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Chapter 10

Theiacosmic food web ,Human—nature relatedness in the NorthwestAmazon

Kaj /olrhem V

Among Amerindians of the Amazon‘ the notion of ‘nature’ iscontiguous with that of ‘society’.' Together they constitute anintegrated order, alternatively represented as a grand society or acosmic nature. Humankind is thus seen as a particular form, of lifeparticipating in a wider community of living beings regulated by_a_single and totalising set of rules of conduct. Following Croll andParkin (1992) I adopt the concept of eco-cosmology to refer to suchintegral models ofhuman—nature relatednessfThe concept is relatedto the classical anthropological notions of ‘totemism? _and ‘animism’.Totemism, in Lévi-Strauss’ formulation (1966), refers to an intellec-tual system ofclassifying social units on the basis of the classificationof natural species.‘ As such, totemism thus exploits observablediscontinuities‘ in nature to confer a conceptual order on society.Animism, as Descola (1992) has pointed out, may in significantrespects be considered the symmetrical inverse oftotemismz a mode ofconceptually organising the relationship between human beings andnatural species on the basis of the system of social classification.Animic systems endow natural beings with human dispositions andsocial attributes; sometimes, as inythe case examined below, animalsare attributedwith ‘culture’ - habits, rituals, songs, and dances oftheirown. If totemic systems model society after nature, then animicsystems model nature after society.

The analytical separation of totemic and animic systems tends,however, to conceal that the two schemes have fundamental proper-ties in common: both imply a relationship of continuity betweennature and society with compelling experiential and behaviouralimplications (cf. Willis 1990). Intellectually, toternism and animismare complementary and commensurate strategies for comprehendingreality and relating humans to their environment; the one making use

1ee Kaj Arhem ' iofnatural images to make sense ofhuman societyand the other usingsociological representations to construct orders in nature. Experien-tiallyr they form part of totalising eco-cosmologies, integratingpracticalknowledge and moral values. As holistic cultural constructs,eco-cosmologies engage and motivate; they mould perception, informpractice, and supply meaningful guidelines for living,

This chapter explores a particular Amazonian eco-cosmology,displaying features of both totemic and animic systems. To p theMakuna of the Colombian Amazon, all beings.— spirits, humans,animals, and plants — participate in a field ofsocial interaction definedin terms of predation and exchange. The central feature of their_eco-cosmology is that they construe human predation as a revitalisingexchangewith nature,- modelled on the rule of reciprocity Jbetweenaffines and the shanianically mediated exchanges between men andgods. This chapter focuses-on Makuna ideas about hunting, fishingand animal food consumption, and how these ideas are integratedinto a wider cosmological framework, supplying individuals with amoral andexigtential basis for interaction with the environment. Thecase exemplifies general and persistent features of indigenous eco-cosmologies, thus adding to the comparative, anthropological under-standing of the society-nature interface.

THE MAKUNLA ' ‘ "

The Makuna, a small Eastem Tukanoan-speaking group in North-west Amazonia, are contemporary inheritors of an ancient tropicalforest culture previously spread ~over large parts of the‘ Amazonbasin.’ Living in widely scattered multi-"family longhouses and smallvillages along riversand streams, the Makuna subsist on shiftingcultivation, fishing and hunting in the interfluvial forest.‘ Bitter‘manioc is the staple, and — in line with the general Amazonian pattern— women are gardeners and men hunters and fishermen. Traditionalpolitical life centredon the longhouse (maloca) andits ‘owner’, theheadman of the group inhabiting it.' Ritual specialists — notably twoclasses ofshamans (cumua, yaia) but also chanters and dancers -A weresocially and politically influential owing to their religious knowledgeand ritual skills. Clusters of interspersed longhouses; related byagnatic kinship and marriage alliances,,formed loosely bounded localand territorial groups under the frail and episodic authority ofparticularly prominent headmen. 1 ,

The wider Tukanoan society, ofwhich the Makuna form la part,.i&_

/

M c The cosmic food web 187

organised into named, patrilineal clans (or ‘sibs’)’associated with-ritual property, a-distinct language, and geographically definedancestral territories,‘centred on"the mythical birth places of thevarious clans ancestors. The ritual property includes ceremonialinstruments and omaments, ritual substances (coca, tobacco, redpaint, and beeswax), chants, songs, and a set ofpersonal names. In its‘essential’, spirit-form, this ritual property is associated with the birthplace of the clan ancestor which is also the ‘-home’ and ultimatedestination of.the -‘souls’ of all clan members. The ancestral home oftheclan is. called the ‘waking-up-house’ of the ancestors; upon death,the souls1of cdeceasediclaifniemlfirstravel’to this invisible house,where they are said to ‘re-awaken’ as spirit people. . _

The clans are organised, in order,ofjsenio_1fity,_ into _wi_d__er excga-mous unitsimodelled on-aigroup ofagnatic brothers. The exogamousunits, in turn, are interrelated by marriage and afiinity according to.the principle of direct exchange. The ideal form ‘of marriage, asexpressed in the idiom, of "the agnatic ideology, is the balancedexchange of womeirbetween two sets of affinally related men. Thesystem is grounded in a ‘two-line’ (Dravidian) relationship terminol-ogy which also provides the basic exchange-model for interactionwith ‘nature’: an alliance between two socially defined categ0t‘ies .-‘self’ and,‘other’ — perpetuated by a continuous series of reciprocalexchanges. The Makuna identify themselves as Water People (Ide-masa), descending from the eponymical clan ancestor WaterAnaconda (Ide hino). The Water People intermarry closely withanother exogamous group, consisting ofvarious clans which. identifythemselves as Yibamasa or Children of Yiba, alluding to theirstipulated descentfrom an ancestral being associated with the forest.Together Water People and Yiba People form._.i! .single,_;li_nguisticcommunity, speaking the original language of theNVater People andinhabiting acontinuous territory. This wider spatial and language-bearingrsocial unit may also be referred to - in a,broade_r_s,en_se _— asMakuna. It is in this clatter sense that the term is used in this article.When speaking exclusively ofthe Idemasa clan I use the native term orits literal translation, Water People. . ~ *

OUTLINE OF MAKUNA ECO-COSMOLOGY '

Among the Makuna, hunting, fishing and gardening — just as almostevery other routine work or practical operation, including the every-day consumption of food - are accompanied by ritual or shamanic

as

188 Kaj Arhem, .

acts, grounded in Makuna cosmology and constitutive of theirparticular way of life.‘ Fundamental to this cosmology is the distinc-tion between the visible,physical and changing reality of everydayexperience and the invisible,_unchanging and transcendental reahn ofgodsand ancestralspirits which the ‘Makuna gloss as the he-world —the world of the life-giving and predatory he-’spirits.i’I-Every materialform and practical activity has its counterpart in the he-world.Indeed, material-forms and physical operations in the visible worldinstruct human beings about the hidden reality of the spirit-world,and thus of the deeper significance of existence. e x

In this dual reality, all beings and things have a ‘phenomenologicalform’ and ‘spiritual essence’. In their essential aspect, human beings,(non-human) animals and plants are undifferentiated; they__belong tothe same ontological category of mortal beings. In shaman_ic"dis-course they are contextually classified as masa (people).5 Within theinclusive category ofmasa different classes ofbeings are distinguishedby specific traits (referred to as ‘weapons’) which aresassociated withthe mythic origin of the class‘ and its specific reproductive and foodhabits. In this inclusive society of mortal beings, one class of beingsreadily transforms into an_other:' humans become animals, animalsconvert into humans, andone class ofanimals tums into another.,_The.underlyjng;idea.is ,that,the_.spirits of plants, animals and humans cantake avariety ofmaterial shapes and thus penetrate various life worldsand manifest themselves as different classes of beings. Essence, then,reveals itself in different forms ofvitality. All living beings partake ofageneric vitality which has the capacity to ‘flow’ or circulate amongdifferent life worlds. The shaman’s task is to regulate this vital flow,and to_ ensure the ordered reproduction, of the distinct classes ofbeings populatinguthe Makuna cosmos. ‘ _

In shamanic discourse the universe of living beings is construed asa cosmic foodweb of ‘eaters’ and ‘food’. from the pointofviewofanyclass of beings all others are either ‘predators’ or ‘prey’. Thus, fromthe point of view of human beings (masa), this trophic universe isdivided into human food (masa bare), including all plants and animalswhich are food for men, and ‘man-eaters’ (masa bari masa), includingthose predators which, according to Makuna, feed on ‘men. Inshamanic language the ‘predator’ category is labelled after theSupreme predator, the jaguar (yai), and they ‘food’ category after.theprototypical animal-food, fish (wai), thus forming a tripartite system0f!-?°,$l11ic classification, based on the food chain; r

_ .¥7_______ __ _ L - 4

‘ , The cosmic food web 189

eater -— food/eater— food ' " .YAI —>-MAsSA I-> WAI, ‘ 1 n‘jaguar’ -—-‘people’ .— ‘fish’ ~

This is a hunter’s universej the world seen from a male, ‘predatory’point ofview. -The limits_'of the system are defined, at one extreme, bythe supreme predators, who prey on all living beingsbut are prey tonone; and, at the other extreme,edible plants which, in relation to theother life forms in the system, are only food. The intermediate trophiclevel'comprises'most life forms, including human beings, who are atthe sametinae both eaters and food. And since all animals — in theiressential aspect —_are ‘people’, the scheme applies to any animal: fromthe point ofview ofgame and fish, men are included in the category of‘predators’, while fruits, seeds, insects, and plant detritus are includedin their ‘food’ category. The supreme predator category, comprisingjaguars, anacondas, and the major raptors, also includes the gods andpredatory he—spirits, thus ttuming the system into a truly cosmicecology. Just as the human hunter slays and consumes his prey, thegods kill and consume humans. But {and this is thekey to the wholesystem - through killing and consur_ning_h_um_an beings, the gods alsoallowmen to reproduce. Analogously,by preying on game and fish,the human hunter enables the animals to breed and multiply.Predation, then, his a ‘male’ mode of procreation. .

When a human being dies, the soul is captured (’consumed’) by thegods and returned to the birth house of the clan to be rebom as acomplete spirit person. Similarly, when a human hunter kills andconsumes his prey,_he returns the spirit of the slainanimal to its place__of origin — the ‘birth house’ of the animals. By shamanic ‘means heiempowers the species to reproduce and multiply. Killing for food, inthe Makunaview, involves an act ofreciprocity: life and vitality on thelevel of the individual are exchanged for renewal and essentialcontinuity on the level of the category (clan, species). This, in anutshell, is the Makuna philosophy of life: predation, reconstrued asexchange, explains death and accountsforthe regeneration of life: _

' YAI ~MASA . WAI_, __,

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Predatory Human Ediblespirits beings animals/plants .

In their creative (and destructive) capacities, shamans are identified-with predatory spirits, and are called yaia. Jaguars, anacondas and

t

190 Kaj Arhem g graptors are natural manifestations of the predatory spirits, andshamans are their human counterparts. They areiallfcosrnic hunters’in different guises, readily changing shape and movingfreely betwecmthe various layers and domains of cosmos.'Through their predatoryactivities, the cosmic hunters mediate between different life worldsand ensure the continuity and ordered reproduction of all classes ofbeings in the world. 'The Makuna describe animals as ‘persons’. Gameanimals and fishare endowed with knowledge, agency and other human attributes.They are said to live in malocas in the‘ forest and the rivers, in salt-licks, hills and rapids. When animals roam in the forest or swim in therivers they appear as fish and game, but as they enter their houses theydiscard their animal guises, don their feather crowns and ritualornaments, and tum into ‘people’. They have gardens where theygather their food, and ports by the river where they collect water andbathe. Every house and community has its owner and headman, whoguards and protects its inhabitants. The Fathers of the Fish are the‘anacondas and sting rays dwelling in the depths of rivers and lagoons.Similarly, every species of game animal has its own particular spiritguardian, and foremost among them are the Spirit Tapirs, the ownersofthe tapir houses. Animal communities are organised along the samelines as human societies, and human interaction with animals isinodeiled on the interaction among different ‘groups of people in thehumanlife world, Indeed, each species or community of animals issaid to have its own ‘culture’,‘its knowledge, customs and goods bymeans of which it sustains itself as a distinct class of beings. In thesense, then, that the living world is construed as a cosmic society ofinteracting ‘peoples’ and. .‘communities’ with their own distinct‘cultures’, Makuna eco-cosmology forms a totalising, animic systemas defined by Descola (1992). n A

However, there is also an evident totemic aspect to Makuna eco-cosmology. As noted, the Makuna-speaking clans are divided ‘intoWater People and Yiba People, the descendants of Water Anacondaand the mythical forest being, called Yiba. The social divisionbetween Water People and Yiba People thus corresponds to adistinction between natural and cosmic domains: river and forest,_wat¢r and land, edible fish. (wai), and game (wai bttctt, literally ‘oldfish’). The Water Anaconda is the"Spirit Owner of the underwatermaloca at Maneitara, the mythical birth place and waking-up-houseof the Water People. He is also”the Father of the Fishthat spawn at

. i . ' The cosmic food web 191

Maneitara. The waking-up-house of the Water People is thus at thesame time the birth-and-dance house of the fish population inhabit-ing the river system which definesthe, territory of the Water People.Similarly, Yiba is associatedwith the fruit-eating animals ofthe forest.They are described as his ‘workers’ c and children. There is aparticularly close connection between Yiba and tapirs. Yiba createdthe salt-licks where tapirs drink and browse, and salt-licks aredescribed as the birth-and-dance houses ofI the tapirs. But the salt-licks are also the waking-up-houses of the Yiba People; each namedsalt-lick in the forest is associatedwith the origin ofa particularclan ofthe Yiba People. The named and personified ancestors ofthe differentYiba clans are represented as anacondas-tumed-tapirs — Spirit Tapirs— guarding and protecting their human and animal descendants.

Here, then, are the minimal elements of a full-fledged totemicsystem: an analogy between two classificatory orders, and a notion of‘essential relatedness’ between ‘units of the two orders. The socialdivision between Water People and Yiba People thus corresponds to adistinction between cosmic domains and two prototypical classes ofanimals (fish, on the one hand, and fruit-eating game animals,epitomised by_ tapirs, on the other), each associated with a specificnatural domain. The notion of essential relatedness is formulated interms of shared ancestry and a common origin (see Figure 10.1).In this cosmic society, where all mortal beings are ontological ‘equals’,humans and animals are bound by a pact of reciprocity._Thecategorical distinction between ‘eater’ and ‘food’ 7 or hunter andprey - seems to override the bond of totemic ‘kinship’ betweenhumans and animals; all animal‘others”are‘ irieaeaas ‘essentialaffinesi The relationship between the human hunter and his preythus construed as an exchange, modelled on the relationship among

River domain Forest domainSPIFIIT ANACONDA SPIRIT TAPIR (YIBA)

fish ....... ........ .. water peQp|e ; Yiba peop|e ............... .. ....... tapirs. - 1\ , ’ \ ,\ , ~ ~ »\ ~_ ’, \ \ _.\ , ~_ ,~ , \ ,

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rapid saltlick

Figure 10.1 The totemic scheme

192 Kaj Arhem .affines._Men supply the Spirit Owners of the animals with ‘spiritfoods’ (coca, snuff, and burning bees wax). In return, the spiritsallocate game animals and fish to human beings.‘ This exchange,mediated by shamans, involves three different sets of relationships:between men and spirits (shamans and Spirit Owners); betweenspiritsand animals (Spirit Owner and his protégé animals); and betweenmen and animals (the human hunter and his prey). '

Each of these dyads has a distinct sociological content. Theshaman relates to the Spirit Owners of the animals as to a male affine;it is a relationship ofequality and reciprocity but also one ofpoten_tia_ldanger and violence. If the arrangement negotiated by the shaman isviolated by the hunter, the Spirit Owner takes revenge by sendingdeath and disease upon the offender and his community. The hunter,on the other hand, relates to his preyas a man to his female affine (i.e. awoman of the prescribed marriage category). The hunter is thusexplicitly said to attract ‘andseduce his prey. The behavioural analogyin the social domain is apparent: men tend to behave assertively andare manifestly aggressive towards their potential spouses, whilewomen are expected to behave submissively and furtively towardstheir male affines. The SpiritOwners, finally, are depicted as Chiefs o_rFathers of the animals. The paradigmatic case of this relationship isthat between a father and his marriageable daughters, or between a(senior) brother and his (junior) sisters: i.e. one of authority, protec-tion and allocation. Fathers/senior brothers allocate their daughters!sisters to suitable husbands, just as the Spirit Owners ofI the animalsallocate their ‘animal children’ to human beings. » ' i

In short, the Makuna explicitly exploit the sociological model ofmarriage exchange in conceptualising the interaction between menand animals. And, just as in the social domain, this ‘afiinal’ relation-ship is gendered: in their spiritual aspect animal Others are ‘male’(Spirit Owners); in their physical aspect they are ‘female’ (prey).Underlying this sociological exchange model is the cosmologicalnotion linking predation to regeneration. Death is seen as instru-mental for the reproduction of life. An animal must be killed foranother to be born, just as a human being must die - i.e. be killed,processed and consumed by the gods — for another to be born. Theperpetuation of cosmic order — encompassing all varieties of masa —requires ‘male’ predation as well‘ asffemale’ fertility, and social life ispredicated on the continuous‘ exchange of individual vitality forcategorical essence. .

The sociological model of exclrangeds most clearly expressed in

The cosmic food web 193

hunting shamanism. Hunting, particularly in preparation for large-scale-rituals, typically involves airelegnent of active ‘negotiation’between the shaman and the Spirit Owners of the game animals. Forevery category of game, the shaman asks the Spirit Owner for‘cultivated food’, which in theveiled language of shamanic discourseis a metaphor for meat. The Spirit Owner, for his part, requests ‘spiritfoods’ (coca and snuff) in retum for the game he allots. Ifone replacesthe word ‘food’ with ‘women’, the passage provides a perfectlyaccurate "account of the actual negotiations taking place betweenaffines in preparation for a marriage exchange. ..

The image ofexchange between menand fish is different. Fish arethe prototypical animal—food for human beings. The proper relation-ship to fish involves a generalised and continuous offering of spiritfoods to the Fathers of the Fish. But there is no active element ofnegotiation, no asking for permission. The shamanic interaction withthe Spirit Owners appears to be modelled on the principle ofgeneralised rather than balanced reciprocity. Indeed, this may beindicative of the ‘prescriptive’ food-status of fish. In myths, fish aregenerally presented as a by-product ofthe gods’ creative works, whilegame animals appear as avatars of the gods themselves, powerful co-actors in the drama of creation. Forest animals figure in myth andshamanic discourse as individuals or individualised species; rarely arethey treated as a generic class or compounded into a shamanic food-category such as that of the fish. Game animals, in short, appear asactive agents, the equals of gods and men; they are ‘persons’,_ andtherefore dangerous to kill and consume. In order to become properfood for humans, slain animal-persons have to be deprived of their‘humanity’ through food shamanism.

THE SHAMANIC SYSTEM A

To the Makuna all food is radically ambivalent and powerful. Foodcontains the primordial substances from which the worldwas madeand through which it is continuously recreated; it sustains life andgives strength but also kills and causes illness. By means of foodshamanism, Makuna men — and men only - convert potentiallyharmful beings and substances of nature into life-sustaining food forhumans. Food blessing is thus a prominent part of the process offoodpreparation, a male counterpartto women’s cooking, At all times andin every place men silently chant and blow spells over a piece of food

194 Kaj Arhem

or a gourd of liquid. Virtually every edible plant or animal broughtfrom the forest or the river is blessed before being eaten. ‘ '

The conceptual framework and symbolic repertory of food bles-,sing are founded in myth. The blesser must know and in his silentchanting recount the mythic origin of eachqclass of food. “In theprocess of creation each class of being received its particular powers(conceptualised as ‘weapons’) which allow it to sustain and defenditself in its appropriate habitat. Each distinctive set of ‘weapons’(wooden splinters, feathers, poison, saliva, blood, semen) objectifiesthe creative powers that brought the species into being and define its.generic identity. In the case of animals these substances and powersare continuously incorporated through the foods they eat, and thussuccessively re-incorporated at ascending levels in the food chain. Toeach fOI‘Il‘l of life there is a prescribed category of proper food (wai),amounting to a kind of prescriptive food system. For the Makuna,eating thus becomes a metaphysical act 9f. incorporating the..cr.eativepowers of the gods, infusedas. it were intoall creatures at thetime ofcreation. Eating involves a process of partial consubstantiation andcontextual identification between eater and food - and therefore alsothe potentiality of the eater being ‘consumed’ by the very foodconsumed. Eating is a battle in which the eater conquers andovercomes the defences of the food (or rather, its living source) butat the constant risk of being defeated himself by its lethal weapons.

In the cosmic food web human beings occupy a unique position. Asdistinct from other living beings, who consume their preordainedfood ‘naturally’ as it were, men eat by means of food shamanism. Byblessing their food, human beings turn animal-persons into humanfood and thereby assert their humanity. This shamanic capacityallows humans to overcome the dangers inherent in ‘nature’ while atthe same time incorporating the life force it contains. 7 IMakuna food shamanism forms part of a wider set of ideas andpractices constituting a ‘shamanic system’. In simplest terms thissystem is made up of four semantic domains defined by two cross-cutting dimensions or axes. Along oneaxis the Makuna distinguishbetween preventive (quedre) and curative(quenore) shamanism; alongthe other they differentiate between protective, regenerative shaman-ism (wanore) and destructive and potentially lethal sorcery (rohare)(see Figure 10.2). _ ’ p Ap Food “blessing is carried out by most adult men. Only foodshamanism in connection with-exceptional ritual events (such as the

' The cosmic food web 195(3) '2

WanOI'6 eprotective/regenerative

. L‘ .

a (1) " (2)queare ____i~ir_ quenore

preventive ' curative

(4)_ rohare

destructive i

Figure 10.2 The shamanic system

male initiation ceremony) requires the services ofprotective shamans(cumua). The same holds for curing. In any community, there are menwith partial curing abilities, some even specialising in the treatment ofparticular ailments and illnesses. More serious illness, however, istreated by recognised shamans, either cumua or yaia. The yaia areconsidered the most potent healers. Only they are credited with theability to ‘suck out’ (futire) diseases caused by predatory spirits andenemy shamans. The cumua, on the other hand, specialise inprotective and life-sustaining wanore shamanism. Owing to theirpotent knowledge, however, the cumua are also called upon to treat arange of illnesses resulting from snake bites, the consumption ofharmful foods or infractions on ritual restrictions. p_

An overview of the four domains in Figure 10. A2 summarises keyfeatures of Makuna cosmology and shamanic practice:1 Due to the powerful substances and objects (‘weapons’) they

-contain, all natural foods are inherently dangerous to humanbeings. Through the blessing of food (bare queare) these harmfulsubstances are removed from the food. In his mind, the blessercollects the weapons contained in the food, ties them together, andretums them to their source and place oforigin. ‘ -

2- The notion of species-specific ‘weapons’ not only accounts for thepractice of food blessing, but also forms the basis for nativetheories of illness and curing. According to the Makuna, most

196 Kaj Arhem i

diseases come from eating unproper or unblessed food. Shamaniccuring (quenore) generally involves the removal of the pathogenic‘weapons’ contained in unblessed food, visualised in the victim’sbody as bundles of darts, wooden spines or splinters. The curingshaman (yai) ‘sucks’ the entangled objects from the patient’s body,unties them, and ‘spits’ them out. The whole process can be seen ascreation in reverse. pThe life-sustaining powers ofevery species — what could be glossedas its generic essence or soul — are intimately (and apparentlycausally) connected with the reproduction and continuity of thespecies as a distinct class ofbeings. As the food blesser removes the‘weapons’ from the food and sends them back to their origin, heperforms an essentially regenerative act: he returns the ‘soul’ of thekilled and cooked animal (or edible plant) to its birth house, andthereby enables its subsequent rebirth. Food blessing thus has afundamentally creative aspect which partly subsumes it under thedomain of wanore shamanism: the protective, regulatory and life-sustaining shamanism which ensures the renewal ofcosmos and theordered reproduction of all beings. However, not only must the‘essential’ and regenerative properties of each class of animal bereturned to its birth house, but the protective shaman (cumu) mustconstantly offer shamanic foods (coca, snuff, and bees wax) to theSpirit Owners of the animals; This is wanore pure and simple. Thegourds ofcoca and snuff— the ‘fertility gourds’ — must be kept filledcontinually, and while the shaman performs his life-sustain 'ing work he mentally visits these houses and entertains their ownerswith food and other offerings, a compensation offered to the SpiritOwners in retum for their gifts offish and game. if

The pact ofreciprocity implied by the relationship between menand animals is clearly expressed in the ideas about-disease. Byfailing to bless animal food, people in effect refuse to return the life-sustaining and regenerative powers of the animals to their birthhouses, thereby denying the species its capacity to reproduce.»Similarly, by neglecting to offer coca and snuff to the Spirit Ownersofthe animals, an evil or incompetent’ shaman manifestlyrefuses toreciprocate the gift of life-sustaining foods given to people. Inrevenge, the animals capturehiuman souls and take them to theirhouses in the rivers and forests. This predatory incursion by theanimal spirits into the human life world manifests itself amongpeople as sickness and death‘. Disease, then, is a punishrnentjforfailed reciprocity. p _ '“ ,

A The cosmic food web 197

4 These notions of punishment and revenge point to the fourthdomain of Makuna shamanism, thedestructive sorcery (rohare)perpetrated by malevolent shamans and sorcerers (yaia). Rohare isa kind of ontological concomitant to the procreative" and life-sustaining _wanore shamanism and thereverse of curing. In his

' predatory capacity to send sickness and death - just as in hiscapacity to heal and restore life 4 the shaman-sorcerer acts as a god

V among humans, manipulating the forces of life and death.As opposed to the person-centred and actively asocial role of theshaman-sorcerer (yai), the protective shaman (cumu) plays anexplicitly social and community-oriented role in Makuna society.The cumu is said to sustain or maintain the world. He mediatesbetween human beings and other life forms, and has the capacity tocommtmicate with the powerful Spirit Owners of the animals. Theshamanic work of wanore therefore, is best rendered as a kind of‘cosmonomics’. The protective shamanis a cosmic manager control-ling the relationships ofpredation and exchange among different lifeforms and communities - human and non-human. It is his task tosupervise the pact between men and animals and to guarantee thewell-being of people by ensuring the reproduction of the non-humanlife forms on which humans rely for a living. " ' ~ _

DEATH AND RE-AWAKENING

The protective shaman also has more important duties than thoseimmediately associated with hunting, fishing and food shamanism.He plays a key role in the major life-cycle rituals — at birth, initiationand death. A few observations on Makuna notions of death andafterlife shed further light on their eco-cosmology and shamanicsystem.

Every human being is believed ultimately to be killed andconsumed by the gods — directly by a divine predatory attack, orindirectly through the agency of malevolent _sorcerers.or avenging"animal spirits. The primary role of the cumu is to protect human.beings from the dangers inherent in life and help them evade, as longas possible, their ultimate and unavoidable destiny. When deathfinally comes, the soul separates from the body and travels to thespirits in the Sky World. Here, say Makuna shamans, the gods cookand consume ‘the dead person, thereby reconstituting the dead as aspirit person in the birth house of the clan. During this other-worldly

\

19a Kaj Arhem p

process the officiating shaman actsin complicity with the gods. When.he has established that the soul is irretrievably lost to the body it is hisduty to supervise its journey to the skies, deliver it into the hands ofthe gods, and ensure its ultimate reconstitution — its re-awakening _—.asa complete spirit person. In fact, the shamanic labour in connectionwith death may best be envisaged as a performative simulation of thedivine workofthe gods as they capture the soul ofthe dead and finallyreturn it to its house of origin.

At birth the newbom child is given the name of a deceasedgrandparent, implying a notion of spiritual continuity between theliving and the dead;,a transmigration ofthe soul between the houses ofthe living and the waking-up-houses ofthe dead. Life and death, then,are stopping points along the cyclical journey of the soul; acontinuous and cyclical process of construction, deconstructionand reconstruction of the human person.

r Illness is understood as a temporary dissociation of soul frombody, usually caused by the consumption of unblessed or improperlyhandled food, particularlyanimal food. By means of their lethal‘weapons’, the animal spirits have the capacity to capture and carryoff the human soul to the houses of the animals. There is thus aconstant threat of ‘disorder and predatory violence between thedifferent communities of beings; an inherent instability in theMakuna cosmos which must permanently be combated by protectiveshamans. Lives may be stolen, the boundaries between life formstransgressed and the integrityofeach community abused. The workofthe cumu aims to ensure the integrity, distinctiveness and reproduc-tion of every life form, since human survival depends on a balancedexchange among them. - T

Implied in this view is a wholly interactive, interconnected andinterdependent cosmic society: human beings depend for theirphysical survival on fish and game animals (and plant food). But fishand game animals also depend on human, ritual and shamanicpractice for their reproduction; through the metaphysical work ofthe shaman, and through ritual singing and dancing, men make theanimals breed and multiply in their birth-and-dance houses in therivers and the forest; Similarly, human beings both supply the godswith food and depend on thern/‘for their continuing existence and theordered reproduction ofsociety. Putdifferently, men relate to animalsas gods to men. In a sense, then, men are — and are expected to act as -gods in relation to animals and plants. .v Makuna mortuary rituals and the shamanic activities associated

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with the killing and consumption ofanimals appear as variations on asingle metaphysical theme: the transformation ofdeath into new life.When theshaman/food blesser returnssithe ‘weapons’ of the foodanimals to their birth houses heperforms the same ritual work andseeks to accomplish the same effect as when he ~ acting as a godamong humans - retums the souls of the dead to their waking-up-houses: he ensures the continuous reproduction of the species — ofanimals in one case, and humans in the other. Food shamanism, then,is the analogue of mortuary ritual, a deconstruction of the animal-person into corporeal substance and spiritual essence to permit itssubsequent reconstruction. ‘ T

Like the shamanic activities in connection with human death, foodshamanism thus has a creative aspect and reconstitutive potency: itenables rebirth. In this important respect the metaphysical work ofshamans and knowledgeable men is the direct counterpart to thereproductive labour of women as mothers and cultivators. Throughthe shamanic activities associated with hunting and fishing, humanpredation becomes a life-giving activity. Without men performing the‘mortuary rituals’ for the animals (through food shamanism), theanimals would not be able to reproduce. Through their foodshamanism men thus symbolically ‘plant’ and ‘cultivate’ their animalfood, and through hunting and fishing they reap the harvest of theirshamanic labours. Hunting, then, is a kind ofmale gardening, a pointwhich is explicitly made in mythic narratives. This shamanic capacity,and the responsibilities it implies, ultimately distinguish humanbeings from animals in Makuna thought: through their shamanicknowledge and practice men ensure the reproduction ofthe life formson which they depend. Animals have the knowledge to sustainthemselves in their particular habitats, but only men have the knowl-edge to re-create the species on which they rely for a living. In Makunaeco-cosmology, the universe of living beings is made up of different‘peoples’, each with its distinct capacity to sustain and defend itself.But humans are singular in that they are given the knowledge andresponsibility to maintain the whole.

CONCLUSION '

Makuna eco-cosmology is no ethereal, mental construct, devoid ofpractical significance. It is born from practice and acteiout. ineveizyday chores of subsistence and survival. Makuna have neitherthe social incentive nor the techniques for producing and storing a

200 Kaj Arhem _ p _significant food surplus. The ideology of reciprocity guiding theirinteraction with the environment imposes strong sanctions againstover-exploitation offorest and river resources. Fish and game animalscan only be caught and killed beyond the immediate family needs inpreparation for ritual feasts when meat and fish are shared amongseveral families and with the explicit approval of shamans. The rule ismandatory, and transgressions are believed . to bring death anddisease. Elsewhere I have estimated that the Makuna exclude morethan half of their river territory from fishing, on mythic grounds(Arhem 1993). Areas in the forest are also set offas game ‘sanctuaries’.These restrictions are severe in the areas considered to be the breedingplaces — the birth-and-dance houses - of the animals: salt-licks, hills,rapids and water falls. This mythical mapping of the territory, whichassigns to every named site and landmark a cosmological significationand mythical meaning, has far—reaching consequences for humanresource use. Myths, in effect, are plans for land use -and extremely’efficient ones since they are at once ecologically informed, emotion-ally charged and morally binding. In all, the _Makuna mode oflivelihood amounts to a complex but efficient. system of resourcemanagement,_a cosmology turned into ecology. , ,

Through their shamanic practices and their ritually regulatedhunting and fishing activities the Makuna continually put theircosmology into practice. But, above all, it is by means of theirunceasingnarration ofmyths and through the regular performance ofcommunal rituals that Makuna cosmology is intellectually elaboratedand socially reproduced as a persuasive and coherent whole. Duringdramatic, collective rituals this visionofcosmos is transformed into apowerful, personal experience for the participants, which shapes andreshapes their perceptions of reality and tums them into a normativeframeworkfor action in and on the world. * I

._/it £1.19 £>°I1t!'°.°.f1hiS c<>.sm9.l.<>sis=a1vi.siQn .pertiQ1.1l.a.r.n0ti0nofhumanjnature _ relatedness. The Makuna\stress the continuity be-,tweennature andsociety, and ultimately the essential unity ofall life,as manifest in the notions of masa — the ‘humanness’ of all beings —and he — the undifferentiated, transcendental reality beyond allphysical differentiation. Human predation _— hunting, fishing, andgathering — is construed as? exchange, and killing for food isrepresented as a generative act through which death ishamessed forthe renewal of life. Such an ideology has powerful "implications forhuman actions. Animal ‘others’ are treated as ‘equals"and ‘persons’,parties to a moral pact goveming relations within human society as

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well as the grandersociety ofall _bei_ngs._Rather than proclaiming thesupremacy of humankind over jollhélf;-life forms, thus legitirnisinghuman exploitation. of nature, Makuna eco-cosmology emphasisesman’s responsibility towards the environment and the interdepen-idence of .nature and._societ.y. Hbumanlife is geared _to ah, single,fundamental and socially valuedjgoal: to maintain and reproducethe interconnected totalityofbeingswhichconstitute the living world;‘to maintain the world’, as the Makuna say. In fact, this cosmonomicresponsibility towards the whole — and the accompanying shamanicknowledge — is, according to the Makuna, the hallmark of humanity.

By relating their encompassing notion of ‘nature’ to a theory ofdisease, the Makuna charge. their eco-cosmology with existentialimmediacy and potency. Their ethnoetiology thus relates humanillness to environmental abuse; disease is viewed as the result ofcosmonomic mismanagement. The notions of health and curing arefocused, not narrowly on the individual person, but on the natural andsocial whole of which the human patient is a part. Such a totalising‘eco-medical’ system, with all its bio-medical shortcomings, is anotoriously powerful sanction against environmental abuse. Thebinding power of such a system is so great that even if individualsdo not fully believe in it (which today is the case for at least some,young mission-educated men), they are nevertheless strongly inducedto adhere to its rules, since the social and existential costs ofnot doingso are exceedingly great. To the Makuna hunter and fisherman, thehealth of his family depends on his wise management of theenvironment. Respecting the pact with nature is the only way ofensuring human well-being and the continuing fertility of the land.

The Makuna case is far from unique. Remarkably similar tradi-tions abound in the ethnographic record. The themes of predationand reciprocity, revenge and renewal, pervade the Amazonian eco-cosmologies of which we have reliable accounts.‘ Though varying inform and expression, local representations of human—nature related-ness in the Amazon appear to be transformations of a fundamentallysimilar pattem, characteristic of the region as a whole.’ Culturalrepresentations of predation as exchange, and notions of disease as‘nature’s revenge’, however, have an extension which reaches farbeyond the region and are, indeed, common among indigenouspeoples worldwide.’ Following Bateson (1979), Bateson and Bateson(1987) and Rappaport (1979, 1994), I think it ispossible to see suchrepresentations and their integration into’ totemic, anirrric, and morecomplex. eco-cosmological models as cultural codifications of deep

202 Kai Arhem _

ecological, insights, developed durirrgmillenniajof intimatepracticalinteraction with the environment.’ What from the point ofview of theindividual actors and life forms involved appear as predation andviolent consumption, in a systemic and holistic perspective may bestbe represented as relationships of interdependence, cyclical exchangeand reciprocity.'° . r

While the ‘violence of a Nature maintained by creatures eatingeach other is apparent to those participating in it’, writes Rappaport(1994: 158), ‘the order or harmony at the level of the ecosystem ofwhich the participants are parts is not. In transcending them it isconcealed from them’. In this view, myth and ritual are precisely whatthe Makuna say they are: vehicles of knowledge about the un-changing, transcendent order behind appearances. In metaphoricimagery, myth and ritual reveal larger patterns and connections onlyimperfectly perceived, yet intuitively glimpsed, ‘by ordinary experi-ence. Makuna eco-cosmology depicts society-and-nature as a whole,invests it with value, and thereby makes it real.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS r 4

I gratefully acknowledge the constructive cormnents on earlier draftsof this chapter from Bill Arens, Philippe Descola, ‘Andrew Gray,Joanna Overing, and Dan Rosengren. The notion of ‘human-naturerelatedness’ in the title is borrowed from Bird-David (1993). i

NOTES _ * ~ .l The same can be said of many, if not most, indigenous peoples of the

world. The evidence from North America is abundant (see, for example,Martin 1978, Tanner I979 and Nelson 1983). For Amazonian evidence,see Note 6 and References. ' ~ p ’

2 The related notion of ecosophy, as defined by Naess (1989), refers to ‘aphilosophical worldview inspired by the conditions of life in the eco-sphere’. In the sense that an ecosophy implies a philosophy based onecological insight but going beyond detached knowledge to embracefundamental norms and values it can be seen as a particular modern —individualised and explicitly -fonnulated - variety of eco-cosmology.

3 For a general overview of Makuna ethnography, see Arhem (1981, 1990,and 1993). ‘ I - _ p

4 Like most Amazonian Indians, the Makuna are increasingly suffering thedramatic effects of extemal economic structures, such as the boom-and-bust economies of gold and coca ciurrentlysweeping across the Amazon.

5 The polysemic notion ofmasa is central to an understanding of Makunacosmology and sociology. In different contexts it stands for: living. beings

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as opposed to non-living things; human beings as opposed to non-humanbeings; and the patrilineal clan (sib) as a discrete social unit among otherequivalent units making up the human life-world. The interconnectednessof these multiple meanings will, I hope, become clear in the course of thischapter. __

- 6 See, for example, Reichel-Dolmatoff l97l, Seeger 1981, Crocker 1985,Brown 1986, Viveiros de Castro l992,_Overing 1993, Descola 1994. Cf.also Isacsson’s (1993) detailed account ofEmbera cosmology (the Chocoregion of Colombia).

7 The careful reader will note profound resonances in the cited literature butalso some significant differences in interpretation. My analysis thuschallenges the generalised account of Tukanoan cosmology in Reichel-Dolmatoff (1976) and suggests alternative interpretations of the richJivaro material furnished by Brown (1986) and Descola (1994), bringingthe Tukanoan and Jivaroan eco-cosmologies closer to one another than‘implied by Descola’s (1992) comparative analysis. I hope to develop thesepoints in a different context.

8 In his recent attempt to formulate a general theoryofreligion Bloch (1992)discusses a number of such strikingly similar representations of ‘rebound-ing violence’, mainly from Southeast Asian ethnography (the Buid,Orokaiva, and Ma’Betisek). The conclusions he draws from the materialare very different from those arrived at here.

9 I have in mind _hei'e something more precise than the very generalrelationship between practical knowledge and mental representationwhich is characteristic of the ‘science of the concrete’ and classificatorythought in general (Lévi-Strauss 1966); rather, I conjecture that culturalprocesses have the capacity to develop a kind of ‘systems view’ of realitywhich reaches beyond consciously articulated, individual awareness tocapture an ‘integrative dimension of experience’ (Bateson and Bateson1987: 2). ,_

10 After all, the imagery of indigenous eco-cosmologies — including that ofthe Makuna - is not that different in kind from the concepts andmetaphors used by ecological science to grasp the complexities ofbiological reality (i.e. food webs, nutrient cycles, communities, mutualism,antagonism), all implying subtle forms of interaction and interconnect-edness among different life forms.

REFERENCESArhem, K. (1981) Makuna Social Organization: A Study in Descent, Alliance,

and the Formation of Corporate Groups in the North- Western Amazon,Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis

— (1990) ‘Ecosofia Makuna’, in F. 'Correa (ed.) La Selva Humanizada:Ecologia Alternativa en el Trépico Humedo Colombiano, Bogota: InstitutoColombiano de Antropologia. i

— (1993) Makuna: An Amazonian People (Working Papers Series), Depart-ment of Social Anthropology, Goteborg University.

Bateson, G. (1979) Mindand Nature: A Necessary Unity, New York: Dutton.

204 Kaj Arhem-—and Bateson, M. C. (1987) Angels Fear: An Investigation into the Nature and

Meaning of the Sacred, London: Rider. .Bird-David, N. (1993) ‘Tribal Metaphorization of Human-Nature Related-

ness’, in K. Milton (ed.) Environmentalism.‘ The Viewfrom Anthropology,London: Routledge. e '

Bloch, M. (1992) Prey into Hunter: The Politics of Religious Experience,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Brown, M. F. (1986) Tsewa's Gift: Magic and Meaning in an AmazonianSociety, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution.

Crocker, J. C. (I985) Vital Souls: Bororo Cosmology, Natural Symbolism, andShamanism, Tucson: The University of Arizona Press

Croll, E. and Parkin, D. (1992) Bush Base—Forest Farm: Culture, Environmentand Development, London: Routledge. - =

Descola, P. (I992) ‘Societies ofNature and the Nature ofSociety’, in A. Kuper(ed.) Conceptualizing Society, London: Routledge.

— (1994) In the SocietyofNature: A Native Ecology in Amazonia, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. W

Isacsson, S-E. (1993) Transformations ofExistence.‘ On Man and Cosmos inEmbeni Thought, unpublished PhD thesis, Gdteborg University. -

Levi-Strauss, C. (1966) The Savage Mind, Chicago: University of ChicagoPress -

Martin, C. (1978) Keepers of the Game, Berkeley: University of CalifomiaPress. - .

Naess, A. (1989) Ecology, Community and Lifestyle: Outline ofan Ecosophy,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ‘ e

Nelson, R. (1983) Make Prayers to the Raven, Chicago: University ofChicagoPress '

Overing, J. (1993) ‘Death and the Loss of Civilized Predation among thePiaroa of the Orinoco Basin’, L’Homme .126-28, XXXIII, 2-4: l9l-21 l.

Rappaport, R. A. (1979) Ecology, Meaning and Religion, Berkeley: NorthAtlantic Books.

— (1994) ‘Humanity’s Evolution and Anthropology’s Future’, in R. Borofsky(ed.) Assessing Cultural Anthropology, New York: McGraw Hill.

Reichel-Dolmatoff, G. (1971) Amazonian Cosmos: The Sexual and ReligiousSymbolism ofthe Tukano Indians," Chicago: University of Chicago Press

— (1976) ‘Cosmology as Ecological Analysis: AView from the Rainforest’,Man (NS) ll: 307-18.

Seeger, A. (1981) Nature and Society in Central Brazil, Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press. - “"

Tanner, A. (1979) Bringing Home Animals: Religious Ideology and Mode of' ‘Production of the Mistassini Cree Hunters, London:,C. Hurst.

Taylor, A. C. (1993) ‘Remembering to Forget: Identity, Mouming andMemory among the Jivaro’,_ Man (NS) 28: 653-78. ‘

Viveiros de Castro, E. B. (1992) From the Enemy_'s Point of View: Humanityand Divinity in an Amazonian Society, Chicagoz. University of ChicagoPress. * ‘ _

Willis, R. G.‘ (1990) ‘Introduction’, in ’R.“ G. Willis (ed.) Signifying Animals:Human Meaning in the Natural World, London: Unwin Hyman.

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