Very early in the morning, during a bright September day in 1977,1 started what was going to be a three-day walk from the Yanesha community of Yorenaco to that of Muerrato, 1 passing through the communities of Huacsho and Yoncollmaso, all of them in the eastern slopes of the Peruvian Central Andes (see Figures 1 and 2). 2 My travel companion was Francisco, a middle-aged Yanesha who was going downriver to visit relatives and do some hunting and fishing. When we departed, I had no idea that this trip was also going to be a fascinating journey along the landscape of Yanesha history and myth. Shortly after leaving Yorenaco along the colonization road built in the 1970s we went by a gently sloping hill on top of which, Francisco told me, lay the foundations of an old Yanesha temple/forge. At its base, he claimed, one could still see rests of the furnace in which iron ore was melted. A few hours later, close to the colonist town of Enenas he singled out the site of the last fully functioning Yanesha temple, abandoned in the 1950s after the death of the officiating priest. Before arriving at the settlement of Huacsho, we went by a small lake in a site called Cacasano. Francisco told me that here the warrior-divinity Yato' Caresa (Our Grandfather Caresa) hid himself after being defeated by the Muellepen, ancient cannibals who used to travel upriver along the Palcazu River in order to attack the Yanesha settlements of the Cacazu Valley.We spent that night in Huacsho and the next day headed to Yoncollmaso, walking along the right bank of the Cacazu River. Soon we came to the end of the colonization road and entered an old trail. Some fifteen minutes later, Francisco informed me that right across the river lay the remains of the house in which his grandfather had died. He told me that in the old-house site one could still see his grandmother's large manioc beer pot-an object no longer manufactured by Yanesha women-as well as the peach palms and coca bushes sown by his grandfather. Before arriving in Yoncollmaso, Francisco showed me the trail to the old Yanesha settlement of Asopeso (nowadays inhabited mostly by Ashaninka), which he and his father had followed
The article explores the nature of sociality and alterity in indigenous Amazonia. If native Amazonian sociality is all about predatory affinity or, alternatively, convivial consanguinity, why do native Amazonians constantly strive to establish social relationships with people with whom they are related neither as kin nor as affines? The comparative analysis of intertribal trading partnerships, shamanic networks, and mystical associations allows the author to examine the mechanisms by which hostile or potentially hostile relations between strangers – non‐relatives – are transformed into relations of amicability. Special emphasis is placed on the role played by ‘trust’ and ‘spaces of trust’ in the creation of non‐kin‐based social networks. In brief the article analyses the little‐studied issue of ‘friendship’, viewing it as an alternative to kinship and affinity in the construction of Amerindian societies and multi‐ethnic polities.
The killing of alleged children sorcerers has been widely reported among the Arawak of eastern Peru. Accusations of child sorcery multiplied at junctures of increased outside pressures marked by violence, displacement, and epidemics. Mythical foundations for this belief are found in the legend of Saint Christopher and the Child Christ. Appropriated through mimetic image in colonial times, the tale of this “plague saint” was transformed into the myth of a cannibalistic giant and his evil infant son. The notion that children could become potent witches was reinforced in postcolonial times by epidemics affecting mostly adults. An example of mimesis gone wrong, the belief in child sorcery is one of those unforeseen and tragic products of the colonial encounter.
R e s u m e nEn este artículo examinamos una serie de historias que han aparecido entre los Awajú n, Wampis y Ashaninka de la amazonía peruana, protagonizadas por una diversidad de seres sobrenaturales blancos que deambulan por sus comunidades para robarles su fuerza vital o introducir en sus cuerpos sustancias pató genas. Proponemos que estas historias constituyen una respuesta a la violencia capitalista que actualmente experimentan estos pueblos como resultado de las agresivas políticas gubernamentales de estímulo a la inversió n privada y de las intensas actividades de exploració n por parte de corporaciones extractivas ávidas de beneficiarse con los recursos naturales de la regió n. Estas historias están basadas en nociones indígenas sobre la persona y la enfermedad, pero también en eco-cosmologías nativas que consideran la vida como un recurso escaso, objeto de una intensa competició n entre especies. Lo que distingue a ésta de pasadas coyunturas de depredació n por parte de gente blanca es que en esta ocasió n los indígenas amazó nicos sienten que el gobierno y sus aliados se han propuesto acabar con ellos de una vez por todas. [Amazonía, cosmologías, ontologías, percepciones indígenas, violencia capitalista] A B S T R A C TThis article examines a set of stories told among the Awajun, Wampis, and Ashaninka of eastern Peru, which feature a diversity of white supernatural beings that wander about their communities to steal their vital force, or introduce harmful substances into their
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