Dance of the Dolphin: Transformation and Disenchantment in the Amazonian Imagination

By Candace Slater

In folktales told throughout much of the Brazilian Amazon, dolphins take human form, attend raucous dances and festivals, seduce men and women, and carry them away to a city beneath the river. They are encantados, or Enchanted Beings, capable of provoking death or madness, but also called upon to help shamanic healers. Male dolphins—accomplished dancers who appear dressed in dapper straw hats, white suits, and with shiny black shoes—reportedly father numerous children. The females are said to lure away solitary fishermen. Both sinister and charming, these characters resist definition and thus domination; greedy and lascivious outsiders, they are increasingly symbolic of a distinctly Amazonian culture politically, socially, economically, and environmentally under seige.

Candace Slater examines these stories in Dance of the Dolphin, both as folk narratives and as representations of culture and conflict in Amazonia. Her engaging study discusses the tales from the viewpoints of genre, performance, and gender, but centers on them as responses to the great changes sweeping the Amazon today. According to Slater, these surprisingly widespread tales reflect Amazonians' own mixed reactions to the ongoing destruction of the rainforest and the resulting transformations in the social as well as physical landscape. Offering an informed view of Brazilian culture, this book crosses the boundaries of folklore, literature, anthropology, and Latin American studies. It is one of the very few studies to offer an overview of the changes taking place in Amazonia through the eyes of ordinary people.

"This book is a rich collection of stories about the transformation of dolphins in the city of enchantment. . . . The joy in this book is not just its vibrant analysis and careful relating of tradition and lore, but also its uncanny accurateness in capturing the very essence of Amazonia."-Darrell Posey, Journal of Latin American Studies
"Slater's fluid prose reads like a novel for those interested in Amazonian culture and folklore, while her integrated approach makes this a must read for those interested in innovative methodology."-Lisa Gabbert, Western Folklore

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Release date: Jun 12, 2012
• ISBN: 9780226924892

Candace Slater

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Reviews for Dance of the Dolphin

[orthaevelve · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Three stars for having information on the anthropology of the Encantado belief system that is available nowhere else that I know of in English. Two stars missing for extremely offensive paternalistic attitudes towards another culture.Ms Slater was made to feel at home among the people she studied, and she rewarded them by consistently belittling their cultures and beliefs throughout this book. She alternately insults and condescends to village inhabitants, and fails to make blatantly obvious intercultural comparisons between the Encantado and the European Faerie tradition. On the other hand, she writes the oral folk tales with grace and poetry and elegantly links the myth cycle of the dolphins together.As you can tell I have very mixed feelings on this book and this writer. If you buy it, read it for the information on the dolphin shapeshifters and not for the writer's deplorable attitude towards another culture.