Resembling ritual specialization and correspondences between ceremonial careers and siblings’ birth order among neighboring “People of the Center” of the Caquetá-Putumayo interfluve, the Andoque have at present two ritual careers: “red” (peo’si) and “white” (pofio). Like that other peoples in the region, the Andoque’s demographic and territorial recuperation after the genocide perpetrated by the Anglo-Peruvian Rubber Company (or Casa Arana) in the first decades of the twentieth century, was fueled by the reconstruction of their ritual system from 1930s onwards. Many of the ritual and political modifications these peoples actively introduced into their societies are referred to emically as a transition from a “basket of darkness” to a “basket of life,” a rejection of cannibal practices and sorcery which is usually interpreted in research as connected with the construction of a peaceful pluri-ethnic society (Echeverri 2010; Lucas 2019). However, in the Andoque case, the ritual career which is being prioritized is the red, aggressive one, while the white one, considered peaceful by many, is downplayed, and its rituals are neglected, even feared.
In this presentation I will explain this apparent contradiction by examining the red/white division as a particular manifestation of the tension found throughout Northwest Amazonia between vertical and horizontal shamanism (Hugh-Jones 1994). Through an overview of the main Andoque rituals, the myths on which they are based and the relational realities that they seek to enact, I propose a reconstruction of the ways in which historical, economic, and political circumstances have contributed to the objectification and institutionalization of the two ideal types of shamanism and how they have shaped the current dynamics between the two ritual careers. In this way, the present-day marginalization of the white career positions the regional post-genocide recuperation process within the context of shifting modes of relations between human and nonhuman beings.
Le séminaire de l’EREA (Enseignement et recherche en ethnologie amérindienne) est un espace de discussion, ouvert à tout public, flexible et modulable, qui a pour vocation de stimuler les échanges entre la formation américaniste du département d’anthropologie de l’université Paris Nanterre et les chercheurs du Centre ainsi que des invités extérieurs. Tout en étant un foyer de réflexion sur les recherches américanistes en cours, il sert également de plate-forme pour la divulgation des travaux des doctorants, post-doctorants et chercheurs associés.
Sous forme de présentations individuelles, de cycles thématiques ou de demi-journées d’étude, il apporte ainsi un espace de recherche complémentaire aux réunions du Séminaire d’anthropologie américaniste (SAA) et au Groupe d’enseignement et de recherche sur les Mayas et la Mésoamérique (GERM).
Certaines séances sont disponibles en replay sur la chaîne Erea de Canal U.
Organisation : Valentina Vapnarsky, Aline Hémond, Philippe Erikson et Vincent Hirtzel
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