ABSTRACT
The kinds of knowledge about Amazonia widely available to and/or promulgated to non-specialist audience's images purported to represent various Amazonian realities. In Brazilian Amazonia, the foundational images seem to represent the work of commercial photographers about whom little is known, but whose presence in the region is undoubtedly linked to the rubber industry and the direct transport and mercantile links made with Northern Europe. The syncretic character of Amazonian colonial society, the early severing of Lusitanian control and the rise of the Republic and the geographical isolation of the region all shape the colonial depiction. The contrast between the pure' Indian and the mestio continues to feature prominently in anthropological discourse in Amazonia invoked in making authoritative Indian/non-Indian distinctions in Amazonia. The highly influential work of Meggers and Evans encapsulates long-standing views about neo-tropical pathology, particularly with regard to the notion that the biogeography of Amazonia cannot support societies of great social complexity or size.
