Social Organization of Native American Societies to the East of the Andes in Descriptions by Conquistadors and Missionaries (16th-18th Centuries)

Abstract

Even though historical records and descriptions of South American peoples, produced by Europeans, display the typical tendency toward generalization; still, they point to a high degree of variability in types of social organization existing among those peoples. Taking into account the fact that European writers did not understand a fair part of what they observed, we have to acknowledge that their descriptions, if examined in conjunction with available ethnographic and archaeological data, demonstrate that there indeed were different types of social organization among the native peoples of South America both before and after the Conquest. They further help us understand the ways in which these types of social organization were evolving.