Abstract

RIVERA ZAMBRANO, Jennifer Andrea. "I am a jaguar." A Transversal Interpretation, between Philosophy and Anthropology, of Shamanic Accounts of Animals in the Inga and Kamënsta Indigenous Communities. Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol. [online]. 2017, n.28, pp.153-170. ISSN 1900-5407.  https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda28.2017.07.

This paper gives an account of a conceptual exercise of interpretation which lies between philosophy and anthropology. Its approach is the idea that, in contrast with notions of symbolic association, as a state of becoming, the descriptions which still persist in the Inga and Kamëntsa indigenous communities of the relationship between their sabedores ("knowers"/wise men/shamans) and "jaguars" may be understood as the affective relations of men who experience forces that are not theirs and that during that process, they summon something which is especially creative in themselves as a way of achieving a trans-codification between the animal and the human in the creation of individuation. Its approach is based on the conceptual framework of the contemporary philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, with the aim of establishing a dialogue between that philosophy and anthropology´s understanding of the "being a jaguar" phenomenon and providing an interpretation of the zoo-anthropomorphic occurrence with the use of the concept of becoming. Towards that end: i) the construction of individuations is determined by an analysis of the accounts of sabedores of the Inga and Kamëntsa indigenous communities, which; ii) reveals the conceptualization of this particular relationship as becoming in the light of some developments which are in line with the notions of "the jaguar man" of the anthropologist Reichel Dolmatoff; iii) Finally, the effects of becoming as a creation of meaning are explained.

Keywords : Anthropology; philosophy; sabedor; jaguar; animal-becoming; yage.

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