Anxious pleasures
Subtitle: the sexual lives of an Amazonian people
By: Thomas Gregor.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 1985
Place of publication: Chicago
Language: eng
Number of pages: 223
Subjects: Mehinacu Indians -- Sexual behavior; Indians of South America -- Brazil -- Sexual behavior; Sex role -- Brazil
Description: "Good fish get dull but sex is always fun." So say the Mehinaku people of Brazil. But Thomas Gregor shows that sex brings a supreme ambiguity to the villagers' lives. In their elaborate rituals - especially those practiced by the men in their secret societies - the Mehinaku give expression to a system of symbols reminiscent of psychosexual neuroses identified by Freud: castration anxiety, Oedipal conflict, fantasies of loss of strength through sex, and a host of others. "If we look carefully," writes Gregor, "we will see reflections of our own sexual nature in the life ways of an Amazonian people." The book is illustrated with Mehinaku drawings of ritual texts and myths, as well as with photographs of the villagers taking part in both everyday and ceremonial activities. -- Publisher description.
Notes: Bibliography: p. [211]-216.
Includes index.