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Tipit´
ı: Journal of the Society for the
Anthropology of Lowland South
America
Volume 4, Issue 1 2006 Article 4
SPE CI AL ISSUE IN HONOR OF JOANNA OVERING: IN T HE
WORLD AND ABO UT T HE WO RL D: AMERINDIAN MOD ES O F
KNOWLEDGE
Sensual Vitalities: Noncorporeal Modes of
Sensing and Knowing in Native Amazonia
Fernando Santos-Granero
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, santosf@si.edu
Copyright c
2006 by the authors. Tipit´
ı: Journal of the Society for the Anthropol-
ogy of Lowland South America is produced by The Berkeley Electronic Press (bepress).
http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti
Sensual Vitalities: Noncorporeal Modes of
Sensing and Knowing in Native Amazonia
Fernando Santos-Granero
Abstract
Yanesha people of eastern Peru would agree with Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas that
knowledge can only be achieved through sense perception. They would, however, disagree on
what exactly “sense perception” means. In the Western tradition the senses are considered to be
the “physiological” modes of perception. We can only know, it is asserted, through the body and
its senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. In contrast, Yanesha people view bodily senses
as imperfect means of knowing, unable to grasp the true, spiritual dimension of the world. Only
one of the noncorporeal components of the self, yecamqu¨
e˜
nor “our vitality, is endowed with the
sensory faculties that allow for a correct perception, and thus for the possibility of “true” knowl-
edge. It is for this reason that, from a Yanesha point of view, vitalities are sensual, whereas bodies
are considered to be somewhat insensible. This article explores Yanesha noncorporeal modes of
sensing and knowing, as well as their theories of perception and sensual hierarchies. My purpose
is to advocate for a renewed anthropology of the senses in Amazonian studies, as well as to pro-
pose a critical revision of the notion of Amerindian perspectivism.
Los Yanesha de la amazon´
ıa peruana estar´
ıan de acuerdo con Arist´
oteles y Santo Tom´
as de Aquino
en que el conocimiento solo puede ser obtenido a trav´
es de la percepci´
on sensorial. Sin em-
bargo, estar´
ıan en desacuerdo en cuanto a qu´
e exactamente significa “percepci´
on sensorial.” En
la tradici´
on occidental los sentidos son considerados como el modo “fisiol´
ogico” de percepci´
on.
S´
olo podemos conocer, se dice, a trav´
es del cuerpo y sus sentidos: vista, o´
ıdo, olfato, tacto y
gusto. En contraste, los Yanesha consideran los sentidos corporales como medios imperfectos de
conocimiento, incapaces de aprehender la verdadera dimensi´
on espiritual del mundo. S ´
olo uno de
los componentes incorp´
oreos del ser, yecamqu¨
e˜
no “nuestra vitalidad,” est´
a dotado de las facul-
tades sensoriales que permiten tener una percepci´
on correcta y, con ello, la posibilidad de obtener
conocimiento “verdadero. Es por esta raz ´
on que, desde un punto de vista yanesha, las vitalidades
son sensuales mientras que los cuerpos son en cierta medida insensibles. Este art´
ıculo explora
los modos no-corporales de percepci´
on y conocimiento de los Yanesha, as´
ı como sus teor´
ıas de
percepci´
on y su jerarqu´
ıa de los sentidos. Su objetivo es abogar por una renovada antropolog´
ıa de
los sentidos en los estudios amaz´
onicos, as´
ı como proponer una revisi´
on cr´
ıtica de la noci´
on de
perspectivismo.
Tipití (2006) 4(1&2):57–80 © 2006 SALSA 57
ISSN 1545-4703 Printed in USA
Sensual Vitalities: Noncorporeal Modes of
Sensing and Knowing in Native Amazonia
FERNANDO SANTOS-GRANERO
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
santosf@si.edu
I received my first lesson on Yanesha theories of perception while
fishing one dark night in May of 1977 in the Palcazu River with Matar, the
traditional chief of Camantarmas and my self-appointed mentor. I was
an undergraduate doing fieldwork for the first time among the Yanesha
of eastern Peru and had been in the area for little more than two months.
Tired of me asking too many questions, and constantly entangling my
fishing line with his, Matar discreetly suggested that night that I should
move farther away, where, he asserted with excessive enthusiasm, there was
a fantastic fishing spot. While I was there, all alone, chewing coca leaves
and chain smoking to dissipate my boredom, I started hearing people
singing a beautiful song. It was a sherareñets song belonging to the female
style of coshamñats sacred songs. The women singing were accompanied
by what I recognized as requërqueñets panpipe sacred music. Their soprano
voices merged smoothly with the high pitched sounds of the two leading
panpipes, and with the graver tones of the large accompanying ones.
Although I still had difficulties in orienting myself along the loops and
turns of the winding Palcazu River, I was quite sure that Shecor, Matar’s
older brother, lived right across the river from where I was fishing. While
listening to the captivating music, I recalled that Shecor’s daughter had
been ritually confined a few weeks ago after having had her first menses.
She was supposed to come out of her seclusion during the next full moon.
Her parents had told me that they would like me to attend the coming out
party. So I was puzzled that they had decided to hold the party earlier than
planned and somewhat disappointed at not having been invited.
After listening to the music for a while, I decided to ask Matar if he
knew about the party. When I did, he looked at me disconcerted. “What
party?” he asked. “The one in Shecor’s house across the river” I answered.
“Can’t you hear the music?” With an even more puzzled and alarmed
expression, Matar told me that nobody lived across the river and that he
could not hear any music. I thought he was pretending not to hear the
music to spare me from the mortification of not having been invited to the
party. But Matar’s subsequent actions revealed that he certainly was not
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pretending. He urged me to gather my fishing line and prepare to leave
immediately. When I asked him why, he begged me to be quiet. After
assembling our things hastily, we hopped into the canoe, and, in absolute
silence, we steered downriver until we reached Matar’s landing place.
It was only in the safety of home, next to the fire, and chewing a
new wad of coca leaves that Matar told me that what I had heard were
not human voices but the singing of Pocoy, a class of underwater river
beings that Yanesha call sirenas (mermaids) in Spanish. Hearing Pocoy,
he told me, is not only odd but very dangerous. Normally imperceptible
during waking hours, Pocoy mermaids only reveal themselves to solitary
fishermen. They do so in order to seduce them. If an unaware fisherman
listens to Pocoy’s alluring songs and calls out to her, she appears to him
in the shape of a beautiful blond white woman. Such encounters are
generally fatal. Beautifully painted, perfumed with necklaces of fragrant
seeds, dressed in a sparkling tunic, talking in caressing tones, sweet to the
taste, and soft to the touch, Pocoy overwhelms the senses of the chosen
man. Ensnared by her guiles, he loses his will power and from then on is
under the spell of Pocoy, whose only desire is to take him as a lover to her
underwater world.
This is why Matar was so anxious to leave. If I had not left while
I still had the will to do so, he told me, I might have been tempted to
communicate with the mermaid. And if I had done so, I would have never
been able to return home. I do not know exactly what happened that
night. Did I actually hear the underwater river people? Did I experience
an acoustic hallucination? Or was it only a trick of my senses? Be that as it
may, that night I learned much about Yanesha understandings of the world
and, above all, about Yanesha world sensing. In subsequent months I was
to learn even more.
In this article, I present the main principles of the Yanesha theory of
perception and knowledge, and discuss how it contrasts in important ways
with our own. My purpose is to advocate for a renewed anthropology
of the senses in Amazonian studies (see Howes 1991, 2005), as well as
to propose a critical revision of the notion of Amerindian perspectivism.
In so doing, I follow what I consider to be one of Joanna Overing’s most
powerful arguments in her edited volume Reason and Morality. In it
she states that “Humility comes only through an acquaintance with the
epistemologies and ontologies of other cultures, an acquaintance achieved
through rich ethnography which is acquired by taking seriously what
others say about their social worlds” (1985:7). I have abided by this wise
precept ever since.
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Sensual Vitalities 59
THE SELF AND ITS COMPONENTS
Yanesha ideas about the self and its senses are much more complex
than those prevalent in Western societies. According to their notions,
every individual is composed of a body and two incorporeal entities:
yecamquëñ (“our soul/vitality”), and yechoyeshem (“our shadow”). The body
is conceived of as the material dimension of the self. The term chetsots,
meaning both body and flesh, underscores the bodys raw materiality. At
another level, however, Yanesha people conceive of the body as a tunic
that cloaks its noncorporeal elements (see Belaunde; Rosengren; and
Storrie, intra, for similar notions among other Amazonian peoples).
This conception alludes to the full length gendered cotton tunics (fem.,
cashemuets, masc., shetamuets) that Yanesha people used to wear on a daily
basis until recently, and that they still wear in the intimacy of their homes,
or in formal occasions. This is not surprising, since wrapped in their tunics,
Yanesha men and women become their tunics (see Figure 1).
Contrary to what Viveiros de Castro (1998:471) suggests for Amer-
indian people in general, in Yanesha usage the relationship between bodies
and tunics is not metaphorical but literal. Bodies are tunics and tunics are
Figure 1: Bodies are tunics and tunics are bodies.
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bodies. This is confirmed by both mythical narratives and shamanic beliefs.
At the end of mythical times, humans retained their tunics—meaning their
human bodies/tunics—whereas the decorated tunics of animals, spirits,
and other beings were transformed into their present-day bodies. Thus,
the scales of the armadillo, the spots of the jaguar, and the blackness of the
curassow are said to derive from the patterns and colors of their mythical
tunics. In addition, Yanesha claim that when shamans consume narcotic
or hallucinogenic substances, their “souls” travel to other world planes,
leaving their “tunics”—again in the sense of both body and tunic—behind.
If their souls are trapped or devoured while traveling through other world
planes it is believed that their bodies wither and that the shaman dies.
Yanesha people consider the body and its senses to be important sources
of information as well as a means of communication in the material world.
Nevertheless, they regard corporeal senses as incapable of perceiving the
normally hidden, spiritual dimension underlying much of the visible world.
Not even shamans can perceive the spiritual dimension of things with
their bodily senses (see Viveiros de Castro 2004b:465, and Vilaça 1992:66,
81, for contrasting Amerindian ideas). Thus, these are conceived of as
unsuitable means of acquiring or producing significant knowledge. This
task can only be accomplished by a person’s noncorporeal constituents.
There are, however, important differences between these constituents in
terms of their connection with the body, their sensorial capacities, and
their ability to produce knowledge.
Yechoyeshem (“our shadow”), is considered to be permanently attached
to the body so long as the person of whom it is a part is alive. Its visible
manifestation, as its name indicates, is a person’s shadow. Like shadows,
which are totally dependent on the bodies whose projection they are,
yechoyeshem are deprived of self-awareness, will, and senses. As such, they
are incapable of perceiving the world and generating knowledge. Only at
the death of the person of whom they were part are shadows liberated from
the tyranny of the body. Only then do they acquire self-will and some of
the sensorial capacities of the bodies to which they were attached. Known
as choyeshemats, or (“errant shadows”) these former components of human
beings sometimes stay close to where the latter lived and died, haunting
and terrorizing the living.
In contrast, yecamquëñ, (a term Yanesha people often translate in
Spanish as nuestra alma or “our soul”) is thought to be endowed with the
same sensorial capacities as the body. In fact, Yanesha believe that it is
the soul that imbues the body with sensory faculties. They assert that
yecamquëñ is the individual manifestation of the all encompassing “soul
stuff ” of the creator divinities of the yato’ (“our grandfather”) and yompor
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Sensual Vitalities 61
(“our father”) categories. Known as camuequeñets, this divine soul stuff
is conceived of as the primordial source of life of the universe. Thus,
yecamquëñ is the individualized human manifestation of the life force that
creator gods share with all living beings. It is this noncorporeal dimension
of the self that infuses life into the body and allows it to have both a life of
the senses and a life of thoughts (see Overing, intra, for similar notions).
Without it, bodies would be lifeless, mere raw matter similar to the tunics
to which they are equated. Insofar as Yanesha claim that camuequeñets,
the divine soul stuff or life force, is composed of vital breath or strength,
the term yecamquëñ would be better translated as “our vitality” than as
“our soul.”
Yecamquëñ has two manifestations. The first, the vitality proper, is
capable of detaching itself from the body and wandering through this and
other world planes. It has the same shape and physiognomy as the person
of which it is part. In this sense, it could be asserted that from a Yanesha
point of view the “person” and his or her components have a fractal nature
(cf. Luciani Kelly 2001; Mentore, intra). However, in contrast with other
Amerindian peoples (see for instance Rosengren and Werlang), Yanesha
assert that vitalities are made of divine breath or strength and, thus, lack
corporality.1 Because of this, vitalities lack boundaries and can diffuse into
the objects that are in prolonged close contact with an individual, such
as, for instance, his or her personal ornaments. In contrast, yecamquëñ’s
second manifestation is inseparable from the body. Under the form of
a tiny homunculus, it sits in the pupils of the person of which it is a part
(see Mentore, intra). When our vitality separates to wander about the
world, the nondetachable part—known as pacheñmer (“his human-like
being”)—keeps guard over the body, which, deprived of its source of life, is
vulnerable to all sorts of accidents and supernatural attacks.
As with the body, our vitality is endowed with sensorial capacities.
But, according to Yanesha people, whereas the bodily senses only perceive
the tunic of things, that is, their material appearance, the noncorporeal
senses of our vitalities are capable of perceiving things as “they really are.”
In other words, they can perceive the spiritual dimension of things. In
perspectival terms, this is tantamount to saying that they can perceive
animals, spirits, and other nonhuman beings as these beings perceive
themselves, that is, as human beings. Note that in contrast with other
Amerindian peoples (cf. Viveiros de Castro 2004b: 468) Yanesha attribute
this capacity to all human beings and not to only shamans. They recognize
three circumstances in which our vitalities are freed to exercise their
sensual capacities and thus engage in processes of knowing (1) while
people are asleep, (2) during ritual vigils, and (3) after consuming narcotics
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or hallucinogens. From a Western perspective, under such circumstances
the corporeal senses are diminished, deprived, numbed, or overstimulated.
From a Yanesha perspective they are simply left behind, together with the
body, thus allowing the senses of the disembodied vitalities to become
activated. It should be noted that Yanesha theories of perception are not
built upon an opposition between body and vitality. Rather, they are based
on a contrast between the sensory faculties of embodied and disembodied
vitalities, or, as Stolze Lima would put it, “between the reality of the subject
and the reality of its soul” (2000:48). From this point of view, our vitalities,
yecamquëñ, are the ones that endow individuals with the capacity to lead
a sensual life. Whereas embodied vitalities can only perceive the tunic of
things, however, disembodied vitalities can perceive their human spiritual
dimension.
THE BODY AND ITS SENSES
Just as with average Euroamericans, Yanesha people consider the body
to be endowed with five basic senses: hearing (e’mueñets), sight (enteñets),
smell (mosyeñets), touch (a’plleñets), and taste (amlleñets). All these senses are
considered to be indispensable in gathering the kind of factual information
required to live in this earth (añe patsro). Not all of them, however, are
attributed the same importance. As with Euroamericans, Yanesha people
believe that sight and hearing are the two most important senses. But,
in contrast to them, they—as well as many other Amerindian peoples—
attribute greater significance to hearing than to sight (see Belaunde, intra;
Murphy 2004; Passes 1998, 2001; Seeger 1981). This confirms McLuhan’s
(1961) proposition that whereas literate societies privilege sight and the
visual, oral societies tend to favor hearing and the aural. Although this
assertion has been recently contested by Classen (2005), it is clear that
nonliterate peoples often privilege senses other than sight as being the
most important means for acquiring knowledge.
I was never more aware of the importance of hearing than on an
occasion in 1983, during my second fieldwork experience among Yanesha
people, when I invited Mañor to come to Lima to help me transcribe
and translate a number of myths that I had recorded in the field. It was
dusk and we were working together in the living room when we saw a
rat creeping into the house from the garden. We chased it but could not
see into which room it had entered. We checked all the bedrooms and
bathrooms and we looked under the beds and behind the furniture, but
to no avail. It was then that Mañor said that he could find it, but that
he required total silence. He entered into the first bedroom, turned off
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Sensual Vitalities 63
the light, closed the door and sat in silence in the dark. After some ten
minutes he came out, saying that the rat was not there. He did the same
in the second room, and with same result. After five minutes in the third
room, however, he emerged and declared that the rat was there, inside
the closets top drawer. When I asked him how was he able to tell where
the rat was, he said that when the rat first heard him entering the room it
stayed perfectly still. But after a few minutes of total silence, the rat felt
safer and started to move. The almost inaudible screech of its feet against
the drawer’s bottom betrayed its location.
Sight is the second most important sense for the Yanesha. Hunters
and fishermen have incredibly discriminating eyesight, both during the
daytime and at night. When hunting during the day, they could discern
a curassow, a monkey, or even a sloth slowly moving head down along a
branch, where I simply saw a mass of indistinct greenery. When fishing in
the dim light of dawn or dusk, they had no problem adjusting their sight
to the refraction of the water, and could shoot fish with their three pointed
arrows at a distance of up to two meters. When hunting at night, sitting in
the forest, or navigating along the river on a canoe, they had little difficulty
in identifying with their flashlights the gleaming eyes of animals that were
sometimes as far away as twenty meters.
The third most important sense is smell. This sense provides useful
information for hunt and for performing other subsistence activities.
Yanesha hunters have a very fine sense of smell. When walking along
a forest trail they can discern whether a certain palm tree is fruiting in
the vicinity, or a certain resin producing tree can be found nearby. More
importantly, they can tell whether and how long ago a certain animal has
walked along the trail. Matar claimed to be especially good at smelling
animals. One day when we were walking in the forest in search of a
certain liana I had proof of his capacity. At a certain point, Matar stopped
abruptly and signaled me to do the same. He sniffed the air and said that
a jaguar had crossed the trail not long before. A few meters further on, we
came across the footprints of a jaguar, freshly imprinted on the soft clayey
ground.
Yanesha people are not as clear about the order of importance of the
two remaining senses, touch and taste,as they are about hearing, sight, and
smell. Touch is crucial to some activities as, for instance, the catching of
catfish. Since catfish feed by sucking microalgae, they are always found
attached to the rolling stones at the bottom of the river. People who want
to catch them wander about the shallower parts of the river sensing with
their hands the stones of the river bottom, where catfish usually hide. Sight
is of no help in this activity. It all depends on touch. When the armored
scales of a catfish are felt, it must be quickly grasped before it slides away.
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Taste is probably the least important sense for gathering information
on the natural world. It does provide, however, relevant data to carry out
certain activities. Previously, in forest expeditions to look for appropriate
clay to make pots, Yanesha women would taste and smell the different clays
they found in order to determine which was the most suitable. Taste and
smell are also crucial in order to identify certain plants, bushes, and weeds
of medicinal or magical importance, as they are among the Matsigenka
(Shepard 2004) and the Bororo (Crocker 1985:160).
Although Yanesha consider bodily senses to be indispensable to
human praxis in this earth, they have little trust on their own capacities
to apprehend what they consider to be the true nature of the world and
its beings. Like the Cashinahua (Kensinger 1995:237–246; Lagrou
2000:157, intra) and other Amerindian peoples who claim that knowledge
resides in the body, Yanesha believe that knowledge/memory resides in
the heart (see Rosengren and Belaunde, intra, for similar ideas among
Matsigenka and Airo-pai). However, Yanesha are clear on the fact that
thoughts (cotapñats) are not produced by the body but by an individuals
yecamquëñ, or vitality. The Amerindian notion that the material world is the
envelope of a spiritual dimension—that is a crucial source of extraordinary
knowledge—seems to be as universal in Lowland South America as the
idea that this spiritual dimension can only be perceived by a person’s soul
or vitality. Even those Amerindian peoples who claim that knowledge is
always embodied, seem to agree that the spiritual dimension of the world
can only be apprehended through noncorporeal components of the self.
In relation to the Cashinahua, according to Kensinger,To see the true
nature of people and the things that make up the natural world one also
must understand the bedu yushin, the eye spirit, sometimes also called
the real spirit, yushin kuin” (1995:240). Yanesha, Cashinahua, and other
Amerindians argue that what we see, hear, taste, smell, or touch while awake
are only the tunics of the living beings and material objects that populate
this earth. These other beings and objects also have vitalities that can only
be perceived by a persons vitality under very specific circumstances. These
vitalities have bodily form—always human—and even sensorial capacities,
but, at least from a Yanesha point of view, they lack corporality.
THEORIES OF PERCEPTION
Yanesha people are closer to Plato than to Aristotle in terms of their
ideas about how knowledge is produced. In Aristotelian philosophy,
sensual perception constitutes the basis for all knowledge. The physical
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Sensual Vitalities 65
world, it is argued, is made of objects composed of matter—the material
of which they are made and which form their shape. Through their
senses, which apprehend the form of material objects, individuals collect
information about the world. Under the guise of percepts, this sensorial
information travels through the blood system to the sensus communis, the
primary perceptual faculty according to Aristotle. For the Yanesha, the
sensus communis is located in the heart region. Its main function is to
discriminate between the percepts it receives from the various sense organs.
Aided by intellect, which for Aristotle is the faculty that enables us to know,
understand, and think, this information is judged and interpreted. In this
view—which, in slightly altered form, is the basis of present-day scientific
thought—knowledge in Yanesha is the product of sensorial information
processed by intellect or reason.
In contrast, Plato makes a clear distinction between the “sensible world,”
that is, the world of perception, and what he called the “intelligible world,”
the world of abstract “forms.” Marked by constant flux and change, the
sensible world is a world of appearances. Plato contends that knowledge
must have as its object the genuinely real rather than mere appearances.
He asserts that significant knowledge cannot be attained through the
sensorial apprehension of the physical world. Rather, it must be grasped by
applying reason to the understanding of the eternal “forms” or substances
that constitute the real world. These abstract entities exist independently
of the sensible world. Ordinary objects, imperfect and changeable, are
distorted copies of their perfect and immutable Forms. Since we have a
notion of such abstract forms as “orange,” “table,” or “justice,” and since the
corporeal senses are imperfect means of knowing such forms, Plato argues
that the apprehension of the real world can only be possible through the
soul.
The similarity between Yanesha and Platonic theories of knowledge
stops here, however. As Descola (1996:375) has pointed out, we should be
wary of the kind of naïve Platonism sometimes attributed to Amerindian
peoples. Plato proposes that we are born with a notion of the abstract
forms which comprise the real world. Because the corporeal senses are
incapable of apprehending such forms, we must conclude that (1) the soul
precedes the body, that is, it must be eternal and immortal, and (2) that
knowledge precedes the existence of the body and can only be apprehended
as a recollection of a past life.
Yanesha also believe that yecamquëñ (our soul/vitality) is eternal and
immortal, and that significant knowledge can only be attained through its
agency. However, given that they consider vitalities as mere manifestations
of camuequeñets—the breath/strength of the creator gods—rather than
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66 Fernando Santos-Granero
discrete never changing entities, they divest them with the capacity of
passing from a deceased individual to a newborn, or the possibility of
transmitting knowledge from one to the other. Instead, they believe
that the creator gods insufflate vitality into every newborn, and that this
vitality returns to its divine source—located in Yomporesho, the celestial
residence of the creator gods—once the person dies. Vitalities are thus
in constant circulation and transformation, passing from a generic divine
state to an individualized human form and back again to its generic state.
Knowledge, from this point of view, cannot be a recollection of the past.
Existing knowledge can be passed from person to person through teaching
and learning, but the production of new knowledge is always an individual
feat. It can only be possible through the activities of an individual’s vitality.
Unless it is transmitted through teaching, it is lost once a person dies.
THE PRODUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE
From a Yanesha perspective, knowledge (eñoteñets) is always
extraordinary knowledge originating in beings that inhabit other world
planes. It is true that Yanesha people have gathered an impressive amount
of what we would consider empirical information about a broad range
of subjects: agriculture and astronomy, botany and zoology, hydrology
and meteorology, navigation and architecture, medicine and poisons.
Doubtless, this is the result of centuries of accumulation of empirical
knowledge by countless generations of Yanesha. If one asks Yanesha people
how this knowledge was originated, however, not one person will mention
patient observation, recording, and interpretation of natural facts. Neither
will they attribute it to trial and error experimentation and the collective
accumulation of its results throughout the ages. Real knowledge, they
would argue, always comes from other world planes. This holds true
even for knowledge concerning very basic empirical tasks such as manioc
cultivation, obtained from Agouti, the use of barbasco fish poison, derived
from the semen of the horny giant Hua’tenañ, and processing salt and iron,
learned from the generous mythical beings Posona’ and Asreso.
This kind of knowledge was bestowed upon the collectivity of Yanesha
in mythical times. At present, however, extraordinary knowledge is
acquired, either directly through one’s individual efforts, or indirectly from
wise, generally older persons. In both cases, however, the learning process
is understood as a quest for knowledge, one in which seekers must prepare
themselves both physically and spiritually. For it is believed, firstly, that
the acquisition of extraordinary knowledge can only be attained through
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the mediation of one’s vitality and that the acquisition of this kind of
knowledge is a dangerous task that must be accompanied by increasing
forms of self control (see Overing 1975, Santos-Granero 1991, and Gow,
intra, on the dangers of excessive knowledge).
Dreams are an important source of knowledge, available to everyone:
men and women, the old and the young. Yanesha people assert that when
asleep our vitalities detach from our bodies and wander about this and other
levels of the world. Our dreams reflect the wanderings of our vitalities and
their encounters with other, normally imperceptible beings, including the
vitalities of other human beings, the shadows of dead people, the primordial
souls of animals, plants, and objects, or a vast array of spiritual beings and
divinities. Dreams can be deceiving, however, and the knowledge that can
be obtained through them may be haphazard. Wandering vitalities are
only able to collect random bits of knowledge encountered while visiting
other world levels. Unless people train themselves to “lucid dream,” that
is, to attain awareness while dreaming and act consciously to alter the
course of events within them (see Santos-Granero 2003), their vitalities
are unable to produce knowledge and they can only be passive receptors of
knowledge.
In order to obtain new knowledge, Yanesha people must embark on
a knowledge quest. These quests may be brief, simple, and with very
specific objectives. They may also be long term endeavors demanding
greater concentration and personal devotion. Adult Yanesha embark on
a daily basis in simple quests for knowledge. The hunter who chews coca
leaves to divine what prey he might expect to catch or the woman about
to harvest manioc, who sings the praises of Agouti so that the latter will
indicate to her which plants have the largest tubers, are examples of this
kind of search. Such daily quests for knowledge do not require much
ritual preparation. Almost all adult Yanesha know how to divine with coca
leaves, and many of them know magical songs used to elicit the guidance
of extraordinary beings.
In contrast, obtaining other types of knowledge requires longer quests
and a stronger personal commitment. During these quests, generally
associated with initiation rituals, the boys and girls involved strive to learn
two kinds of knowledge: the knowledge dispensed by their parents and
close relatives, and the knowledge acquired through their own personal
quests. Both require ritual preparation and experienced guidance. Young
men are trained by their fathers, grandfathers, and paternal uncles in the
art of hunting. During their training, they must follow a large number
of dietary proscriptions and prescriptions. They are given epe’ magical
plants (Cyperus sp.), which they chew with coca leaves. While consuming
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them they must keep vigil. They also have to beseech Rrera, the harpy
eagle, master of all animals and an exceptional hunter, or Pueyomp, the
primordial mythical hunter, to guide them. These extraordinary beings
present themselves to the apprentices—or, rather, to their vitalities—in
ritual vigils or in dreams, to bestow upon them special hunting knowledge
or precious hunting charms.
Female puberty rituals also entail a knowledge quest. In the past, young
girls were confined in a small palm leaf hut for up to one year after having
their first menses. Today they are secluded for no more than two months.
During this period, the confined girl must learn much of the knowledge an
adult Yanesha woman needs to know. They receive daily lessons from their
grandmothers, mothers, and maternal aunts. Secluded girls are taught to
spin cotton, weave, make baskets and mats, prepare manioc beer, plant a
garden, and rear children. The training entails not only the transmission
of the physical skills necessary to do these things, but also of the “secrets,”
that is, of the extraordinary knowledge necessary to be successful in all
these endeavors. Such secrets include songs to make manioc and other
staples grow abundantly, herbs to induce or prevent pregnancies, and epe’
magical plants to keep children healthy, train hunting dogs, or retain the
love of one’s spouse. To enhance their ability to concentrate, the secluded
girls have to keep vigil and maintain ritual silence. They chew a great deal
of coca, and are subjected to strict dietary restrictions. During ritual vigils,
or in their dreams, they obtain important information from extraordinary
beings. This becomes part of their personal wealth of knowledge.
Quests for knowledge linked to initiation rituals can take a big toll on
the initiates. The most demanding quests, however, are those required in
obtaining specialized knowledge. To become an herbalist (apartañ), tobacco
shaman (pa’llerr), or ayahuasca shaman (ayahuasquero), apprentices must
go through a taxing training period under the guidance of an established
specialist. In the past, priests (cornesha’) had to undertake a similar training.
In both cases, the trainees acquired important knowledge from their
instructors. Unlike other types of ritual training, however, the success of
shamans and priests largely depended on their capacity to obtain significant
knowledge in the form of personal revelations. All these specialists chewed
coca leaves and practiced prolonged ritual fasts and vigils. In addition,
some of them also consumed narcotic or hallucinogenic substances. Any
of these practices, Yanesha claim, induce the detachment of our vitalities
from our bodies. But whereas in dreams vitalities generally do not obey
the person’s conscious will, when either keeping vigil or consuming toxic
substances they can be consciously directed. This is achieved through the
strength of one’s thoughts.
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Yanesha people assert that those who want to obtain spiritual knowledge
—whether from wise people or extraordinary beings—must concentrate
their will on what they want to achieve. Since this is an oral culture, the
learning process is understood as the memorization of thoughts (yochreta
yocsapech). The more thoughts one accumulates in one’s heart, the stronger
one becomes. A wise person is believed to derive his or her power from the
strength of his/her thoughts (huomenc poctapñot). It is through this kind
of strength that shamanic and priestly apprentices are capable of directing
their vitalities as they wish.
THE VITALITY AND ITS SENSES
Vitalities have the same senses as the bodies they energize. In contrast
to bodily senses, however, the noncorporeal senses of our vitalities are
capable of apprehending the spiritual dimension of the beings and objects
of this and other world levels. Corporeal and noncorporeal senses are not
intrinsically different. They operate in the same ways and are classified in
a similar hierarchy of importance. This is not surprising for it is the vitality
or soul that endows individuals with a sensual life. Hearing is considered
to be the vitality’s main sensorial organ. From a Yanesha perspective, the
most relevant spiritual knowledge is obtained by acoustical revelations
from spiritual beings, either in dreams or while under the effects of
hallucinogens. This is true for many other Amerindian peoples, such as the
Wakuénai (Hill 1993:214); Arawak speaking peoples such as the Yanesha;
and the Achuar, Shuar and other Jivaroan peoples, whose so called “vision
quests” are in fact aimed at obtaining a message or a prophecy from the
arutam soul of a powerful ancestor (Taylor 1996:208–9). In all these cases,
it is through the sensorial agency of a persons vitality that knowledge is
acquired or produced.
Yanesha shamans and priests strive to persuade animals, spirits, or
divinities to share with them magical chants, sacred songs, prophecies,
and other formal locutions. Jeñari, a renowned old shaman, told me that
during his training as a young man he was instructed to practice long vigils
so as to obtain the guidance of familiar spirits. He had to chew coca mixed
with concentrated tobacco juice on a daily basis. After a while, he started
hearing the song of the opossum and other animals. When something like
this happens, he told me, one has to be extremely careful, for it may be an
evil spirit imitating a given animal. If one pays attention to an impostor’s
songs, the evil spirit might steal one’s vitality, potentially causing one’s
death. Only after hearing the same song ten times, he said, should the
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apprentice start repeating and learning it. This is the way to enlist the
song’s animal owner as a friend and spiritual protector (Santos-Granero
2006). With the acquisition of their first familiar spirits, apprentices also
acquire a new incorporeal entity. Called chañapchenaya, this shamanic soul
is capable of adopting the form of a shamans animal protectors. Thanks
to these souls—which only they possess—Yanesha shamans have the
unique capability of turning into their familiars. The most important
among them are jaguars, hummingbirds, and anacondas, but they can also
adopt other forms, such as air, wind, or fog. Embodied as one of their
familiars, shamans not only acquire the capacities and mores of the animal
in question, but also their particular “perspective”. Thus, while wandering
under the form of jaguars, Yanesha shamans see humans as animals of prey,
and can attack them (see Werlang, intra, for a discussion on the extreme
fluidity and mutability of “bodies” and “souls”).
Would-be priests (in the Yanesha sense) also sought acoustic
revelations. But rather than addressing animal and plant spirits, they
entreated the creator gods—especially Yompor Ror (Sun)—or friendly
mellañoteñ spirits. These beneficent beings only reveal themselves to
devote Yanesha, that is, to those seeking their guidance through regular
fasts, vigils, prayers, offerings, good thoughts, and an attitude of suffering
love. If their efforts were deemed legitimate, the divinities manifested
their love and compassion for them by revealing themselves through
words: songs, warnings, and other formal locutions. Priests claimed to
hear the voices of the divinities during vigils or in dreams. Such messages
could refer to the imminent arrival of Yompor Ror, or one of his emissaries,
to render Yanesha people immortal. They could also consist of warnings
about imminent catastrophes sent by the divinities as punishment for the
failings of their human creatures. Coshamñats sacred songs were especially
appreciated. These were revealed to faithful priests and were subsequently
passed on to other people, and sung in temple celebrations to praise the
divinities and to ask for their deliverance (see Smith 1977).
Although less vital, sight is also an important means through which our
vitalities can gain significant knowledge. An important aspect of Yanesha
shamanic training is the development of the capacity to direct our vitalities
to wherever one wishes. This condition is achieved through fasts, vigils,
and/or the consumption of narcotics and hallucinogens. Apprentices are
taught to leave their bodies behind, and to travel to hidden regions of
this earth, or to other world levels above and below this earth. Yanesha
shamans claim that in such soul flights they see animals, spirits, plants,
and objects “as they really are”, that is, they can see their human-shaped
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vitalities. Under such states, they visit different mountains where the
“owners” of particular animal species dwell. Shamans visit their abodes, as
well as the mountain dwellings of spiritual beings—such as the Mother of
Herbalist Medicine—whose guidance is crucial to their healing activities.
On other occasions, they visit the underwater world, where they converse
with the mermaids, or with the owners of a particular fish species under
human shape. They also visit the caves in which live the shadows of dead
people who have led a correct life, and can witness certain diseases, such as
smallpox, in their human form.
Sight was not as important as hearing to priestly quests for knowledge.
Yanesha people affirm that no one can see the divinities. To see them, one
would have to practice an eternal vigil, which is tantamount to saying that
one would have to be immortal. The priests of old also chewed coca leaves,
together with concentrated tobacco juice. But in contrast with shamans,
they did not engage in soul flights, and they did not attempt to gain animal
familiars. Some priests, however, were able to detect and fight off jo’ evil
spirits, and oneñet demons threatening a particular region. And it is said
that sometimes friendly mellañoteñ spirits allowed themselves to be seen
by devoted priests. All in all, however, priests depended little on sight as a
source of knowledge, placing much more importance on hearing, and the
strength of their thoughts to learn and memorize oral information. This
was especially relevant in the learning of coshamñats sacred songs, some of
which have up to seventy-five verses (Smith 1977:282).
The senses of smell, taste, and touch are much less important as
sources of knowledge for the Yanesha. Some shamans mentioned to me
the delightful fragrances of the women they met during their soul flights.
Others described the rich smell and taste of the food they were invited to
eat when visiting the houses of extraordinary beings. In addition, Yanesha
shamans attribute some bad odors to the presence of evil spirits and
demons, and claim that certain fragrances are sure evidence of objects that
have been magically worked upon to act as charms. Along with Muinane
people (Londoño Sulkin, personal communication), they consider that
odors can affect subjectivity, in some cases maddening and corrupting
people, in others restoring their moral discernment. This is especially
true of the stench of menstrual blood, which can weaken or even deprive
shamans and hunters from their magical powers (see Belaunde, intra). By
being able to detect odors, people can take the necessary measures to fend
off, both evil beings and dangerous charms. However, among Yanesha
these senses generally do not play as relevant a role in the acquisition/
production of arcane knowledge as hearing and sight.
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PERCEPTION AND PERSPECTIVISM
The notion of Amerindian “perspectivism (Århem 1993; Stolze Lima
1999, 2000, 2005; Viveiros de Castro 1998, 2004a and b) has opened new
and exciting avenues of inquiry in the field of Amazonian studies. It has,
however, generated little discussion about two issues that should have been
central to the debate. The first concerns the role of the different senses in
intra- and inter-specific relationships. The second concerns the question
of consciousness about both the different sensorial capacities of embodied
and disembodied souls, and the perspectival nature of perception.
Scholars of perspectivism have not explored the sensorial dimension
of this phenomenon of perspectivism, except to state that Amerindians
attribute to animals, spirits, and other nonhuman beings the same cognitive
and sensory faculties that they possess (e.g., Viveiros de Castro 1998:474).
They have mainly focused on sight and on how different kinds of beings
“see” other beings. One could argue that the notion of perspective is
synonymous with point of view, and that it is therefore justified to focus on
sight. However, given the emphasis on the “embodiedness” of perspective,
and on the notion of body as “a bundle of affects and capacities”, a less
“vision centered” perspective on perspective would have been expected.
The predominant role attributed to sight over the other senses as the
privileged means to forge relationships between different beings thus
seems to be a projection of our own Western hierarchy of the senses. For
Yanesha people, as well as for many other Amerindian peoples, hearing is
a more important form of perception and mode of knowing than sight, or
any of the other senses for that matter. This is true in contexts of both
intra- and inter-specific relationships. The Kayapó term mar, meaning
simultaneously “to hear” and “to know,” is an expression of this widespread
conception (Murphy 2004:43). Similar notions are found among the Suya,
for whom ku-mba means “to hear-understand-know” (Seeger 1981:83),
and among the Pa’ikwené, who translate the term tchimap as “to hear-
listen-understand” (Passes 1998:46, and intra).
Similarly, little attention has been paid to the differential sensorial
capacities of the various components of the self and, more importantly, to
the degree of consciousness that different kinds of beings have about these
differences. Scholars of perspectivism recognize the pervasive Amerindian
“animic” notion conceiving all beings as composed of a body, and one or
more souls. But they assume that different beings have similar sensorial
capacities. In the radical version of perspectivism advocated by Viveiros
de Castro, all beings see themselves as human, and see all others as their
structural opposites. “(I)n normal conditions,” we are told by Viveiros de
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Castro, “humans see humans as humans, animals as animals and spirits (if
they see them) as spirits; however animals (predators) and spirits see humans
as animals (as prey) to the same extent that animals (as prey) see humans
as spirits or as animals (predators)” (1998:470). In other, extraordinary
circumstances, however, the souls of all beings see themselves, as well as
the souls of other kinds of creatures, as being human. This is in consonance
with what Viveiros de Castro calls the “multinaturalist” character of
Amerindian ontologies. Such ontologies presuppose the spiritual unity
of all beings, first insofar as they all have a human soul—in contrast to
their corporeal diversity—and second inasmuch as different categories of
beings have different kinds of bodies. The difference in perspective, from
an Amerindian point of view, would thus reside in the body.
The presumed spiritual unity of all beings has been persuasively
contested by both Rosengren (intra), who argues that souls are not
generically human but are rather highly individualized as the result of
specific personal, social, and historical conditions, and Londoño Sulkin
(2005, and intra), who contends that the souls and bodies of different
species differ in terms of the substances out of which they are made,
which, in turn, makes them more or less moral. My analysis introduces
the variable of consciousness to this discussion—a consciousness of the
differential sensory faculties of embodied and disembodied souls, but also
of the differential sensorial and cognitive capacities of different kind of
beings. Radical perspectivism admits that embodied and disembodied
souls have different sensorial skills. Whereas the former see themselves as
human, and other kinds of beings as their structural opposites, the latter
see themselves and all disembodied souls as being human. What is not
clear is whether all beings are equally conscious of the spiritual unity of all
beings and of the perspectival nature of perception. Although Amerindians
claim that all beings perceive themselves as human and others as animals
or spirits, they also maintain that humans have the capacity to perceive the
human spiritual dimension of all beings. This ability is always attributed
to one of the noncorporeal components of the self—yecamquëñ among the
Yanesha; bedu yushin among the Cashinahua; mekarõ among the Kayapó;
likáriwa among the Wakuénai; or wakan among the Jivaroan peoples.
These components are believed to be uniquely endowed with the sensory
faculties and agency needed to perceive the spiritual dimension of the
world, and thus to engage in the acquisition and production of knowledge.
Humans may see animals as animals, and spirits as spirits, but they know
that these animals and spirits have a human soul form. They know that
they can interact with them through the agency of their souls or vitalities.
It is not clear, however, whether animals and spirits have a similar
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capacity to discern. This could be the main difference between present-day
humans and “primordial” humans or “former” humans. Humans are human
because they know—that is, because they possess the noncorporeal sensory
capacity to know—that the material dimension of the world envelops a
spiritual dimension that is different in form, and that bodily perception
is always perspectival. Animals, spirits, and other nonhuman beings are
distinct from humans in that they do not seem to know this. Jaguars, we
are told, see humans as peccaries, and peccaries see humans as jaguars.
But do they know that the spiritual dimension of the animals they see is
human? Do they know that perspectival perception is multidirectional?
From what I have gathered, the answer is no.
According to Stolze Lima for instance, “The peccary knows itself to be
human, knows that a Juruna is a similar, but does not know that it is a peccary
for the Juruna.” (2000:50) What distinguishes humans from animals or
spirits is, above all, that humans are aware of the perspectival nature of
perception, whereas animals and spirits are not. This could very well be an
outcome of the fact that animals and spirits are differently constituted—
either lacking proper souls or proper bodies—and have, therefore, different
modes of sensing and knowing. In many Amerindian societies animals
are not believed to have proper, individual souls (Viveiros de Castro
1998:471). Rather, they are thought to be the individual manifestation
of the primordial soul of the species, often known as “master,” “owner,”
or “mother” of the species. In turn, spirits lack a proper body. They have
bodily shape and, as Viveiros de Castro (1998:481) indicates, they are not
completely immaterial, but they are not endowed with the kind of bodily
or sensual life that is characteristic of humans. Deprived of proper souls
or proper bodies, these beings are endowed with perspective, but they are
unaware that other beings are similarly endowed. It is this capacity—
awareness of the perspectival nature of perception—and knowledge—an
awareness of the human essence of all beings—that animals and spirits
lost or did not acquire when they were transformed at the end of mythical
times.
For this reason, it cannot be asserted that Amerindian peoples think
that animals are human. Rather, what they claim, as Stolze Lima has
so aptly put it, is that “animals think they are human” (1999:113). This
calls into question the radical version of perspectivism, which implies that
all perspectives have equal value (Århem 1993:124). However, it does
not imply the opposite, to wit, the existence of an absolute perspective.
Humans, animals and spirits can impose their perspectives on each other
but the outcome of such exchange of perspectives, as Stolze Lima (2000:48)
has argued, cannot be determined a priori. Rather, the fact that animals
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“think they are human,” but are unaware that humans are human, indicates
that in Amerindian cosmologies awareness of the perspectival nature of
perception is only attributed to present-day human beings. This, in turn,
suggests two things. First, many Amerindian peoples might uphold more
anthropocentric views of the world—if by the prefix “anthro” we mean
present-day humans as opposed to primordial-era humans—than we
are prepared to accept (Viveiros de Castro 1998:477).2 Second, rather
than advocating a single, monolithic type of Amerindian perspectivism,
it would be better to talk about a variety of perspectival cosmologies in
which core perspectival elements are combined in different permutations
and with different weights (Londoño Sulkin 2005:24; but also Stolze
Lima 2000:7,note 6). From the standpoint of these less radical forms of
perspectivism, it is the delusion under which animals live—a delusion that
makes them think they are human—that makes human life so dangerous
(Stolze Lima 1999:113). Such a danger is augmented further by the
deficiencies Amerindians attribute to both corporeal and noncorporeal
sensory faculties.
PERCEPTUAL DEFICIENCIES
Were it not for two problems, the differences that Yanesha attribute to
embodied and disembodied vitalities in terms of their sensorial capacities
would make for a neat system of knowledge and perception. From a
Yanesha perspective, however, neither the corporeal nor the noncorporeal
senses are infallible. They are imperfect and deficient and, thus, open to
making mistakes. Additionally, the material and spiritual dimensions
of the world are not self-contained and strictly separated. They may
exist in a sort of parallel way, but since they harbor no discontinuities
between them, they are thus one and the same. Because of this quality,
the embodied and disembodied vitalities of different beings often enter
into contact in ways that transgress normal—meaning waking life and
corporeal—means of perception. Both situations—perceptual failure and
perceptual transgression—entail grave dangers to the beings involved in
the relationship.
Yanesha people are careful to indicate that sensual perception, whether
corporeal or noncorporeal, may be deceptive. There are many instances
in which the bodily senses deceive a person during their daily activities.
Yanesha also believe, however, that the senses of their vitalities are also
imperfect. They say, for instance, that when visiting the mountain residence
of Shemellama’yarr (the black Stinging Wasp Jaguar) owner of the red
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flowered variety of tobacco used by sorcerers to bewitch, the jaguars, in
their human soul form, offer shaman apprentices chunks of smoked or
roasted meat that looks like game. It is really human flesh. If the naive
or careless apprentice eats the meat he is offered, he develops a craving for
human flesh. From then onwards, his chañapchenaya soul transforms into
a man-eating jaguar each time he craves meat.
Encounters with spiritual beings during soul flights may also be
deceitful. When a shaman’s vitality visits other levels of the world, its
senses can only perceive the human soul forms of its inhabitants. It cannot
detect its nonhuman bodies as they would appear to him while awake.
Thus, during their soul flights, shamans cannot always distinguish among
the different beings they meet (see Vilaça 1992:82, concerning similar
Wari’ notions). Beautiful women with long hair, clad in bright tunics,
painted with intricate designs, and adorned with necklaces of fragrant
seeds can be a female jaguar, a mermaid, the mother of ayahuasca, the
daughter of the primordial Tapir, or a female mellañoteñ spirit. With the
passage of time, shamans learn to distinguish one manifestation from the
other, by their ornaments and, particularly, by the patterns on their tunics.
But during their training period their inexperience might lead them to
have sexual relations with any of these women. If the woman in question
is a benevolent spirit, the encounter can be not only pleasurable, but highly
beneficial. The apprentice might obtain from her extraordinary knowledge
of great value. But if the woman is an evil spirit or a man-eating female
jaguar, then she might steal the apprentice’s vitality, causing him to die.
Perceptual transgression is equally perilous. Perceiving the soul form
of another being with one’s bodily senses—which normally would only
be perceptible through one’s noncorporeal senses—is always dangerous.
This was the case when I heard the music of the underwater Pocoy, as
recounted in the narrative with which I began this essay. And this explains
why Matar was so anxious to take me away as quickly as possible. When a
Yanesha fisherman vanishes and his body is never found, the disappearance
is almost always attributed to the actions of seductive mermaids. Yanesha
hunters are also prone to this kind of encounters, although in their
case they tend to meet the vitalities of individual game animals or the
primordial soul forms of different animal species. Such encounters are
always dangerous. They entail passage into a liminal space-time in which
the embodied vitalities of humans enter into contact with the disembodied
vitalities of animals. The primordial Tapir might reveal himself to the
hunter who has shot one of “his” tapirs but has abandoned it in the forest
badly wounded to punish the hunter’s carelessness by stealing his vitality.
Under other circumstances, in turn, the vitality of an individual collared
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peccary may appear to a hunter lost in the forest as a beautiful woman
intent on seducing him and taking him to live with her in her mountain
dwelling (see Rosengren, intra, on similar liminal encounters). In such
cases, the hunter adopts the peccary’s point of view and with it its animal
shape (see Viveiros de Castro 1998:483). Keeping one’s bodily senses
from perceiving the vitalities of beings different from oneself is therefore
as important as training one’s noncorporeal senses to identify the human
soul forms encountered in dreams with the bodies to which they really
pertain.
CONCLUSION
Yanesha ways of sensing and knowing are very different from our own.
Although there are important similarities between their theory of perception
and the theory developed by Plato, the latter differs in substantial ways
from it, not the least because it lacks the perspectival dimension so typical
of Amerindian cosmologies. From a Yanesha point of view, significant
knowledge is extraordinary knowledge, that is, knowledge from and about
the spiritual dimension of the lived world. This kind of knowledge cannot
be obtained through our bodily senses. It can only be acquired through
the conscious agency of one of the several noncorporeal components of
our selves. Whether obtained directly or learned from other individuals,
significant knowledge always originates through noncorporeal modes of
sensing and knowing. Knowledge is always embodied, as Belaunde (intra)
so persuasively argues in her discussion of Amerindian haematology. But
significantly, the body is the locus of knowledge, not its causing agent.
It is through knowledge acquired from beings living in other world
planes that Amerindians have learned how to make and remake human
bodies. Amerindian people generally claim that initiation rituals, all of
which require some degree of transformation of the initiates’ bodies, were
taught by extraordinary beings: Moon, Harpy Eagle, Jaguar, and so on.
Bodies are modeled and shaped through the knowledge obtained from
these beings. The acquisition of new knowledge also induces important
bodily transformations. Jivaroan peoples claim that the men and women
who have had an arutam revelation acquire greater self-confidence, a feeling
manifested in their demeanor and bodily movements. Those persons who
have not had such a revelation can be identified because they have neither a
proud demeanor nor a commanding deportment. Yanesha people attribute
the same kind of bodily transformation to those shamans and priests who
have been successful in obtaining an acoustic revelation—either a message,
21
Santos-Granero: Sensual Vitalities: Noncorporeal Modes of Sensing and Knowing in
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78 Fernando Santos-Granero
or a song—from any of a vast range of animals, spirits, and divinities. Even
the bodies of the deceased are transformed through ritual knowledge, as
Caiuby (intra) shows so compellingly in her discussion of the processes
of defacement and refacement that take place in Bororo funerary rituals.
Thus, I would argue that, from an Amerindian perspective, instead of being
the cause of knowledge, bodies are caused by knowledge and knowledge is
always acquired by their sensual vitalities.
NOTES
Acknowledgements. I wish to thank the participants and attendants at the
“Conference for Students in Appreciation of Their Teacher Joanna Overing” for
their helpful comments on a previous draft of this article. I am also much indebted
to George Mentore for the rich dialogue on Amerindian modes of knowledge that
we had prior to the conference. Special thanks are due to Carlos Londoño Sulkin
and Steven Rubenstein for their enlightening comments on different aspects
of my argument, and to Olga F. Linares, my esteemed colleague and friend, for
taking time to correct my English.
1. As did Wittgenstein (1974), some recent authors (Viveiros de Castro
1998; Stolze Lima 1999:122) conceive of souls not as immaterial entities, but as
living human beings. In their view, the equivalence of body and soul—insofar
as the human body is seen as a picture of the human soul—confers souls with a
certain degree of corporality. Although Yanesha people would agree that souls
are not immaterial, they make a clear distinction between the raw and bounded
materiality of chetsots (body-as-flesh) and the light and diffuse materiality of
yecamquëm (vitality-as-breath/strength), thus, denying the latter any kind of
corporality.
2. For instance, it is notable that most Amerindian perspectival accounts
focus on how humans see animals and spirits, and how different types of animals
and spirits see humans. Little is said about how predator animals see spirits, how
animals of prey see predator animals, and so on. Amerindian cosmologies may be
multinaturalist, but they continue to be predicated on the centrality and primacy
of humanity, that is, present-day humanity.
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–Núme … jana?diibo ésámaje?–Diibo … ‘Tañaabo’.1–Núme … how about the jaguar's Speech?How are his thoughts/emotions?–He … he does not say ‘My brother'.Like many other Amazonians, Muinane people often use perspectival imagery in discussions of relations between human beings and animals. It is a distinct possibility, within their ontology, that beings that humans perceive as animals, perceive themselves as human, and there are numerous complementary entailments to this. What is most striking about Muinane people's perspectival imagery, however, is that they use it saliently in their moral evaluations of subjectivity and action. I show that this makes perspectivism central to the everyday meaningful practices through which Muinane people achieve social life, and to their understandings of themselves. On that basis, I claim that accounts of Amerindian perspectival cosmologies should attend ethnographically to their morally evaluative potential and to their use by individuals in their discourses and other practices.
In La selva humanizada: ecología alternativa en el trópico húmedo colombiano
  • Kaj Århem
Århem, Kaj 1993 "Ecosofía Makuna." In La selva humanizada: ecología alternativa en el trópico húmedo colombiano. François Correa, editor, pp. 109-126. Bogotá: ICA/FEN/CEREC.
Homesickness and the Cashinahua Self: A Reflection on the Embodied Condition of Relatedness
  • Elsje Lagrou
  • Maria
Lagrou, Elsje Maria 2000 "Homesickness and the Cashinahua Self: A Reflection on the Embodied Condition of Relatedness." In The Anthropology of Love and Anger: The Aesthetics of Conviviality in Native Amazonia. Joanna Overing and Alan Passes, editors, pp. 152-169. London: Routledge.
Reason and Morality. London: Tavistock Publications. Passes, Alan 1998 The Hearer, the Hunter, and the Agouti Head: Aspects of Intercommunication and Conviviality Among the Pa'ikwené (Palikur) of French Guiana
  • Joanna Overing
Overing, Joanna 1975 The Piaroa: A People of the Orinoco Basin: A Study in Kinship and Marriage. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1985 Reason and Morality. London: Tavistock Publications. Passes, Alan 1998 The Hearer, the Hunter, and the Agouti Head: Aspects of Intercommunication and Conviviality Among the Pa'ikwené (Palikur) of French Guiana. Ph.D. dissertation, University of St Andrews. 2001 "Hearing as Understanding: The Value of Good Listening in Native Amazonia." Paper for Queen's University, Belfast, 9 October 2001.
Pedro Casanto's Nightmares: Lucid Dreaming in Amazonia and the New Age World
  • The Power
  • Love
The Power of Love: The Moral Use of Knowledge Amongst the Amuesha of Central Peru. London: Athlone Press. 2003 "Pedro Casanto's Nightmares: Lucid Dreaming in Amazonia and the New Age World." Tipití 1(2):179-210. 2006 "Of Fear and Friendship: Amazonian Sociality beyond Kinship and Affinity." Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 13(1):11-18. Seeger, Anthony 1981 Nature and Society in Central Brazil: The Suya Indians of Mato Grosso. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.