Kinship with monkeys : the Guajâa foragers of eastern Amazonia

Intrigued by a slide showing a woman breast-feeding a monkey, anthropologist Loretta A.

Cormier spent 15 months living among the Guaja, a foraging people in a remote area of Brazil.

The result is this ethnographic study of the extraordinary relationship between the Guaja Indians and monkeys.

While monkeys are a key food source for the Guaja, certain pet monkeys have a quasi-human status.

Some infant monkeys are adopted and nurtured as human children, while others are consumed in ritual practices of "symbolic cannibalism".The apparent contradiction of this predator/protector relationship became the central theme of Cormier's research: how can monkeys be both eaten as food and nurtured as children?

Her research reveals that monkeys play a vital role in Guaja society, ecology, economy and religion.

In Guaja animistic beliefs all forms of plant and animal life - especially monkeys - have souls and are woven into a comprehensive kinship system.

Therefore, all consumption can be considered a form of cannibalism.The book concludes with a discussion of the implications of ethnoprimatology beyond Amazonia, including a discussion of Western perceptions of primates.