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Historical data on the Shipibo-Konibo society (of western Amazonia), which reveal several centuries of contact, have contributed to the emergence of shamanic practices that combine local vegetalismo with borrowings from the western world. At first glance, these shamanic practices, which have been reinforced by the emergence of shamanic tourism in the Shipibo-Konibo villages, may appear to the idealistic anthropologist as a sign of a weakening of vernacular shamanism, characterized above all by a close communality with the plant world. However, the study of complex cosmological elaborations, carried out by the shamans of the village of San Francisco de Yarinacocha, from sectors proper to Western society such as allopathic medicine, technology and books will show that it is rather a process of resilience aimed at satisfying the ontological need that constitutes the Shipibo-Konibo universe, in response to the sociological changes with which they are obliged to act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In what distinctive ways are lowland South American Indians animists? Is there a place in Amerindian thought for a conception of biological life autonomous from social intelligence and its socially determined intentions? How far can it be said that by viewing animals, plants and objects as subjective agents endowed with consciousness and intentionality, native Amazonians construct a way of knowing the world which is both culturally unique and antithetical to biology? In trying to provide ethnographically informed answers to these questions, I critically review various theoretical approaches to animism, ontological animism and perspectivism. In ending, I attempt to explain why these theories ultimately discard or ignore the rich base of biological knowledge that underlies the natural and cosmogonic classiications of native Amazonians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significance of the sonic, especially of vocal music, in the context of animism and perspectivism was hitherto underestimated in anthropological theory. Working on examples of Shipibo-Konibo magical songs from the author's own ethnomusicological fieldwork recordings, in this paper it is proposed that the first-person experience of médicos (healers or sorcerers) has to be considered most valuable for interpreting structures of relationships between humans and non-humans. This experience surfaces most obviously in singing styles and lyrics of songs performed by médicos in the current state of interaction with non-humans during ritual curing, worshipping, or fighting. Results obtained from this analysis include: 1) The ascription of consciousness and human or humanoid physicality to non-humans is the result of the médico's perceptions during musically induced or controlled altered states of perception and cognition (ASPC); 2) The transformation into and identification with non-humans involve full conscious experience by the médico and therefore pertain to the highest level of evidentiality in Shipibo discourse which is ontologically determining; 3) Human physicality and competence of perception and action is not universal among all beings but is a matter of grading dependent on magical and practical powers of the respective species; 4) A "sonic perspectivism" allowing for agency in the construction of perspectives, and an "ambient multinaturalism" extending the notion of transformation from body to environment, are introduced by analysing sonic phenomena. Finally, the author proposes to focus more on indigenous praxis than on analysis and comparison of narratives in order to understand indigenous ontologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the theory of "perspectivism" (Viveiros de Castro) and its application to interpretation of the myths of the Pemón-speaking groups of the Gran Sabana (Arekuna, Kamarakoto, Taurepán); the paper aims to compare ontological conceptions of "seeing" and "hearing". Performances of the shamanic healing ritual, the hunting ritual (parishara), and recent orekotón rituals (areruya, cho'chiman) serve as examples for understanding "hearing" and related practices of sound production (speech, singing, imitation of animal sounds, etc.). Whereas the particular representations of yaukarü (spirit/ Arekuna) or yekatón (spirit/ Taurepán, Kamarakoto), such as enek (animal), pemón (human being), and mawarí (spirit of the tepuy), illustrate different concepts of "seeing", the use of the same communicative devices consisting of intelligible (speech, singing) and/or unintelligible sound structures demonstrates the possibilities of communicative interaction between these representations. Along with my own material, contemporary indigenous discourses concerning Koch-Grünberg's recordings from 1911 will be presented in an attempt to (re-) construct, or rather (re-)interpret, the healing ritual and the parishara and orekotón performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For more than a decade, a close continuity, rather than opposition, has linked Viveiros de Castro's "perspectivism" and Descola's "animism". Both theories are based on Amazonian ethnographic material and should be seen as theoretical constructions of the "Lowland" developed to explain the specificity of Amazonian ontologies. Today, both models exist independently of the south Amerindian data. In this paper, I will present some North-West Amazonian ritual and mythological material that illustrates the first, as well as the second theoretical point of view. The main aim of this paper is to show that general cognitive phenomena involved in the act of perception, such as anthropomorphism and analogical projection, are able to give an account of some Amazonian ontologies, especially if we draw iconographical expressions of past and present societies into the discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]