a case in which the effects of tourism on the host culture are essentially totally indirect.

Cultural contact can thus be understood in terms of the development of a system of interrelationships between two cultural units (or among several) in which the cultures interact dialectically as wholes and as parts of wholes, each in terms of the particular position it occupies with regard to the others, which position is def'med in terms of its total cultural complement of ideological, economic, technological, political, legal, religious, and other attributes. These interrelationships may be direct or indirect, may occur over varying social or spatial distances, and may ultimately result in the elimination of some of the original elements or parts of the system through the continuing process of accomodation to their varying differences, which differences were themselves largely, if not entirely, responsible for the initial and continuing mutual attraction of the cultural elements in question, in the first place. Tourism, involving the mutual attraction of cultural difference, is thus clearly an important form, although certainly only one of many, of cultural contact and therefore may appropriately be studied in terms of the model of cultural contact presented here.

A BRIEF ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE MAMAINDE

The Mamainde are part of the Nambicuara-speaking peoples of northwestern Mato Grosso, Brazil (1, 12, 13, 21). At the time when they were first "pacified" by the Brazilian General C~ndido Rondon, in his construction of the frontier telegraph line between Cuiaba and Pdrto Velho some 1,500 km to the northwest (as show in figure 2), there were probably about 5,000 Nambicuara-speakers altogether.

In the sixty or so years since then, the population of the Nambicuara-speakers has


decreased by approximately 90%, largely due to diseases of external origin and to internal and external strife (23). Of those who remain, one-tenth are members of the dialect group known as the Mamainde. The Nambicuara-speakers, as a whole, are divided into four mutually-unintelligible dialect groups, each of which is further sub-divided into one or more bands, which are distinct political, social, and economic units. Each band, in turn, contains several villages, the exact composition of which may vary somewhat over time as band members come and go between the different villages of their band (2). Though there are some differences between the culture of the Mamainde and that of some of the other Nambicuara-speakers, the similarities are great enough that most of the description and analysis made here specifically for the Manainde may generally be extended to the rest of the Nambicuara-speakers, as a whole.

Figure 2 THE GENERAL LOCATION OF THE MAMAINDE

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PAUL L. ASPELIN

The Mamainde rely for their subsistence on the production of horticultural foodstuffs from their traditional slash-and-burn farm plots and on hunted and gathered food products largely important for their contributions of protein and vitamins not well provided by the starch products of the farm plots. The principal crops which they cultivate are manioc, corn, beans, arrowroot, yams, cotton, bananas, and pineapple. Hunted and gathered foods include peccaries, monkeys, armadillos, birds of many varieties, tapirs, and many small animals. Gathered foodstuffs include honey, wild fruits, berries, roots and seeds. The primary production group involved in these activities is the nuclear family, or, when but rarely necessary, families of siblings or parents and children and their respective families. The products obtained through these family efforts are shared among the families of the village, with a few exceptions which need not be considered in detail here, so that the individual production units of the nuclear families are united together into a larger consumption unit through distributive rules built upon the kinship ties linking the various families to each other. Kin share food with other kin, so that all will have equal sustenance in the face of the continual uncertainty of hunting, gathering, and rainfall farming.

The material inventory of the Mamainde is not extensive and is largely made from the natural environment. Major items produced (in terms of the amount of efforl they require or their importance for daily activities) include houses made of poles covered with palm leaves, woven baskets, bows and arrows, wooden mortars and pestles, digging sticks, carrying and storage gourds, and various adornments. Again, the normal units of production for these products are the nuclear families, in most cases. Distribution and consumption rules are somewhat different here than they are for foodstuffs, however, for the individual or family producing these material objects retains nominal ownership of them although others are free to use them if necessary and, indeed, often do. Since none of these products requires any specialized knowledge or full-time labor, however, almost everyone is capable of producing their own material objects and each person or family is expected to do so, unless untoward circumstances intervene.

The organization of production for both food and non-food products is, generally, temporally non-specific, just as it is non-specialized in terms of individual skills. Just as all persons can and do involve themselves in all of these production tasks (allowing for the division of labor by sex, of course), so, also, the production of particular items is done piecemeal, in many cases. It is done when most convenient, sandwiched in and around the other things a person or family wants or needs to do in any particular day. Much of the work on material objects is done at home, in the company of one's family and relatives, after some time has been spent that day procuring the foodstuffs necessary to sustain life. Economic life (as we think of it in our culture) and domestic life are not, for the Mamainde, two different and separate spheres of rules, activities, concerns, and involvements, but are tightly integrated together, so that it is sometimes difficult to tell when one stops and the other begins. That is what anthropologists call the "domestic mode of production": the Mamainde exemplify it quite well (cf. 28, ch. 1-3).

Mamainde social structure revolves around the marriage of cousins of a

particular sort, called cross-cousins in anthropological jargon (a man should or often



does marry his mother's brother's daughter or his father's sister's daughter). This has the effect of uniting production groups ever more tightly by the continuing exchange, over generations, of closely-related persons as marriage partners.

Most ruclear families, consisting of a man, a woman, and their children, reside in their own home, usually near the family of the bride (at least for a time). Most couples build their houses only a few meters away from those of their close relatives, so that each village usually consists of a series of small houses arranged in a rough circle. People may and do visit frequently and extensively within (and among) villages and much communication takes place easily and freely from one home to another by simply raising one's voice. Visiting also often involves the sharing of food from the day's efforts, the borrowing of individually-owned tools, and the discussion of political or other business of concern to the families of the village.

Leadership among the Mamainde is informal in nature, for the leader of each village has no power over his 'followers" save the power of example. He leads on the basis of consensus, developed within and among the various households. In reaching these decisions, most of which are the overt prerogative of the men, women play an important and often decisive, if behind-the-scenes, role. Mamainde leaders receive no material reward for their efforts in leading their people; their only reward is the prestige of the position and the knowledge that someone must serve as the catalyst for the group's effective action, as a group, to ensure the well being of all concerned.

Children are cared for carefully and form an important part of each family's concern. They are often not weaned for several years, unless another child should appear. The mother-child bond is thus a close and important one. It continues into the child's adulthood when a man or woman's mother maintains or attempts to maintain considerable control over or input into her child's life and household.

Religiously, the Mamainde are tied to their traditional villages by the necessity of returning periodically to the graves of their relatives who are buried there, at least for a period of some time immediately following death, to provide food for the spirits of the relatives to consume should they return. Religious ceremonies are few and relatively non-complex, centering around agricultural increase and puberty ceremonies (which the dead relatives return to witness). In each of these, males take the leading roles, but an underlying female focus is quite clear to the outside observer. Mamainde mythology is only now being investigated, but it appears to center around some of these same themes of death, life, and the ongoing processes which these phenomena involve.

Until approximately 1965, the Mamainde retained most of their traditional freedom as lords of their own lands. Rondon's telegraph line become obsolete (due to the invention of the radio) soon after it was built and few other persons came so far out into the backlands as to bother the Mamainde (see 1, pp. 21-26; 22). In 1962, however, a federal highway was opened directly adjacent to the traditional Mamainde homeland, as a part of the trans-Amazon highway system, built to open up Brazil's backlands to "colonization and development." Few persons actually entered Mamainde territory, however, until 1965, when a large land-speculation company "bought" title to the Mamainde area and began to sell farm lots to poor landless or land-poor subsistence


PAUL L. ASPELIN

farmers from the overcrowded Brazilian south and northeast. Gradually, these people have forced the Mamainde out of their own lands and onto a government-provided reservation slightly to the east.

In the interim, the Mamainde came to interact more and more frequently with these local Brazilian colonists, as there became more of the latter and as intercultural communication grew. Primarily during this time, also, the Mamainde came to appreciate more and more some of the technol_ogical "benefits" which they found they could obtain from their industrialized neighbors. The Mamainde would work for the local Brazilians, at the request of the latter, in cutting forest for farms, in cutting roads between settlements, or in gathering rubber in the forest for those Brazilians who continued to pursue this declining industry. For this, the Mamainde would obtain things which they desired, such as knives, axes, machetes, cloth, shotguns and ammunition, fishing gear, flashlights, matches, and the like, insofar as these were available and the Brazilians felt the terms of trade to be to their own advantage. Alternatively; the Mamainde could obtain some of these things, to different degrees, from the governmental officials in some way involved with this area, from travelers and merchants passing up and down the new federal highway, or from missionaries, in each case either through work, as gifts, or in trade for bows and arrows or traditional items of Mamainde adornment. Some of these sources had previously been available, off and on, in the Mamainde area (such as rubber ~atheringduring World War II and periodic incursions of missionaries or explorers), but to a much lesser degree. Although the Mamainde were therefore familiar with many items of Western technology before 1965, opportunities to obtain them became much greater from then on (1, pp. 21-26). Many of these industrially produced items (especially metal tools) are now considered important, if not essential, parts of Mamainde technology and their way of life.

Their transfer to the Nambicuara Reservation, in 1973, has not affected the necessity (as they see it) of continuing to obtain these items from the national society in some way. It has made some of their alternatives (such as that of working for the colonists) even less palatable or feasible than they were previously, however, although it has also removed them from some of the more noxious effects (such as the rapid transmission of disease, rape, theft, derision, and so forth) of direct contiguity with the Brazilian colonists. This situation,.with some variation of course, is similar to that in which many South American tribal societies find themselves today: dependent on the national society for critical elements of their very existence (the right to land and the availability of efficient steel tools) yet overwhelmed, suffocating, and dying from that dependency and the cultural contact it engenders or requires. The Mamainde themselves realized their enmeshment in this situation but found few alternatives open to them. As long as they .were spatially close to the colonists and the highway, they had little or no control over their own existence, their own privacy, and their own future. The colonists were politically and (obviously) militarily dominant, (apparently) teclmologically superior, increasing in numbers, and pressing more and more on the land, ways of life, and freedome of choice of the Mamainde, day by day. Illness was endemic, good land was being legally stolen until little was left, game was being slaughtered and driven away, water sources polluted, women and children afraid to venture out or to remain alone in the villages; the Mamainde say themselves laughed at, scorned, and literally and figuratively raped in

ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH, Jan /Feb '77 149


their own land. Perhaps most importantly, they saw their best efforts to cope with this situation frustrated by an unsolvable dilemma. In order to strengthen their morale and their economic, legal, and numerical position, they had to compete with the colonists on their own terms: to become more efficient at exploiting the dwindling resources available to them, as the colonists exploited their own small plots of land. The only leeway left to the Mamainde seemed to be, therefore, in the direction of assimilation to the patterns of life of the colonists. They did not have enough land left to be the hunters, gatherers, and part-time farmers they once had been.

Yet, the dilemma in this is that they could only move in this direction given a new technology, equivalent to or better than that of the colonists themselves (since the Indians were not working with the least desirable land of the area, which the colonists had left them). Moreover, the only way that this technology could be obtained was by working for the colonists or the other individuals mentioned to obtain the necessary steel tools and seed stock in trade. Paradoxically, however, working for the colonists actually acted to destroy the very fabric of the social and cultural existence which the Mamainde were attempting to preserve by this very means. As was shown above, the social life of the Mamainde, in almost all of its aspects, is built around the nuclear family and the extended ties of siblings, parents, and in-married relatives, who work together every day on all of the tasks necessary for their existence. Husband and wife work together in farming, go hunting and gathering together, and build their house together (although each may do a different part of the overall task). They spend their free time with their close kin and they rely on the closeness of these bonds to resolve their internal political, legal, economic, and religious needs. Working for the colonists, the Mamainde found, simply was not compatible with the domestic, social focus of their existence. It required that the men, often individually, leave the village and their families for extended periods of time, breaking the ability of the family to be self-sufficient (for the men could not do the appropriate agricultural tasks in the proper season for both their families and the colonists) and breaking the tight and mutually-reinforcing family ties that served the rest of the cultural functions built upon them, as discussed above. Husbands complained, wives complained, children complained. But, what was the alternative? Even after they moved to their own reservation, reducing some of these problems (such as disease) somewhat, there still remained the necessity, as defined by the Mamainde themselves, to in some way obtain these technological items which they now say as critical to their own economic and ideological existence, for the land of the reservation was not much better than that which they had before and, regardless of its quality, it had to be worked with steel tools for that is the way the Mamainde now define and understand the proper way to carry out such work.

INDIRECT TOURISM AND THE MAMAINDE

During the early 1960's, missionaries with the Summer Institute of Lingquistics ($1L) often brought some traditional artifacts or handicrafts such as necklaces, bows and arrows, or pottery, back from the villages of the tribes with which they were working to sell to tourists who might come to visit the headquarters of the mission in Brazil's major cities. The proceeds of each sale were used to buy some manufactured item which the producer of that artifact desired: tire SIL missionaries


PAUL L. ASPELIN

then took these things back to the tribe when they returned. By word of mouth, these sources of genuine artifacts became quite popular.

In the mid 1960's, the Brazilian government decided that these matters were more properly the concern of the Indian Protection Service (SPI; tater, FUNAI). Thus, that organization took over tile responsibility for selling these artifacts through shops set up in their regional headquarters offices and in major cities often visited by tourists, such as Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia. All money matters, such as the sale of artifacts and the purchase of the items which their producers wanted in exchange, were to be handled exclusively by SPI/FUNA! personnel. Missionaries and antho- pologists were allowed and encouraged to maintain their original (free) services of transporting the Indian artifacts into the cities and of taking back those items the Indians had requested. This would allow the Brazilian agency to watch over the most sensitive part of these operations, with minimal cost.

This arrangement has been successful to varying degrees for different tribes, depending on many factors such as tile desirability of that tribe's artifacts in the eyes of the tourists, the traditional structures of production and distribution within the tribe in question, and the nature and efficiency of the communication and transportation links between each producing tribe and the effective marketplace of the FUNAI headquarters office. For the Mamainde it has been quite successful. In 1971, for example, the average income from this artifact trade was approximately U$100.O0 per year per adult Mamamde producer. Not only does this figure compare favorably with world standards for some developing areas, but it also compares very favorably with the incomes of those rural Brazilians then operating in the same geographical area as the Mamainde. In 1971, the artifact trade generated, for each adult Mamainde producer, the equivalent of 23% of the annualized effective minimum wage for this part of Brazil. ('onsidering that the Mamainde devote only approximately 16% of their average working day to the produclion,of these artifacts for trade, they thus actually earn more than the equivalent minimum wage for the time that they invest in artifact production (1, pp. 207-213 and 348-351).

Equally as important as the scale of income generated by this process is the fact that this form of indirect tourism, the artifact trade, allows this income to be realized with minimal disruption to Mamainde social and economic organization and value structures, as these were discussed above. The Mamainde can still continue to do all of the things which they would otherwise do. The patterns of their lives have not been seriously disrupted by taking advantage of the opportunity presented to them to produce these artifacts for trade. One reason for this is that ample time was available for such activities to be easily incorporated into the Mamainde day, so that they did not infringe upon tile ability of tile Mamainde to carry on with the rest of their lives. Even more important here is the fact that tile production of artifacts for trade followed traditional patterns for the organization of Mamainde production processes, since the artifacts to be produced were traditional Mamainde domestic products, such as necklaces, bows and arrows, and featherwork. Existent cognitive and behavioral patterns of decision making, raw material procurement, the ownership and utilization of capital items, the recruitment and organization of labor, the degree of specialization of skills, and the rules for the distribution of the returns to the factors of production were not disrupted by the artifact trade: it may even have reinforced them.



That is to say, the production of these items for external trade merely involved the quantitative expansion of an already existent and structurally very important pattern of socioeconomic organization, the domestic mode of production, as this was briefly discussed above: production centered around the nuclear family unit, it allowed for the integration of the family into the production processes necessary or desirable from the Mamainde point of view, it emphasized equality of opportunity, non-specialized skills, joint ownership of the resources, means and skills of production, and joint participation in the utilization of many of the returns of the production process. The tightly-knit Mamainde family and village structure, seen in social terms, was thus part and parcel of the same fabric seen in economic and technological terms.

For many other cultures similar to that of the Mamainde, the mechanisms available to them through which to obtain the industrialized products which they need or desire had many harmful side-effects, some of such magnitude as to break the backbone of the entire cultural structure and reduce its people to spiritless, aimless, destitute, and isolated individuals lost in a world suddenly totally strange to them. For some cultures, this has occurred becaase the mechanisms available involved the alienation of domestic labor, as the Mamainde began to see when working for the colonists. In others, it has involved the generation of individual resource ownership and the specialization of skills, restricting the opportunity for the society as a whole to share the benefits of the new wealth as they had previously shared the necessities of their existence (17). In all of the large literature documenting cases of such cultural breakdown (e.g., 16, ch. XIV-XV), only a very few cases can be found in which circumstances allowed a culture such as that of the Mamainde to obtain what it desired from a national, industrialized, culture, without suffering such greatly adverse consequences to the way of life they knew and shared as to make the social and economic costs of obtaining these new things from the outside world seem far greater than any benefits they might convey.

For the Mamainde, if the social costs of the artifact trade have been relatively low, its economic benefits have been at least satisfactory, if not better. The quantities of externally-produced products which they can obtain in this manner are more than sufficient to support the other production processes, such as those for food, which are now dependent on the steel tools obtained through the artifact trade. A point worthy of special emphasis is that the Mamainde can (and do) continue to participate in the artifact trade after their removal to the Nambicuara Reservation, even though that move effectively made it much more difficult for them to obtain the products which they desired through the other channels previously open to them, such as that of working for the colonists. This particular type of indirect tourist front has thus been especially fortuitous for the Mamainde, given their desire to obtain these manufactured products from the outside world.

SOME POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE SIDE-EFFECTS OF INDIRECT TOURISM

In the case of the Mamainde, the host society and the tourist society have been held at arm's length, even though they continue to indirectly interact, culturally, over that social and spatial distance. In this case, it is no longer the local representatives of the national society which constitute the actual front in contact with the indigenous populations and threaten them with extinction, oppression, or subordinate assimilatiou into a new regional society, as Cardoso has suggested.


PAUL L. AsPELIN

Instead, it is the national society iteself, operating at a great remove, that is interested in maintaining contact with indigenous populations and in keeping them in existence as producers of something which it wants (but which the local representatives usually care little about): Indian artifacts. As representatives of the romantic past of Brazil's history, as representatives of the romantic present of the opening of the last Brazilian frontier, visible, durable, and aesthetically pleasing items can be obtained by any Brazilian citizen or foreign tourist in proximity to a FUNAI shop without needing to take all the time and trouble to enter the frontier area and the world of the Indian at all. Thus, the interference element in this particular part of the tourist front may be particularly important, in that it essentially eliminates the necessity for the direct element to operate at all. As an attempt to preserve the Indians from becoming actors in a cheap playhouse, as happened in the case of the Karaja, for example (8, pp. 106-108: 31, pp. 453f.), this mechanism of isolation on the part of FUNA1 might actually prove effective. Hordes of tourists will not regularly descend upon them to take their pictures and buy their wares.

Although the consequences of the operation of the direct-tourist front in a tribal context such as this are not as adequately documented as we might wish, they seem to ultimately involve a loss of self-respect among the indigenous population and an increase in the frequency and severity of disease (cf.: 8, pp. 28 and 106-108). The indirect form of the tourist fiont would seem, however, to be less disruptive of the existent Indian culture in these ways. Those Indians involved with the indirect tourist front (or artifact trade) can remain in a location which is to a large degree of their own choosing, carry on their lives as they wish, and not be consistently subjected to the degrading status of curiosities "para o ingres ver" (for the British, i.e. the outsider, to see).

On the other hand, the personal contact involved in direct tourism might actualiy be valuable in some ways. It might act, for example, to reduce the traditional stereotypes held by each party about the other, although this could be a very painful process in the short run. Indirect tourism, by eliminating that contact, may serve to maintain or reinforce those traditional stereotypes. If, as a matter of fact, the motivation for the tourists to purchase the "Indian" artifacts in the first place was to some degree generated by the existence of the traditional stereotypes about "Indians", then the continued existence and success of the artifact trade may actually depend in large part on the continued existence of those stereotypes and, therefore, on the continued maintenance of a degree of clistance between the two cultures sufficient to protect those stereotypes.

An additional, beneficial side.effect of this particular variant of indirect tourism, the artifact trade, is that it has served to greatly boost the morale and pride of the Mamainde which had been beaten down further and further by disease, rape, armed conflict, exploitation of their labor, theft of their/ands, and the paternalistic or often depreciatory attitudes and behaviors of the Brazilians with whom they came into contact. Artifact production for trade thus had a positive impact on Mamainde morale which an equivalent-value production of foodstuffs for trade, for example, would not have had, due to the fact that in these items (artifacts), which were originally produced for domestic use, the Mamainde traditionally invest additional effo~ t, over and above that necessary for the functional adequacy of the item, Io make them



beautiful in their eyes. That the world of the "civilizados" would desire to buy these things was always welcome information to them.

Conversely, however, there also may be a greater danger in trading such objects, for when the market demand is not in accordance with traditional standards of beauty, style, or cleanliness, then these aesthetic productions, in which the producer has purposefully invested extra time and effort, are not "good enough" and more than just the object itself may be seen to be discredited. A further possible danger in the artifact trade is that progressive, subtle modifications in such pieces, in order to meet the apparent demands of the potential purchasers, may lead to a substantial deviation from the original or traditional artifact, over time. The effects of this deviation on the producers may vary, depending on how they come to realize its existence, how they react to it, how they explain it, and how the outside world's demands are interpreted to them. In some cases, it may serve to increase their appreciation of their own aesthetic standards and cultural values, if they come to see the demands of the outside world as being based on standards and values different from or inferior to their own (cf. 32, pp. 216,223). In other cases, the reverse may occur, and its effects may be devastating. The reinforcement which the outside world's demand for such items had given to the aesthetic values and sense of pride of the group may become a mockery, as in the case of the production of ceramic dolls among the Karajg today (27, p. 333). Additionally, the economic and social integration of such production activities as merely quantitative expansions of existent production sectors may become particularly tenuous, leading to possible structural alterations of far-reaching and long-term consequence in the patterms of social and economic organization of the group. The role of the outside trader in maintaining or changing traditional standards is thus particularly sensitive in this regard, for it is he or she who interprets the changes in market demand to the Indians in their village. The manner in which this is done and the communication process effected at that time may be delicate matters, indeed (cf. 8, pp. 1520.

CONCLUSION: INDIRECT TOURISM AND POLITICAL ECONOMY

Indirect tourism, as a mechanism of articulation between two cultures, essentially skips over the whole contact front situation by putting the two extremes of the continuum directly in contact in terms of what each wants from the other (artifacts versus trade goods) while it actually keeps them from direct contact in the sense of personal interaction. This analysis assumes, of course, that the role of the "traders" (the anthropologists and mis,~ionaries) who obtain the artifacts in the village and bring trade goods in return can be overlooked at this point due to their special nature at present (most of them are foreigners). Should FUNAI decide to fully assume this intermediary activity, as it periodically attempts to do, then it may become appropriate to again include in this analysis the local representative front made up (presumably) of the FUNAI employees charged with these responsibilities.

Indirect tourism can have both positive and negative effects, some of which have been discussed above, on the two cultures interacting through it, though these effects will certainly vary somewhat from case to case.

Whatever the dangers or benefits resulting from this fornl of contact between the

| 5 4 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH, Jan/Feb '77

PAUL L. ASPELIN

two cultures discussed here, it must be remembered that it was not originated by nor is it controlled by those who may be said to either benefit or suffer the most from its operation: the Mamainde Indians. As with the other types of contact fronts delineated by Ribeiro, here also it is the dominant or stronger entity which has set the rules for the playing of the contact game. Without FUNAI's ruling that unauthorized persons cannot enter Indian areas (which effectively prohibits tourists from purchasing artifacts directly from the Indians) and without FUNAI's continued marketing efforts, the artifact trade would be neither as advantageous as it is to the Mamainde (or to any of the other tribes which also participate in it to different degrees) nor even possible on any very large scale, at all. Just as non-Indian people have determined that extractive, pastoral, agricultural, or missionary fronts would begin to penetrate and operate in any Indian area, so likewise non-lndians have decided that the Mamainde could become involved in the indirect tourist front. The question is clearly one of politics.

So, also, it is clearly one of economics, for in all of these fronts, with the possible exception of the missionary-type of interference front, the interaction between the two elements has been primarily an economic interaction. Even the missionary front, itself, often comes into play in an area primarily as a response to the actions of another more direct front whose motivations were decidedly economic ones. The question, then, becomes one of political economy. About the politics, the Mamainde had little choice. About the economics, however, they actually did have some choice. Agricultural, extractive, pastoral, missionary, and governmental fronts all coexisted (to varying degrees) in the Mamainde area as alternative ways to articulate economically with the outside world, in order to obtain the manufactured goods they so much desired. Of all the possibilities with which they were familiar, the Mamainde chose the indirect tourist front for it allowed them to maximize those things most valuable to them: their family and village life, their traditional work styles, and their traditional values (in short, their traditional culture), by dealing directly with the national society instead of with its local representatives, who wished them to change these things. The focus of the actual "friction" inherent in this contact situation was thus shifted from between the Mamainde and the local Brazilians to between the local Brazilians and their national institutions, for the local Brazilians did not much appreciate the existence of this opportunity for the Mamainde to obtain their trade goods in ways other than those which would provide these Brazilians with cheap Mamainde labor and Mamainde land.

The politics of this case are thus the politics of economics, of economic benefits, economic decisions, and the freedom to make those decisions. It takes a certain amount of political strength (which in some cases may be obviated by sufficiently formidable geographic barriers) to create and maintain mechanisms to effectively eliminate the local representatives of the national culture from such contact situations and to guarantee freedom of economic choice to the ":.,eaker culture involved at the expense of the freedom of action of the regional society. Indirect tourism may thus bring with it some fairly sizeable political costs.

It may also bring with it some fairly difficult ethical dilemmas, for although the political costs of indirect contact may be relatively high for the interference front, tlle economic and cultural benefits to the weaker culture may also be quite high.


Were the interference front to choose not to maintain these barriers to direct contact between the national and the local culture, its costs would be considerably reduced, but those of the local (in this case, aboriginal) culture would be greatly increased. Which is most capable of absorbing these different types of cost~, to these differing degrees? Should either party even be concerned about the consequences of these phenomena for the other? Might a formula be developed in which the costs to each are reduced and the benefits to each maximized? Is there any satisfactory solution to this equation? These are some of the policy decisions which ultimately must be made (even if only through default, by making no decision) by the only party to the situation able to act on a scale large enough to effect decisions on issues of this magnitude: the political apparatus of the national, industrialized culture.

An even more difficult question overshadows all of the above: What are the long-term, as opposed to the short-term, costs and consequences of the various forms of cultural interaction which might obtain between these entities? If decisions are difficult to make, if data is difficult to obtain, for the immediate present or short.run future, how much more difficult to project these questions even farther into the future? Should the Indians, or local minority cultures of whatever sort, be left in forced isolation? Should they be turned, even if against their will (though this was not the case for the Mamainde) into artists and craftsmen as their only means of salvation? Or should they be brought into contact with the larger society, to be changed and absorbed to varying degrees as circumstances dictate, regardless of the short-term costs in social, cultural, and personal disruption which this integration might involve?

These are certainly difficult policy questions, not just because of the difficulty of obtaining the necessary data base and theoretical models on which to build an understanding of the alternatives reasonably available, but more so because of their human or ethical dimension, it is not just relative income or the relative degrees of cultural access that are at stake in these decisions, it is very clearly the well-being of the people involved in the most total, cultural sense. The structure of social life, which has been shown here to be critical for the successful adoption of certain economic links to the outside world in the case of the Mamainde, is integrally related to the structure of their ideological, moral, and emotional existence, as well as to the technological, economic, and spatial aspects of their lives. The decisions made by the national society as to how to deal with the contact situation in terms of economics or tourism are, therefore, really much more than that. As for all such tightly-integrated small societies (such as many of those which tourists find so delightful to visit), a change in one aspect of their culture must eventually affect the rest their culture in many important ways. The ethical question here, then, is ultimately one of allowing or of preserving the survival of cultural diversity, cultural pluralism, cultural differences, of minority groups and their rights to retain the ways of life they have known. Quite clearly, small societies have a right to maintain and improve the quality of their existence just as much as do the larger and more powerful societies. The dilemma is that these two sets of rights seem, as Cardoso has suggested, far too often antithetical to one another.

This article does not attempt to suggest a genreal solution to these questions. Rather,


PAUL L. ASPELIN

it presents a particular solution, in a particular case, as an example of how these questions might best be phrased in some contexts, of the kinds of variables involved in their solution, and of one particular outcome which might serve as a modest example, suitably modified, in other contexts, where appropriate.

The critical elements in this case have been seen to be freedom of choice, the maintenance of social distance, and an understanding of social structure in its largest sense, including the social ramifications of technological and economic organization in particular. The Mamainde have been given the freedom to pursue that form of cultural contact, from among the real alternatives with which they were personally well familiar, which they found most congenial and most beneficial, as they define and measure costs and benefits, socia]ly and economically. Their choice involved the maintenance of social distance in order to maintain as much as possible of what they valued in their traditional way of life; others may choose otherwise. Ultimately, of course, given the passage of sufficient time, they may choose to modify this arrangement if they wish, as their understanding of the national society, of their own, and of what each may offer and do to and for the other, changes. It is also quite possible that the ability to make these decisions may actually be withdrawn from them by the national government, which, of course, retains the ability to do so. It may then more overtly impose on the Mamainde its own decision as t~o how they should be involved economically, socially, and culturally, with the outside world.

In developing the understanding of indirect tourism presented here, some available models of cultural contact have been considered and refined and modified through testing them against this particular case. The result is thus a generalized model of cultural contact situations now available for application to the study of tourism and particularly applied to that variant of tourism here labeled "indirect tourism", This paper has thus attempted to make a twofold contribution to the anthropological study of tourism: first, through the documentation and analysis of a particular case of a somewhat unique type of tourist situation, providing lessons for the analysis of other cases of tourism which are not solely indirect, as this one way; and, second, through the provision of a more suitable general model for . the anthropological analysis of tourism than has yet been available.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

An abbreviated version of this paper was first presented by the author in the symposium on "Tourism and Cultural Change" at tile 74th annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association in San Francisco, California, in December of 1975. It has been revised by the author for publication here. The author wishes to thank the National Institute of Mental Health and the Cornell University Latin American Studies Program for their support of field research among the Mamainde; Professor Davydd J. Greenwood for his comments on various aspects of these ideas: and Mr. Theodore L. Stoddard, general editor of the Institute for Cross-Cultural Research Studies, for permission to include here quotations from the article by Darcy Ribeiro (26). The author is solely responsiblc, howcver, lbr all statements of fact and interpretation in this article.

(Continued on page 1601



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13. L~vi-Strauss, Claude, Tristes tropiques. Trans. John and Doreen Weightman. New York: Atheneum, 1974.

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25. Reuniao Brasileira de Antropologia, "Proposta de convenc~o para a grafia dos nomes tribais," Bevista de Antropologia (S~'o Pauio), 2 (1954), pp. 150-152; and 3 (1955), pp. 125-132.



26. Ribeiro, Darcy, "Indigenous cultures and languages of Brazil", in Janice H. Hopper, ed. and tr., Indians of Brazil in the twentieth century. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Cross-Cultural Research, 1967. P p. 77-165.

27. Ribeiro, Darcy, Os ~ndios e a civiliza¢~o: a integracao das popula¢oes indfgenas no Brasilmoderno. Rio de Janeiro: Civilizac~o Brasileira, 1970.

28. Sahlins, Marshall, Stone-age economics. Chicago: Aldine-Atherton, 1972.

29. Santos, Silvio Coelho dos, A integra~o do fndio na sociedade regional: a funcffo dos postos indigenas em Santa Catarina. Florianopolis, Santa Catarina: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, 1970.

30. Silva, Pedro Agostinho da, "Information conerning the territorial and demographic situation in the Alto Xingfi," in W. Dostal, ed.o The situation of the Indian in South America: contributions to the study of inter-ethnic conflict in the non-Andean re#ions of South America. Geneva: World Council of Churches (Publications of the Department of Ethnology, University of Berne, no. 3), 1972. Pp. 252-283.

f 31. Tavener, Christopher J., "The Karaj~ and the Brazilian frontier," in Daniel R.

Gross, ed., Peoples and cultures of native South America. Garden City, New York: Natural History Press, 1973. Pp. 433-459.

32. Willett, Frank, "African arts and the future: decay or development?" in I. Abu-Lughod, ed., African themes: Northwestern University Studies in honor of Gwendolen M. Carter. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Program of African Studies, 1975. Pp. 213-226.

33. Zinder, H.,et. aL, The future of tourism in the Eastern Caribbean. Washington, D C.: H. Zinder/USAID, 1969.

(Continued from page 157)

According to standard usage (25), the name of the Mamainde should carry a circumflex accent on its terminal vowel. Since this essentially only marks stress, rather than a vowel change, this convention has not been followed here.

| 6 0 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH, Jan/Feb '77

the anthropological analysis of tourism: indirect tourism and political economy in the case of the...

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