Kapfhammer 2016 Art of Forest Life PDF
Kapfhammer 2016 Art of Forest Life PDF
Kapfhammer 2016 Art of Forest Life PDF
Introduction
| 251
compensatory behavior given the fact that the indigenous population
itself had sufered a long history of discrimination that was tantamou-
nt to an ontological degradation to a pre- or non-human condition by
non-indigenous persons. Whatever psychological hypotheses could be
brought to the fore, what I would like to emphasize is that human-ani-
mal relations in an Amerindian society are complex and nuanced.
As in many Amazonian societies, the Sater-Maw have the ha-
bit of caring lovingly for their pets. Young monkeys, all kind of birds,
even sloths, peccaries or tapirs are kept as what is called in vernacular
language xerimbabos. hese cubs are taken in from the wilderness of
the forest to be kept within the intimate circle of the family household
as if they were some kind of children, but are almost invariably caught
during a hunt where their mothers have been killed, and aterwards
prepared and eaten. he dogs, on the other hand, also live within or
around the household, but while the relationship with pets is one of
unconditional care, between humans and dogs one perceives a kind of
hierarchical relationship. In Sater-Maw everyday language, one can
call a person aware (dog) in function of this persons dependency of
another.3 he straying packs of hounds that wander about the villages
are symbols for uninhibited a-sociality. Dogs also may connote sexual
intemperance. To exercise love magic a person may use a plant called
aware yhop (dog / leaf) to make his (or her) partner amenable. Howe-
ver, if a dog is used by his master for hunting, it has to be treated with a
variety of (mostly) vegetable substances or has to be thrown repeatedly
into cold water in order to make it more active (para tirar o cansao
dele). he crucial point is that the hunter himself undergoes the same
treatments, oten by applying the very same substances to his own body.
Accordingly, the hunting dog can be understood as a kind of ontological
extension of the hunters person. his is not only revealing for the mat-
ter of the treatment of dogs in Sater-Maw society mentioned above,
but also raises the issue of ontological limits between what for Western
persons are beings of diferent categories.
It will be argued that human-animal relationships in an Amazo-
nian society work along categories which are not entirely distinct from
our Western categories, but are rather askew to them: in the Amazon
forest certain (Western) capacities of humanity may be extended to
(what we Westerners call) animality and vice versa. Under certain
circumstances e.g. during hunting human and animal persons
3 - Once I heard the pastor jokingly call the capataz (foreman) the dog (aware) of the
tuxaua (chief).
252 |
may vie about their respective position, or even trying to upshit onto
a superior level altogether and become a master (cf. KOHN, 2013).
his article will discuss what means and strategies human beings have
available in order to be able to steer communication with animals ac-
cording to their interests. Since animal ethics are a pervading theme
within Human Animal Studies (HAS), it will also be argued that it is
less the attribution of personhood also to non-human beings, which
might contribute to sustainable relations with the environment and its
inhabitants (among them the animals), but a more basic attitude that
attributes as a principle connectivity and addressability4 (HALB-
MAYER, 2010) to human and non-human entities of the environment,
thus demanding what will be called a culture of mindfulness. Finally,
it will be argued that the increasing disappearance of game due to po-
pulation growth and subsequent ecological pressure contributes to an
erosion of such a culture of mindfulness.
Negotiated ontologies
| 253
of the natural environment? A somewhat parallel debate, equally depar-
ting from ethnographic insights into Amerindian cultures of Amazonia,
is the recent debate of animistic modes of human-nature relations, as
advanced above all by French scholar Philippe Descola. his (Neo-)
Animism typically focuses on the extension of crucial elements of per-
sonhood like soul, will, and agency also to non-human beings,
elements that in Western cosmologies - hitherto have been exclusively
attributed to human beings (DESCOLA, 2011, 2014). Inspired by the-
se debates on Amerindian cosmologies and ontologies, some thinkers
have come to construct alternative Western environmental ethics. he-
se scholars refer to ethnographic accounts on e.g. indigenous North-A-
merican hunters, who shy away from indiscriminately killing their prey
due to the respect (HARVEY, 2006a, 2006b; but see below) they ofer
to their non-human fellow creatures. his respectful attitude towards
the non-human environment is key to this animistic mode of human-
nature relations.
Comparative work on diferential cosmologies and ontologies
always presents a risk, albeit creative, of misunderstandings. Ironically,
what these indigenous ontologies extend toward non-human beings is
not so much an overarching concept of personhood, but rather a uni-
versal anthropocentrism in the sense that markers for personhood are
invariably modeled ater human culture and not vice versa. In ethno-
graphic examples of Amerindian perspectivism, oten cited by Vivei-
ros de Castro (2005), from the jaguars point of view, the blood of its
prey, that it is licking, is manioc beer, a premium product of human
culture. Also, the maggots that the vulture is picking from the carrion
are roasted ish, food that is predicated on the possession of cooking
ire, the Promethean conquest of humankind par excellence (cf. LVI
-STRAUSS, 1964). On the other hand, Western philosophers of nature
are trying to deconstruct the ontological barrier between human and
non-human beings, in order to overcome the Cartesian and Baconian
objectiication of animals, and emphasize instead the animalistic
quality of the human being (cf. ABRAM, 2010). As human animals we
would all participate in the web of living beings in our biosphere. Ac-
cording to these thinkers this new-found humility of human beings,
which levels the implicit hierarchies in human animal relations in
favor of itting in into the rhizomatic texture of the biosphere, prepares
the ground for innovative environmental ethics.
However, to animalize oneself is anathema to human (and
actually also non-human) persons in the Amazon, because this would
254 |
mean to be de-subjectiied as a person in order to become the object
of predation by another (human or non-human) person. As has been
said, animals and human beings share a common primordial origin,
but the pertinent origin myths introduce animals as debased humans
(VIVEIROS DE CASTRO, 2005): the transformation of primordial
persons into the animals of today is triggered by misconduct mostly
framed in an ainal conlict, as this narration of the Sater-Maw of the
Lower Amazon shows:
| 255
(Chelonoidis denticulata). At that moment the
trumpeter (Psophia viridis) rose and was hit on
his knees with a stick. hats why his knees are
turned backward. Finally he transformed the
others present into various birds.
he animals receive their inal corporal shape and voice and are
allotted a speciic phagic destiny. he narrative establishes a ield of
alimentary relations between human and non-human agents of the fo-
rest. he myth on the origin of animals also recounts the distribution
of hierarchies within this web of human, non-human, and more-than
-human relationships: who potentially survives on account of her sub-
jectivity as a predator, who potentially loses her subjectivity and will be
objectiied by being preyed upon, and also who is exempt from this web
of mutual predation like the giant anteater, who is subjectiied into
the higher order of a spirit master5, whose assistance will be sought
ater by human shamans longing to become more than human.
It is evident that, from an indigenous perspective, human-ani-
mal relationships are less based on mutual respect born out of a moral
commitment to acknowledging a shared personhood, but rather have
to be negotiated on an interactive ield of power. As Tnia Stolze Limas
analysis of Juruna (Yudja) peccary hunt (1999) shows, the distribution
of perspectives is nothing less than a matter of life and death: to re-
verse and consolidate ones superior position within a hierarchy framed
by a prey-predator relationship means to force ones own perspective
on the other. hrough enforcing his perspective on the peccaries the
Juruna hunter is able to kill them. Hunting is a proper art of life among
Amazonian societies like the Sater-Maw, which creates its own aes-
thetics. In the following I will concentrate on traditional hunting rites as
extra-linguistic means of communication between human, non-human
and more-than-human beings.
5 - he context for narrating this myth was the examination of some shamanistic pa-
raphernalia of the historic Natterer collection from the beginning of the 19th century.
Among them was a little brush made of the hair of the giant anteater. While discussing the
piece my interlocutor felt inspired to tell this myth. It was shamanic practice among the
Sater-Maw to summon spirit masters (mestre or kaiwat) to enter their bodies while
snuing hallucinogenic paric snuf (AUGUSTAT; BATISTA GARCIA; KAPFHAMMER;
DE OLIVEIRA, 2012).
256 |
Seductive Skills
| 257
came to meet their putative relative (parente) there. Another rationale
to disguise the hunters predatory intentions is to feign sexual advances
(cf. REICHEL-DOLMATOFF, 1976; DESCOLA, 2011).
One of these dissimulative tactics is actually derived from for-
mer shamanistic actions and lives on as a colloquialism among con-
temporary Sater-Maw. Until at least the irst half of the 20th century
Sater-Maw shamans used to snuf the hallucinogenic powder paric
(ape, [Anadenanthera peregrina]) to insert themselves into the idioma-
tic register required for communication with non-human beings. here
is linguistic evidence that already the very action i.e. to pestle paric
seeds in a mortar summoned up the supernatural partners of the reli-
gious specialists, or rather: allowed them to enter into the realm of the
spirit masters in order to be able to communicate with them as subjects.
It is said that when a hunter heard the whistle of a sloth he knocked with
a pestle on the bottom of a mortar, as if preparing paric (ton, ton, ton),
the sloth felt compelled to answer this call and so the hunter was able
to spot it and kill it. he phrase toheapetok (he / paric-snuf / pou-
nded) in everyday language means to seduce or try someone and
alludes to the shamanic action of snuing the hallucinogenic paric, i.e.
to act upon someone without intervening physically, to do something
magically. It is interesting that sloths seem only to give voice while
procuring a mating partner, so the sound-efect of the pestle amounts
to some kind of seducement. he sexual, or in sociological terms
ainal mode of relationship between a hunter and his game animals is
a common phenomenon in Amazonian cosmologies (see DESCOLA,
2011, p.502f. for examples). Appropriate to the hidden intentions of
the hunter toheapetok, in everyday language, came to mean to de-
ceive or to cheat somebody7.
Part of the hunters skills to get inside forest forms is their de-
tailed phenological knowledge. In the example mentioned, the hunter
is fully aware of the fact that sloths, if at all, give voice at the end of the
rainy season thus marking a decisive seasonal change within Amazo-
nian ecologies and cosmologies. In the pertinent mythical account, the
sloth is transformed from the bones of a child eaten by the termites
(tapecuim or kiwa). In the myth, the sloth can be heard singing: Lets
lower the waters, the one, which is soiled by vomit8!
7 - My interlocutor referred to the mythical account on the origin of manioc, where a
cannibalistic jaguar, prone to devour all of his would-be sons-in-law, invites the hero Hate
ywakup to come inside his house to snuf paric together. he shrewd hero declines, be-
cause he already knew of the jaguars intentions. On the role of joking and cheating
within the animistic mode cf. WILLERSLEV (2013).
8 - his alludes to the myth of the origin of water. In primordial times, water was scarce
258 |
From the entrails of the killed boy emerge among other plants
diferent species of peach-palms (pupunha, [Bactris gasipaes]), whose
fruit serve as alimentation for humans as well as animals. At the transi-
tion from rainy to dry season there is an abundance of fruits (uixi [En-
dopleura uchi]; piqui [Caryocar sp.], abiu [Pouteria caimito], tucum,
inaj etc.) causing multi-species aggregations according to a seasonal
pattern of movement. he hunter tries to beneit from these ephemeral
forms (KOHN, 2013, p.166).
Body Dressings
260 |
arms, saying: I wish, he will never fail with his arrows!
| 261
Neglecting the procedure of purging ones body may also have
psychological consequences: the person becomes deluded (kenmue),
loosing himself in dream images of sexual encounters with the siren
-like Snake Woman Uniamorei, ultimately even becoming pregnant
with tucandeira children. Now, Uniamoirei is one of those Amazo-
nian supernatural igures, which are considered as masters of their
respective domain.
262 |
of pigs, tapirs, of deer and jaguars, of people,
everything [] hey say there is a great din, the
din of white-lipped peccaries (Tayassu pecari)
that never stops. Its like when we encounter
one of those great herds of peccaries, this cla-
mor when they run through the forest. hey
say, when the hunter shoots his arrows, there
is the foreman (peara). When they are about to
kill his pigs, he screams: Yeiiii, lets get out of
here, people!
| 263
on ripe palm fruits. he narrative unfolds Chicus shamanic activity as
a journey into the Other World, where he contacts the Game Mother
in order to request peccaries from her. He meets her at a house in the
middle of a campina (yahg) called thunderstorm (ywytunug), inside
he catches sight of animal eigies (iakap17) made of stone, everything
very beautiful. An old woman, who introduces herself as the dona
da campina (yahg kaiwat), orders Chicu to blow tobacco smoke over
a igure of a peccary and the igure transforms into the animal. Chicu
returns home, ater a few days the peccary herd arrives near his hou-
se. Both this narrative and the following account emphasize that the
shaman is hard pressed by his clientele to call for game animals, and,
remarkably, without ofering anything in return.
264 |
their share to be released from Urihei like children, who unconditio-
nally are cared for by their mother (cf. BIRD-DAVID, 1990; DESCO-
LA, 2011; KAPFHAMMER 2012a, b).18
he relationship with asei Kuru or Curupira, on the other hand,
is in stark contrast with the un-ambitious mode of relation with the
game mother: to assure his luck, the hunter may count on Curupiras
help, however, he is obliged to strictly observe a variety of rules and
restrictions in order to avoid the revenge of the master of animals.
Means to communicate with Curupira are again certain hunting char-
ms (mohg), which are considered as the most eicacious, but also as
the most dangerous. he crucial point is that all these applications en-
tail a kind of contractual agreement with Curupira: the hunter can use
them openly, but has to obey certain rules:
| 265
the hunter violates Curupiras rules, he runs the risk not only to lose his
luck in hunting, but also his physical and mental integrity. He sufers in
consequence of failed relations to the entities of the forest:
266 |
his bird likes to eat the tapirs ticks. If you hear
the call of this bird, you can imitate the call of
the tapir and the bird goes keeeee, the call of the
tapir is f, you kill it and tear its throat sac.
heres a tapir-tick inside. You cut the birds
head wherein you put the tick, and then you can
use it. You can add some tapir hair, also the po-
tato, and you carry it with you in your ammuni-
tion pouch. Every time you get near a tapir, you
whistle and in its ears it is as if the caxila were
singing. When you follow the track the tapir
thinks it is the bird singing. Its not dangerous;
its just that nobody is allowed to see it.
One notes some curious inversions in the ways how to relate and
communicate with the supernatural owners of game. In the case of the
Animal Mother, the shaman mediates a demand of the collective, while
neither the Animal Mother nor the shaman imposes restrictions on the
consumption of the bands of animals released except minor exhorta-
23 - he birds magic eicacy is ascribed to the fact that wherever it sings, it attracts mul-
ti-species locks of birds. It is considered as a kind of master of birds and is said also to
create human sociality.
| 267
tions24. On the other hand, dealings with asei Kuru always occur indivi-
dualistically, whereupon the hunter is obliged to obey a complex set of
rules, which, mainly through the prescribed distribution of game meat,
creates sociality and can afect his and his kins physical and spiritual
well-being. As has been said, this ambitious mode of relation with
Curupira motivates hunters to resort to alternative hunting charms.
While hunting charms directed towards Curupira can be applied publi-
cally (but are subject to rules), the latter can only be used secretly (but
are not subject to rules). In the concluding paragraph, I will argue that
these modulations of adjusting the hunters capacity to tap the always
already (KOHN, 2013) abundance of game under the owners domain,
may form what Zent (2013) calls the ecogonic nodes, concepts that
trigger a certain ecological stance towards the environment.
Conclusion
24 - Sater-Maw hunters conirm that, whenever they encounter bands of howler mon-
keys or the periodically appearing huge herds of peccaries, they kill as much as they can.
268 |
able to tap this source of plenitude. his realm, which Kohn has shrew-
dly designated always already (KOHN, 2013, p.180), because it is by
deinition, always inside form, the animals are always abundant there
(op.cit., p.179) and in which the things that have already happened
have never not happened is, of course, the realm of the spirit mas-
ters. hus, as it has always already happened in the rocky paradise
nusoken of the Sater-Maw, where the stony eigies of game animals
are stored as prototypes, the shamans manipulation of a magic stone
evokes this creative potentiality. On a social level, the shamans duty,
while realizing abundance of game, is to communicate with the Animal
Mother Urihei, who acts like a caring mother when unconditionally
liberating avatars of her prototypical wealth of game animals. he
collectives stance towards the Game Mother (miat ty), respectively to-
wards the shaman as the ritual mediator, is one of trust (mohey). As an
ecogonic node this mode of relation between Sater-Maw hunters
and game animals amounts to a rather careless management of forest
resources exactly because of the always already availability of these
resources. It is of great importance to observe how this always already
timescape has been increasingly re-located towards the exterior since
colonial times. In a famous narrative by the Sater-Maw, it is no longer
Urihei, but asei Imperador (Grandfather Emperor), who took with
him all the creative potentialities of nusoken, while the Sater-Maw
were let behind in the forest (KAPFHAMMER, 2012 ; KAPFHAM-
MER; GARNELO, forthcoming). Historically, the Sater-Maw have
been successively obliged to get inside the form of governmental po-
licies from the tutelary regime of the FUNAI to recent systems of cash
transfer, while the Game Mother has fallen out of favor, as one of my
interlocutors put it: Hunting is inished on the Rio Andir. he Sater
do not trust in the forest anymore25.
Curiously, the Game Mother Urihei somehow exists alongside
another spirit master igure, namely asei Kuru or Curupira. Like the
Game Mother, he keeps a wealth of game animals in his custody but,
unlike her, it is much more tricky and ambitious to be on good
enough terms with him so that he lets go part of his livestock. As
has been shown, contractual relationship with Curupira implies ob-
servance of a complex set of rules in order to be able to participate in
his abundance and at the same time not lose ones bodily and mental
integrity as a hunter and social being. One does not invest trust in
Curupira, but respects (motipot) him, like someone respects a leader
25 - No Andir acabou a caa. Sater no tm mais coniana no mato.
| 269
(autoridade). his kind of respect entails the observance of rules by
all members of the hunters compound. In order to be qualiied to
do so, the human person, but also his not-so-human partner, the hun-
ting dog, has to be treated (mosaptag) using an impressive arsenal of
hunting charms, only a very small part of it has been described above.
Respect for Curupira seems to be based on the insight of a mature adult
person that the reproduction of life is predicated on the connectivity
or addressability of non-human entities and on the concern to main-
tain ones integrity during these transgressive movements this kind of
communication requires.
As an ecogonic node, respect (motipot) does not seem to re-
volve around notions of reciprocity (i.e. the care for balanced relations
between human and non-human domains and a corresponding notion
of sustainable ecological relations with environmental resources) or
moral regard for non-human persons as a consequence of their simi-
lar ontological status (i.e. the attribution of will, soul or subjectivity).
he ecogonic node works, because it creates an environment of se-
miotic valence26, one that integrates signiicant and, therefore, eica-
cious vegetable and animal organisms.
he Sater-Maw hunter may live in fear as an Inuit sha-
man once famously explained to Rasmussen that his personhood may
disintegrate in the transgressive processes of dealing with non-human
entities. However, it is this very process that creates a very peculiar aes-
thetics that amounts to what I have called elsewhere mindful commu-
nication in human-nature relations (KAPFHAMMER, 2014). An out-
wardly-oriented mindfulness, a heightened sensitivity for the realities
of nature and human experience, the intimate connectedness of human
and non-human realms, and the fact that successfully managing this
26 - To give an example: along Sater paths through the forest one oten passes by an
absolutely unimposing small leafed plant with a red surface. his plant, called aperu yhop,
is not edible nor of any use whatsoever. However it is signiicant: its red color gives testi-
monial of crucial mythological events, insofar it stems from the blood of the slain guaran
child. he wasps have used this plant to carry the blood of the dead child to his mother
Uniawasapito inform her of the homicide. As every Sater-Maw knows, the irst guaran
shrub had grown out of the eye of the buried child. Guaran is pivotal to Sater-Maw
cosmology (KAPFHAMMER, 2009) and for those, who pass through the forest mindfully,
the sight of this plant can trigger a whole cascade of cosmological notions. hus, an en-
vironment of semiotic valence means an environment that is signiicant or telling; an
environment which sends out a signiicant amount of signs, so that the person interacting
with it inds him- / herself attached in an emotional or afective way (cf. KOHN, 2013;
KAPFHAMMER, 2014). I think this aesthetic recognition is distinct from relations, which
are mediated by, say,ecological usefulness or social relevance.
270 |
inter-being27 is the precondition for ones personal integrity and wel-
l-being, is, what constitutes the art of forest life. Unfortunately, as my
Sater-Maw friend stated above, nowadays game is all but depleted in
the immediate surroundings of the villages. Along with the decline of
hunting the semiotic valence of forest environment continues to eva-
nesce in favor of an increasing material and afective integration into
Western consumerism (KAPFHAMMER; GARNELO forthcoming).
his vast store of traditional environmental knowledge connected with
hunting is nowadays almost unavailable anymore to the younger gene-
ration of Sater-Maw.
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