The Central Arawaks

In 1913, ethnologist and explorer William Curtis Farabee set out to document the Arawak tribes of northern Brazil and southern British Guiana, a three-year journey that led him far into the unmapped regions of the Amazon River basin. His meticulous observations comprise The Central Arawaks, first published in 1918 and still one of the most comprehensive accounts of the peoples living along the northern tributaries of the Amazon River. The Wapisiana, Ataroi, Taruma, and Mapidian tribes numbered fewer than 1,500 at the time of Farabee's voyage; his detailed record of their daily life preserves a vision of these vulnerable cultures at a crucial point in their history, offering insight into their languages, social structures, and cosmologies. A testament to an ethnologist whose achievements were once hailed as 'monumental', this reissued edition also brings renewed attention to William Farabee, whose influence on Anglo-American anthropological exploration is still felt today.