The Life and Times of Grandfather Alonso: Culture and History in the Upper Amazon

Blanca Muratorio introduces us to Rucuyaya Alonso, a Quichua elder from the Upper Ecuadorian Amazon. Grandfather Alonso's story spans a century, as his narrative incoporates oral tradition learned from both his father and grandfather. The book alternates between chapters of Alonso's life history, and chapters analyzing the history of the world around him--the domination of the missionaries and the state, the white settlers' expropriation of land, the debt-peonage system during the rubber boom, the world-wide crisis of the 1930s, and the booms and busts of the iternational oil market. Muratorio explains the larger social, economic, and ideological bases of white domination over native peoples in Amazonia. Her analysis of Quichua culture shows how through everyday practices of accommodation and resistance, and through expressions of humor, irony, and anger, the Quichua Indians were able to protect their cultural identity, their ethnic dignity, and their symbolic systems against the hegemonic forces of a white-dominated world.