ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how Central Guianese Amerindians relate to each other's bodies and how their relations can be analysed in the context of a process of long-term sedentarization and evangelization, which was initiated by a network of Protestant missionaries in the late 1950s. It analyses the relation between human bodies by looking at how the Trio relate to the human yet intrinsically wild' people. The chapter examines a number of missionary-led contact expeditions were conducted, and then focus on how these resulted in the incorporation of three groups of hunter-gatherers now known as the Akuriyo within Trio villages of southern Suriname. The Trio' are composed of different historical groups which have come together through sedentarization and intermarriage over several decades. The work which the Akuriyo perform for their Trio guardians is indeed similar to that performed by men for their wife's father, this bride-service being the only institutionalized form of subservience among the Trio.
