Comparison of Mesoamerican and Animistic Analog Systems of the Northwest Amazon
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18800/anthropologica.200801.006Keywords:
Animism, Reciprocity, Analog system, AnalogismAbstract
Starting from Descola's ideas (Par-déla Nature et Culturc: 2005), we make a comparison between an analogic system, the ~Vahuas from Mexico, and the systems from the Northwest Amazon that create problems in the classification because -altough described as animists- they resemble the analogists ones. Our main goal is tofind out what kind of systems could be generated by the different modes of identification, and if these configurations can explain these similarities. After underlying their logic components, we describe the systems that organise them. Although both of them -the Nahuas and the Northwest Amazon- have the ideas of circular causality, an
order organising /he relationships between the components o/ the world, the notion that individual actions dangerously affect the whole, these would be just surface effects,from systems whose components are too closely relaled. Even though there is a difference of intensity between both configurations, the harder version would be the Nahuas
-one system, components below the level of individuality, idea of balance- and the softer one the Northwest Antmon-systein and sub-systems, conponents at the level of individuality. idea of stability-.We believe this difference of intensity is based on their difference in theirs modes of identification.
Downloads
References
Arhem, Kaj 1996 «The cosmic food web. Human-nature relatedness in the Northwest Amazon». En P. Descola y G. Pálsson (editores). Nature and Society. Anthropological perspectives. London: European Association of Social Anthropologists, Routledge, pp. 185-204.
Arhem, Kaj 2001 Makuna: Portrait of an Amazonian People. Washington: Smithsonian Institute.
Bateson, G 1979 Mind and Nature. A Necessary Unity. Toronto: Bantam Books:.
Cayón, L. 2002 En las aguas de Yuruparí. Cosmología y chamanismo makuna. Bogotá: Editorial Uniandes.
Descola, Ph. 2001-2002 Anthropologie de la Nature. Résumé des cours et travaux. París: Annuaire du College de France.
Descola, Ph.2005 Par-delà nature et culture. París: Gallimard.
Dumont, L. 1997 [1971] Groupes de filiation et alliance de mariage. Introduction à deux théories d’anthropologie sociale. Paris: Gallimard.
Fausto, C. 2001 Inimigos Fíeis: História, Guerra e Xamanismo na Amazônia. São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo.
Hugh-Jones, Christine 1979 From the Milk River. Spatial and temporal processes in Northwest Amazonia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hugh-Jones, Stephen 1979 The Palm and the Pleiades. Initiation and Cosmology in Northwest Amazonia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hugh-Jones, Stephen 1995 «Inside-out and back-to-front: The androgynous house in Northwest Amazonia». En J. Carsten y S. Hugh-Jones (editores). About the house: Lévi-Strauss and beyond. London: Cambridge University, pp. 227-252.
Latour, B. 1991 Nous n’avons jamais été modernes. Essai d’anthropologie symétrique. París: Editions La Découverte.
López Austin, A. 1980 Cuerpo humano e ideología. Las concepciones de los antiguos nahuas, México D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
Mauss, M. 2006 [1950] Sociologie et anthropologie. París: Puf.
Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo 1973 [1968] Desana. Le symbolisme universel des Indiens Tukano du Vaupés. París: Gallimard, «Bibliothèque des Sciences Humaines».
Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo 1996 The Forest Within. The World-View of the Tukano Amazonian Indians. Dartington (UK): Themis Books.
