“We Come From Trees”
The Poetics of Plants among the Jotï of the Venezuelan Guayana
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v3i1.9Keywords:
Jotï, Guayanan Indians, spiritual botany, perspectivism, ecocosmologyAbstract
This paper explores the pervasive role of plants in the lives of the Jotï, a group of 900 people from the Venezuelan Guayana. In contrast with other Amazonian people for whom plants play relatively minor roles in spiritual spheres when compared to animals (e.g., the Ese Eje, Aguaruna or Yanomami), among the Jotï plants pervade their religious universe, assuming fundamental and polysemic dimensions. Plants constitute active agents in Jotï biological, cultural, and spiritual production and reproduction. Plants are prominent within all aspect of Jotï society making it difficult to establish strict separations between subsistence and ideological spheres. This question is explored here using a broad concept of Religion including four interrelated concerns: protology, anthropogony, ecogony and eschatology. Embedded in this text are three aspects: (1) the contemporaneity of phyto-myths in daily lives; (2) the centrality of plants in the fabrication of humanity; and, (3) the relationship of the phyto-world to what Amazonian scholars refer to as “the symbolic economy of alterity”.
References
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Cormier, L. 2003. ‘Animism, Cannibalism, and Pet-keeping among the Guajá of Eastern Amazonia’, Tipiti 1.1: 81-98.
de Civrieux, M. 1980. Watunna: An Orinoco Creation Cycle (San Francisco: North Point Press).
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Gray, A. 1996. The Arakmbut of Amazonian Peru. Vol. I. Mythology, Spirituality and History (Oxford: Berghahn).
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———. 2002. ‘Vital Signs: An Ecosemiotic Perspective on the Human Ecology of Amazonia’, Sign Systems Studies 29:1: 121-51.
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———. 2000. The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill (London and New York: Routledge).
———. 2006. ‘Rethinking the Animate, Re-Animating Thought’, Ethnos 71.1: 9-20. doi:10.1080/00141840600603111.
Kohn, E. 2007. ‘How Dogs Dream: Amazonian Natures and the Politics of Transspecies Engagement’, American Ethnologist 34.1: 3-24. doi:10.1525/ae.2007.34.1.3.
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———. 2001. Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana, vol. VI (St. Louis: Missouri Botanical Garden Press).
Storrie, R.D. 1999. ‘Being Human: Personhood, Cosmology and Subsistence for the Hoti of Venezuelan Guiana’ (PhD diss.; University of Manchester).
Uexküll, J. von. 1907. ‘Die Umrisse einer kommenden Weltanschauung’, Die neue Rundschau 18: 641–61.
van Gennep, A. 1960 [1909]. The Rites of Passage (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
Viveiros de Castro, E. 1979. ‘A Fabricação do Corpo na Sociedades Xinguana’, in João Pacheco de Oliveira Filho (ed.), Sociedades Indígenas e Indigenismo no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: UFRJ, Editora Marco Zero): 31-39.
———. 1992. From the Enemy’s Point of View: Humanity and Divinity in an Amazonian Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
———. 1996. ‘Images of Nature and Society in Amazonian Ethnology’, Annual Review of Anthropology 25: 179-200. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.25.1.179.
———. 1998. ‘Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4: 69–88.
———. 2003. ‘La Inmanencia del Enemigo’, Amazonia Peruana 15.28-29: 41-71.
———. 2004. ‘Exchanging Perspectives: The Transformation of Objects into Subjects in Amerindian Ontologies’, Common Knowledge 10.3: 463-84. doi:10.1215/0961754X-10-3-463.
Whitehead, N. 2002. Dark Shamans: Kanaimà and the Poetics of Violent Death (Chapel Hill: Duke University Press).
Zent, E. 2005. ‘The Hunter-Self: Perforations, Prescriptions and Primordial Beings among the Hodï, Venezuelan Guayana’, Tipiti 3.2: 35-76.
Zent, E., and S. Zent. 2004a. ‘Los Jodï: sabios botánicos del Amazonas Venezolano’, Antropológica 97/98: 29-70.
———. 2004b. ‘Amazonian Indians as Ecological Disturbance Agents: The Hoti of the Sierra Maigualida, Venezuelan Amazon’, in Carlson and Maffi 2004: 79-112.
———. 2004c. ‘Ethnobotanical Convergence, Divergence, and Change among the Hoti’, in Carlson and Maffi 2004: 37-78.
———. 2007. ‘Los Jodï’, in G. Freire and A. Tillett (eds.), El estado de la salud indígena en Venezuela (Caracas: CISPI, Ministerio de Salud y Desarrollo Social, Venezuela): 77-130.
———. 2008a. Thinking and Behaving Hunter-Gatherer: Hotï Ecological Praxis and Ethos (manuscript monograph).
———. 2008b. ‘Los Jodï’, in M.A. Perera (ed.), Los Aborigenes de Venezuela (Caracas: Ediciones IVIC, Mote Avila, ICAS Fundación La Salle): 499-570.
Århem, K. 1996a. ‘The Cosmic Food Web: Human–Nature Relatedness in the Northwest Amazon’, in Descola and Pálsson 1996: 185-204.
———. 1996b. Makuna: An Amazonian People (SANS Papers in Social Anthropology, Göteborg University).
Århem, K,L. Cayón, G. Angulo, and M. García. 2004. Etnografía Makuna: Tradiciones, relatos y saberes de la gente del agua (Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia).
Belaunde, L.E. 2005. El recuerdo de Luna: Género, sangre y memoria entre los pueblos amazónicos (Lima: Fondo Editorial de la Facultad de Ciencias Sociales Unidad de Post Grado de Ciencias Sociales).
Brett, W. 2003. Legends and Myths of the Aboriginal Indian of British Guiana (Montana: Kessinger Publishing).
Brown, M.F. 1985. Tsewa's Gift: Magic and Meaning in Amazonian Society (Smithsonian Series in Ethnographic Inquiry; Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press).
Cabrera, G., C. Franky, and D. Mahecha. 1999. Los n?kak: nómadas de la Amazonía colombiana (Bogotá: Editorial Universidad Nacional de Colombia).
Carlson, T., and L. Maffi (eds.). 2004. Ethnobotany and Conservation of Biocultural Diversity (Advances in Economic Botany, 15; New York: New York Botanical Garden Press).
Cormier, L. 2003. ‘Animism, Cannibalism, and Pet-keeping among the Guajá of Eastern Amazonia’, Tipiti 1.1: 81-98.
de Civrieux, M. 1980. Watunna: An Orinoco Creation Cycle (San Francisco: North Point Press).
Deleuze, G. 1993. The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press).
Descola, P., and G. Pálsson (eds.). 1996. Nature and Society: Anthropological Perspectives (London: Routledge).
Gentry, A. 1993. A Field Guide to the Families and Genera of Woody Plants of Northwest South America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press and Conservation International).
Gray, A. 1996. The Arakmbut of Amazonian Peru. Vol. I. Mythology, Spirituality and History (Oxford: Berghahn).
Hallowell, I. 1960. ‘Ojibwa Ontology, Behavior, and World View’, in S. Diamond (ed.), Culture in History: Essays in Honor of Paul Radin (New York: Columbia University Press): 141-78.
Hill, J., and R. Wright. 1988. ‘Time, Narrative, and Ritual: Historical Interpretations from an Amazonian Society’, in J. Hill (ed.), Rethinking History and Myth (Urbana: University of Illinois Press): 78-105.
Hornborg, A. 1996. ‘Ecology as Semiotics: Outlines of a Contextualist Paradigm for Human Ecology’, in Descola and Pálsson (eds.) 1996: 45-62.
———. 2002. ‘Vital Signs: An Ecosemiotic Perspective on the Human Ecology of Amazonia’, Sign Systems Studies 29:1: 121-51.
Ingold, T. 1991. ‘Becoming Persons: Consciousness and Sociality in Human Evolution’, Cultural Dynamics 4.3: 355-78. doi:10.1177/092137409100400307.
———. 2000. The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill (London and New York: Routledge).
———. 2006. ‘Rethinking the Animate, Re-Animating Thought’, Ethnos 71.1: 9-20. doi:10.1080/00141840600603111.
Kohn, E. 2007. ‘How Dogs Dream: Amazonian Natures and the Politics of Transspecies Engagement’, American Ethnologist 34.1: 3-24. doi:10.1525/ae.2007.34.1.3.
Kull, K. 2005. ‘Semiosphere and a Dual Ecology: Paradoxes of Communication’, Sign Systems Studies 33.1: 175-89.
Londoño Sulkin, C.D. 2005. ‘Inhuman Beings: Morality and Perspectivism among Muinane People (Colombian Amazon)’, Ethnos 70.1: 7–30. doi:10.1080/00141840500048474
López, E. 2006. ‘Noções de Corporalidade e Pessoa entre os Jodï’, Mana 12.2: 359-88.
Métraux, A. 1948. ‘Diversos mitos en grupos étnicos de América del Sur’, América Indígena 8.8: 9-30.
Miliken, W., B. Albert, and G. Goodwin Gomez. 1999. Yanomami: A Forest People (London: Royal Botanical Garden).
Nimuendajú, C. 1939. The Apinayé (The Catholic University of America, Anthropological Series, 8; Washington, DC: Catholic University Press).
Overing, J., and M.R. Kaplan. 1988. ‘Los Wóthuha (Piaroa)’, in J. Lizot (ed.), Los Aborígenes de Venezuela, vol. III (Caracas: Fundación La Salle-Monte Ávila Editores): 307-411.
Reichel-Dolmatoff, G. 1971. Amazonian Cosmos: The Sexual and Religious Symbolism of the Tukano Indians (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press).
Roth, Walter E. 1915. An Inquiry into the Animism and Folk-Lore of the Guiana Indians (Thirtieth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1908–1909; Washington, DC).
Seeger, A., R. da Matta, and E. Viveiros de Castro. 1979. ‘A Construção da Pessoa nas Sociedades Indígenas Brasileiras’, in J. Pacheco de Oliveira Filho (ed.), Sociedades Indígenas e Indigenismo no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: UFRJ, Editora Marco Zero): 11-39.
Steyermark, J., P. Berry, and B.K. Holst (eds.). 1998. Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana, vol. IV (St. Louis: Missouri Botanical Garden Press).
———. 2001. Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana, vol. VI (St. Louis: Missouri Botanical Garden Press).
Storrie, R.D. 1999. ‘Being Human: Personhood, Cosmology and Subsistence for the Hoti of Venezuelan Guiana’ (PhD diss.; University of Manchester).
Uexküll, J. von. 1907. ‘Die Umrisse einer kommenden Weltanschauung’, Die neue Rundschau 18: 641–61.
van Gennep, A. 1960 [1909]. The Rites of Passage (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
Viveiros de Castro, E. 1979. ‘A Fabricação do Corpo na Sociedades Xinguana’, in João Pacheco de Oliveira Filho (ed.), Sociedades Indígenas e Indigenismo no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: UFRJ, Editora Marco Zero): 31-39.
———. 1992. From the Enemy’s Point of View: Humanity and Divinity in an Amazonian Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
———. 1996. ‘Images of Nature and Society in Amazonian Ethnology’, Annual Review of Anthropology 25: 179-200. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.25.1.179.
———. 1998. ‘Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4: 69–88.
———. 2003. ‘La Inmanencia del Enemigo’, Amazonia Peruana 15.28-29: 41-71.
———. 2004. ‘Exchanging Perspectives: The Transformation of Objects into Subjects in Amerindian Ontologies’, Common Knowledge 10.3: 463-84. doi:10.1215/0961754X-10-3-463.
Whitehead, N. 2002. Dark Shamans: Kanaimà and the Poetics of Violent Death (Chapel Hill: Duke University Press).
Zent, E. 2005. ‘The Hunter-Self: Perforations, Prescriptions and Primordial Beings among the Hodï, Venezuelan Guayana’, Tipiti 3.2: 35-76.
Zent, E., and S. Zent. 2004a. ‘Los Jodï: sabios botánicos del Amazonas Venezolano’, Antropológica 97/98: 29-70.
———. 2004b. ‘Amazonian Indians as Ecological Disturbance Agents: The Hoti of the Sierra Maigualida, Venezuelan Amazon’, in Carlson and Maffi 2004: 79-112.
———. 2004c. ‘Ethnobotanical Convergence, Divergence, and Change among the Hoti’, in Carlson and Maffi 2004: 37-78.
———. 2007. ‘Los Jodï’, in G. Freire and A. Tillett (eds.), El estado de la salud indígena en Venezuela (Caracas: CISPI, Ministerio de Salud y Desarrollo Social, Venezuela): 77-130.
———. 2008a. Thinking and Behaving Hunter-Gatherer: Hotï Ecological Praxis and Ethos (manuscript monograph).
———. 2008b. ‘Los Jodï’, in M.A. Perera (ed.), Los Aborigenes de Venezuela (Caracas: Ediciones IVIC, Mote Avila, ICAS Fundación La Salle): 499-570.
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Published
2009-07-20
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Articles
How to Cite
Zent, E. L. (2009). “We Come From Trees”: The Poetics of Plants among the Jotï of the Venezuelan Guayana. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 3(1), 9-35. https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v3i1.9
