ABSTRACT
The issue of power has been a long-standing topic in the anthropology of Lowland South America. The discussions about leadership in Amerindian societies have been characterised by questions about the modes of power or powerlessness attributed to ‘chiefs’. Since the publication of Lowie’s article on the ‘Political Organisation among the American Aborigenes’ (Lowie 1948) a set of problems concerning the construction and enactment of power in Amazonian societies has been addressed. One line of investigation has focused on the nature of power and leadership, and its relationships to the principles of social organisation in Lowland South America. The notion of the powerless chief and the specific social conditions that determine his existence have been approached from various points of view, with some authors emphasising the importance of balanced social relations. For example, Lévi-Strauss’s study of chieftainship among the Nambikuara describes various forms of reciprocity that characterise the relationship between chief and commoners (LéviStrauss 1967). In continuation of this line of thought, Clastres argued that special social mechanisms create an egalitarian société contre l’etat, which is immune to the institutionalisation of centralised political power and the emergence of a state (Clastres 1976 [1974]). An important feature in this context is the separation of religious and secular power-positions.
