To Heal or to Remember: Indian Memory of the Rubber Boom and Roger Casement’s “Basket of Life”

This article focuses on the voice of the Muinane group coming to grips with painful memories at the end of the twentieth century. Indians nowadaysrefer to the memories of the rubber boom as belonging to what they call “Basket of Darkness.” In contrast to that obscure basket of bad memories, they speak of a “Basket of Life,” where the seeds of the future are placed, looking forward to the growing of new generations and leaving behind the dangerous memories of violence and sorcery of the past

Substances and Persons: on the Culinary Space of the People of the Centre

This paper refers to a cultural ensemble of groups of northwest Amazonia who self- designate as the People of the Centre (Witoto, Ocaina, Nonuya, Bora-Miraña, Muinane, Andoque). The production of food and the production of ‘true people’, in People of the Centre’s discourse, are referred to with a same set of terms; and the instruments and technical transformations of cooking (heating, pounding, filtering, combining and separating) are conceived of as bodily processes. The first section presents the main substances that constitute such a culinary space, both ritual and everyday. The second section, addresses the main technical processes that they undergo to transform them into foods. The third section discusses the meaning of the combination of different processed foodstuffs. It addresses these substances, processes and combinations—this alchemy—as the culinary and technical expression of the formation of true persons

Editorial

Editorial to this issue.Editorial del Volumen 1, 2010

Pueblos indígenas y cambio climático: el caso de la Amazonía colombiana

Este artículo analiza las percepciones de los pueblos indígenas de la Amazonía colombiana acerca de los cambios climáticos ocurridos durante los últimos 10 años y los efectos directos sobre sus modos de subsistencia. En la primera sección, se presentan cambios en temperatura y estacionalidad y se contrastan con el conocimiento indígena sobre el calendario ecológico. En la siguiente sección, se exponen los principales efectos directos de esos cambios sobre los modos de subsistencia indígena, principalmente sobre la horticultura, la disponibilidad de recursos acuáticos y la salud. Se realiza también una discriminación de los efectos según franjas de género y edad, y según el grado de autonomía territorial de los grupos indígenas. Con estos insumos se discuten las estrategias y adaptaciones de los indígenas para acomodarse a estos cambios y se subraya, finalmente, que el impacto del cambio climático global en esta región solo puede ser entendido y evaluado en conjunción con todos los otros cambios sociales que afectan la región

Editorial

Editorial del Volumen 1, 2010.Editorial to this issue

Editorial

Nota editorial al volumen 3 (2012).Editorial note to Volume 3 (2012)

Editorial

Editorial del número 1, volumen 6, de Mundo Amazónico. Incluye una "Declaración sobre los índices de citación y prácticas editoriales" suscrito por 102 revistas del continente

The People of the Center of the World: A Study in Culture, History, and Orality in the Colombian Amazon

It is usually believed that Amerindian groups have tended either toward assimilation or toward the formation of ethnic enclaves. I pose my question in different terms: Is the “culture” of those Amerindian groups, which appears as distinctive and separate, a dialogical reflection of the history of contact? This dissertation contributes to the understanding of the culture and history of some Amazonian Indian groups in the aftermath of their violent insertion into an extractive economy. My aim is to research how an Amazonian Indian philosophy (“philosophy of the axe,” “Word of tobacco and coca”)—which appears today as their “traditional culture”—speaks to the historical process of contact and to the construction of new forms of collective identity—as expressed in the idiom “People of the Center.” I explore this through the analysis of indigenous narratives collected both in Spanish and in Uitoto (an indigenous language) in the Caquetá-Putumayo region in the Colombian Amazon.Doctorad

Editorial

Editorial to this issue.Editorial del Volumen 1, 2010