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The subject of the article was intended as an introduction to the issue of the Amazonian Cultural Area and the matter of debate. Owing to the most recent archaeological research, previously neglected region rises to the role of an important cultural area. The history of research on Amazonian ceramic products is almost as long as the Amazonian Some Remarks on the Studies of the Amazonian Prehistory...
In the article, I discuss the social conflict and violence as well as cultural methods of their neutralization in the culture of Bora Indians from the Peruvian Amazon. The conflict in a small Amazonian community, in which everyone knows each other, is conditioned by the relationships of blood and affinity. The cultural forms of neutralization of the conflict are: migration from places with intense...
This study discusses the meaning of Amerindian ‘perspectivism’: the ideas in Amazonian cosmologies concerning the way in which humans, animals and spirits see both themselves and one another. Such ideas suggest the possibility of redefinition of the classical categories of ‘nature’, ‘culture’ and ‘supernature’ based on the concept of perspective or point of view. The study argues in particular that...
Forms of thinking about folk culture almost without resistance undergo exploitation by ideologies. Folk culture is a specific form of tradition, in a sense its ideal condition. The sustainable and holistic folk culture becomes a reservoir of traditional values actualized in ritual and customary actions. The appropriation of folk culture by a dominant culture starts on the level of free selection of...
The aim of this paper is a reconstruction of Tim Ingold’s theoretical proposal. The present text is the second of a three-part study t hat w ill be published in subsequent volumes of “Ethnography”. This section presents Ingold’s considerations regarding the organism and perception. Author try to merge all the elements (environment, things, organism and perception) in order and present Ingold’s theory...
This paper describes the contemporary shamanism among Quichua from the Ecuadorian Andes (Imbabura and Chimborazo provinces in the Sierra region), shaman’s roles and his status in local indigenous communities. Basing on the Quichua worldview, I show what the key elements of shamanic practices are and what is its importance to the continuity of Quichua life and culture. The thesis of this text is that...
The Matsigenka Indians from the Peruvian Amazon believe in the existence of demoniac beings called kamagarini. These demons use to rape people anally, in this manner transforming them (or their spiritual essences – isure) into creatures of the same kind as the rapist. Catholic and protestant missionaries usually identify kamagarini with Western concept of devil. Surprisingly it seems that [at least...
On the Tapiche River, in everyday lives of the local people, as well as in their understandings of relations between beings or cosmology, a prominent role is played by the figure of the smallest, often invisible perpetrator – in local terms, “the worm” (gusano). The article follows the ethnographic position of the “worm” in the local representations, suspending its understanding as a parasite in order...
This article is an attempt to extend the pragmatic reflection on ritual language as a means of transmission of animic representations from ritual contexts to the context of everyday narratives. It contains an analysis of a couple of first-person Arabela narratives about being abducted by sweet water dauphin. The article shows that language and structure of those narratives are characterized by counterintuitive...
In this text, I compare the current socio-cultural situation of two indigenous groups from the Guaporé region in Amazonia formerly related culturally and linguistically. I focus on two main cultural differences between modern Wari’ and Moré Indians – language and marriage. I argue that those are consequences of two factors. Local historicities and a different attitude toward otherness.
Asháninka indigenous people from the Tambo river region in Peruvian Amazon are the largest group of the Arawak linguistic family in Peru. They are renowned for their long trajectory of horticulture and their preference to settle along big navigable rivers. Nowadays, these peoples dedicate themselves to subsistence agriculture and fishing complemented with cash crop growing, such as cocoa and coffee...
The article presents funerary rituals of the Guajiro (Wayuu) indigenous people from northwest Venezuela. According to their belief system, the passage from the earthly life to the eternal life is divided into several stages, each accompanied by a number of rituals of high importance for the social life of the Wayuu. The most commonly known are two “wakes”, and in particular the second one, where the...
"Oddajemy do rąk czytelników wyjątkowy tom naszego czasopisma. Poświęcamy go polskim badaniom antropologicznym w Amazonii i dedykujemy jednemu z najważniejszych twórców polskiej amerykanistyki etnologicznej, wie- loletniemu dyrektorowi Instytutu Etnologii i Antropologii Kulturowej Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu, naszemu Nauczycielowi, Mistrzowi i Przyjacielowi, Profesorowi Aleksandrowi...
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