The Birth of the Word. Language, Force, and Mapuche Ritual Authority

This paper seeks to employ rural Mapuche ideas about language to cast new light on the nature of agency and authority in lowland South America and elsewhere. Through ethnographic analysis, I demonstrate the need to account for the roles of priest, chief, and shaman—all present in the Mapuche ngillatun fertility ritual—from the perspective of their differential modes of relating through language. For language, as understood by rural Mapuche, emerges not solely from the intentions of individual speakers, but equally from the force—newen—constitutive of all being. Priests, chiefs, and shamans all seek to align themselves through speech to this force which instantiates itself through them. Such an observation forms the basis of a critique of both Clastres’ understanding of the relationship between chiefs and language, and of the recent post-humanist rejection of the so-called “linguistic turn.

O nascimento da Palavra: linguagem, força e autoridade ritual mapuche

This paper seeks to approach the roles of priest, chief, and shaman – all present in the Mapuche ngillatun fertility ritual - from the perspective of their differential modes of relating through language. Language, as understood by rural Mapuche, emerges not solely from the intentions of individual speakers, but equally from the force – newen – constitutive of all being. Priests, chiefs, and shamans all seek to align themselves through speech to this force which instantiates itself through them. Such an observation casts new light on Clastres´ understanding of the relationship between chiefs and language. If we follow Mapuche in emphasizing the indexical rather than symbolic qualities of language, we see that Clastres´analysis of chiefly language as susceptible to a model of “exchange” becomes somewhat problematic.Este artigo procura abordar os papéis de sacerdote, chefe e xamã – todos presentes no ngillatun, ritual de fertilidade mapuche – da perspectiva de seus modos diferenciais de travar relações por meio da linguagem. A linguagem, conforme entendida pelos Mapuche do meio rural chileno, não emerge exclusivamente das intenções de falantes individuais, mas igualmente da força (newen) constitutiva da totalidade do ser. Sacerdotes, chefes e xamãs recorrem à fala para alinhar-se a essa força, que por meio deles se atualiza. Uma tal observação lança nova luz sobre o entendimento de Clastres quanto à relação entre chefia e linguagem. Se, acompanhando os Mapuche, enfatizamos as qualidades indexicais da linguagem, em detrimento das simbólicas, vemos que se torna um tanto problemático analisar a linguagem dos chefes em conformidade com um modelo de “troca”, como faz Clastres

The Clown Within:Becoming White and Mapuche Ritual Clowns

AbstractThis essay takes the antics of ritual clowns,koyong, as an entry point into the ways in which rural Mapuche people in southern Chile come to understand and reflect upon the inevitability of urban migration and the “becoming white” which this migration is said to imply. Utilizing both my own ethnographic data and comparative data from elsewhere in the Americas, I explore the striking continuities in the associations of indigenous ritual clowns: associations with poverty, with uncontrolled bodily desires, with dual ritual performances, and perhaps most significantly, with white people. I suggest that the moral indictment of the “becoming white” instantiated by clowns in their ritual performances emerges from their identities as people who in everyday life are denigrated as “too Mapuche.” Thus, far from being yet another example of indigenous people's “agency” in mimetically co-opting the vitality of white others, I suggest that clowns are one of the means by which rural Mapuche people come to understand precisely their ownlackof agency in the face of Chilean colonialism</jats:p

Epigenome-wide meta-analysis of blood DNA methylation in newborns and children identifies numerous loci related to gestational age

Background Preterm birth and shorter duration of pregnancy are associated with increased morbidity in neonatal and later life. As the epigenome is known to have an important role during fetal development, we investigated associations between gestational age and blood DNA methylation in children. Methods We performed meta-analysis of Illumina's HumanMethylation450-array associations between gestational age and cord blood DNA methylation in 3648 newborns from 17 cohorts without common pregnancy complications, induced delivery or caesarean section. We also explored associations of gestational age with DNA methylation measured at 4-18 years in additional pediatric cohorts. Follow-up analyses of DNA methylation and gene expression correlations were performed in cord blood. DNA methylation profiles were also explored in tissues relevant for gestational age health effects: fetal brain and lung. Results We identified 8899 CpGs in cord blood that were associated with gestational age (range 27-42 weeks), at Bonferroni significance, P <1.06 x 10(- 7), of which 3343 were novel. These were annotated to 4966 genes. After restricting findings to at least three significant adjacent CpGs, we identified 1276 CpGs annotated to 325 genes. Results were generally consistent when analyses were restricted to term births. Cord blood findings tended not to persist into childhood and adolescence. Pathway analyses identified enrichment for biological processes critical to embryonic development. Follow-up of identified genes showed correlations between gestational age and DNA methylation levels in fetal brain and lung tissue, as well as correlation with expression levels. Conclusions We identified numerous CpGs differentially methylated in relation to gestational age at birth that appear to reflect fetal developmental processes across tissues. These findings may contribute to understanding mechanisms linking gestational age to health effects.Peer reviewe

DNA methylation and body mass index from birth to adolescence : meta-analyses of epigenome-wide association studies

Background DNA methylation has been shown to be associated with adiposity in adulthood. However, whether similar DNA methylation patterns are associated with childhood and adolescent body mass index (BMI) is largely unknown. More insight into this relationship at younger ages may have implications for future prevention of obesity and its related traits. Methods We examined whether DNA methylation in cord blood and whole blood in childhood and adolescence was associated with BMI in the age range from 2 to 18 years using both cross-sectional and longitudinal models. We performed meta-analyses of epigenome-wide association studies including up to 4133 children from 23 studies. We examined the overlap of findings reported in previous studies in children and adults with those in our analyses and calculated enrichment. Results DNA methylation at three CpGs (cg05937453, cg25212453, and cg10040131), each in a different age range, was associated with BMI at Bonferroni significance, P <1.06 x 10(-7), with a 0.96 standard deviation score (SDS) (standard error (SE) 0.17), 0.32 SDS (SE 0.06), and 0.32 BMI SDS (SE 0.06) higher BMI per 10% increase in methylation, respectively. DNA methylation at nine additional CpGs in the cross-sectional childhood model was associated with BMI at false discovery rate significance. The strength of the associations of DNA methylation at the 187 CpGs previously identified to be associated with adult BMI, increased with advancing age across childhood and adolescence in our analyses. In addition, correlation coefficients between effect estimates for those CpGs in adults and in children and adolescents also increased. Among the top findings for each age range, we observed increasing enrichment for the CpGs that were previously identified in adults (birth P-enrichment = 1; childhood P-enrichment = 2.00 x 10(-4); adolescence P-enrichment = 2.10 x 10(-7)). Conclusions There were only minimal associations of DNA methylation with childhood and adolescent BMI. With the advancing age of the participants across childhood and adolescence, we observed increasing overlap with altered DNA methylation loci reported in association with adult BMI. These findings may be compatible with the hypothesis that DNA methylation differences are mostly a consequence rather than a cause of obesity.Peer reviewe

Fluent Selves

Fluent Selves examines narrative practices throughout lowland South America focusing on indigenous communities in Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru, illuminating the social and cultural processes that make the past as important as the present for these peoples. This collection brings together leading scholars in the fields of anthropology and linguistics to examine the intersection of these narratives of the past with the construction of personhood. The volume’s exploration of autobiographical and biographical accounts raises questions about fieldwork, ethical practices, and cultural boundaries in the study of anthropology. Rather than relying on a simple opposition between the “Western individual” and the non-Western rest, contributors to Fluent Selves explore the complex interplay of both individualizing as well as relational personhood in these practices. Transcending classic debates over the categorization of “myth” and “history,” the autobiographical and biographical narratives in Fluent Selves illustrate the very medium in which several modes of engaging with the past meet, are reconciled, and reemerge

Estruturas de diferença no palin, esporte mapuche

Combinando dados históricos e etnográficos, este artigo explora a importância dos vários níveis de oposição dentro do esporte do palin e as práticas sociais que o cercam, nas comunidades indígenas mapuche, no sul do Chile. Empregando o conceito de afinidade potencial, procuro analisar de que modo a oposição entre identidade e diferença toma formas distintas - como a guerra, o ritual ou o intercâmbio - em níveis distintos de análise, tais como os grupos étnicos, o grupo local e a pessoa. Essa multiplicidade de oposições está relacionada com a variedade dos contextos históricos nos quais o palin tem sido importante. Concentrando a atenção na relevância das relações de alteridade dentro do palin, este artigo procura expandir para o domínio do esporte indígena a aplicação da abordagem antropológica da socialidade ameríndia, abordagem esta geralmente restrita ao parentesco e à mitologia.Combining historical and ethnographical data, this paper explores the importance of various levels of opposition in the sport of palin and the social practices that surround it in the Mapuche communities of southern Chile. Using the concept of potential affinity, I seek to analyse the way in which the opposition between identity and difference takes distinct forms - such as those of warfare, ritual and exchange - at different levels of analysis, such as that of the ethnic group, the local group and the person. This multiplicity of oppositions is related to the variety of historical contexts in which palin has been important. Focusing on the relevance of relations of alterity in palin, the article looks to apply to the domain of Indigenous sport the anthropological approach to Amerindian sociality, which has generally been restricted to kinship and myth