Abstract

DAVILA ROMERO, José Gabriel. “Uai raɨi, Sit Down!”: Weaving and Body Formation among the Muruɨ-Mɨnɨnɨka People. Rev. colomb. antropol. [online]. 2026, vol.62, n.1, e2927.  Epub Jan 01, 2026. ISSN 0486-6525.  https://doi.org/10.22380/2539472x.2927.

The practice of sitting (ana raɨi) is one of the foundations of Murui personal formation. By maintaining a seated posture in the mambeadero, an everyday ritual space, men acquire the collective gestural repertoire while cultivating attention through tobacco and coca plants. When sitting in a squatting posture during nocturnal gatherings, people embody the figure of a basket (kɨrɨgaɨ), since human formation is understood as a weaving process: the body is conceived as a fabric of muscles, affects, and thoughts that must be tightened into an ordered structure. The methodology includes (1) an interpretative study of two relevant texts from the published Murui corpus; (2) the yetarafue—words of counsel—of five mambeadores; and (3) an ethnography of the Nokaido mambeadero in the municipality of Leticia, in the Colombian Amazon. While previous studies have noted key aspects of this bodily training, this ethnography offers unprecedented focus on the phenomenon. I conclude that sitting is a technique of bodily formation semantically linked to Murui basketry and to the processing of tobacco ambil and plant-based ash salt.

Keywords : body; Murui; weaving; sitting; posture.

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