The Andean nation of Ecuador derives much of its revenue from petroleum that is extracted from its vast Upper Amazonian rain forest, which is home to ten indigenous nationalities. Norman E. Whitten Jr. and Dorothea Scott Whitten have lived among and studied one such people, the Canelos Quichua, for nearly forty years. In Puyo Runa, they present a trenchant ethnography of history, ecology, imagery, and cosmology to focus on shamans, ceramic artists, myth, ritual, and political engagements. Canelos Quichua are active participants in national politics, including large-scale movements for social justice for Andean and Amazonian people. Puyo Runa offers readers exceptional insight into this cultural world, revealing its intricacies and embedded humanisms.

|Preface and Acknowledgements ix
Notes on Orthography and Pronunciation xxi
Notes on Pronouns, People, and Pseudonyms xxv

1. Puyo Runa and Nayapi Llacta 1
2. Cultural Reflexivities, Images, and Locality 30
3. Empowerment, Knowledge, and Vision 59
4. Connections: Creative Expressions of Canelos Quichua Women Dorothea Scott Whitten 90
5. Imagery and the Control of Power 119
6. Cultural Performance 140
7. Aesthetic Contours: History, Conjuncture, and Transformation Dorothea Scott Whitten and Norman Whitten 167
8. Return of the Yumbo: The Caminata from Amazonia to Andean Quito Norman Whitten, Dorothea Scott Whitten, and Alfonso Chango 200
9. Causaunchimi!: Processes of Empowerment 231

Glossary 259
References 271
Index 293
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"If there is a single book that is capable of condensing and addressing all of the issues of exchange, articulation with global economies, and ethnogenesis in Amazonia, it is Whitten and Whitten's book Puyo Runa.—Ethnohistory

"As a convincing and accessible account of one people's struggle to comprehend and overcome the challenges of colonial history and a tumultuous geopolitical moment, Puyo Runa stands as a powerful argument for the essential perspective that only long-term, rigorous, and imaginative ethnography can provide."—Anthropological Quarterly
​"This career capstone volume will be broadly useful for all social scientists as well as Latin Americanists. . . . Highly recommended."—Choice
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Norman E. Whitten Jr. is a professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and he coauthored and collaborated with Dorothea Scott Whitten, a former research associate at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, on numerous books and articles, including Millennial Ecuador: Critical Essays on Cultural Transformations and Social Dynamics.