Sensual Vitalities: Noncorporeal Modes of Sensing and Knowing in Native Amazonia

Yanesha people of eastern Peru would agree with Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas that knowledge can only be achieved through sense perception. They would, however, disagree on what exactly “sense perception” means. In the Western tradition the senses are considered to be the “physiological” modes of perception. We can only know, it is asserted, through the body and its senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. In contrast, Yanesha people view bodily senses as imperfect means of knowing, unable to grasp the true, spiritual dimension of the world. Only one of the noncorporeal components of the self, yecamquëñ or “our vitality,” is endowed with the sensory faculties that allow for a correct perception, and thus for the possibility of “true” knowledge. It is for this reason that, from a Yanesha point of view, vitalities are sensual, whereas bodies are considered to be somewhat insensible. This article explores Yanesha noncorporeal modes of sensing and knowing, as well as their theories of perception and sensual hierarchies. My purpose is to advocate for a renewed anthropology of the senses in Amazonian studies, as well as to propose a critical revision of the notion of Amerindian perspectivism. Los Yanesha de la amazonía peruana estarían de acuerdo con Aristóteles y Santo Tomás de Aquino en que el conocimiento solo puede ser obtenido a través de la percepción sensorial. Sin embargo, estarían en desacuerdo en cuanto a qué exactamente significa “percepción sensorial.” En la tradición occidental los sentidos son considerados como el modo “fisiológico” de percepción. Sólo podemos conocer, se dice, a través del cuerpo y sus sentidos: vista, oído, olfato, tacto y gusto. En contraste, los Yanesha consideran los sentidos corporales como medios imperfectos de conocimiento, incapaces de aprehender la verdadera dimensión espiritual del mundo. Sólo uno de los componentes incorpóreos del ser, yecamquëñ o “nuestra vitalidad,” está dotado de las facultades sensoriales que permiten tener una percepción correcta y, con ello, la posibilidad de obtener conocimiento “verdadero.” Es por esta razón que, desde un punto de vista yanesha, las vitalidades son sensuales mientras que los cuerpos son en cierta medida insensibles. Este artículo explora los modos no-corporales de percepción y conocimiento de los Yanesha, así como sus teorías de percepción y su jerarquía de los sentidos. Su objetivo es abogar por una renovada antropología de los sentidos en los estudios amazónicos, así como proponer una revisión crítica de la noción de perspectivismo

Pedro Casanto’s Nightmares: Lucid Dreaming in Amazonia and the New Age Movement

Taking as a point of departure the recurring nightmares of a Yanesha boy, the author examines the dream theories and practices of Yanesha people of Peruvian Amazonia. Particular emphasis is placed on the conscious manipulation of actions taking place in nightmares. This practice, common to many indigenous peoples throughout the world, has become known in Western tradition as “lucid dreaming.” The author explores how New Age thinkers and entrepreneurs have adopted this and other connected indigenous dream practices by means of “simulation,” a mode of appropriating the magic of “Others” that, in the context of globalized neocolonial encounters, appears as the counterpart of “mimesis.” In this process of “cultural cannibalism” and commoditization, native practices are simplified, secularized, and sanitized in ways that contribute—even if unintentionally—to the perpetuation of the long-lasting opposition between the “civilized” West and the “savage” Others. Tomando como punto de partida las pesadillas recurrentes de un joven Yanesha, el autor examina las teorías y prácticas del sueño de la gente Yanesha de la Amazonía Peruana. Particular énfasis es puesto en la manipulación conciente de las acciones que tienen lugar en las pesadillas. Esta práctica, común a muchos pueblos indígenas del mundo, es conocida en el mundo occidental como “sueños lúcidos.” El autor explora como los pensadores y empresarios de la Nueva Era (New Age) han adoptado ésta y otras prácticas indígenas relacionadas mediante el proceso de “simulación,” un modo de apropiación de la magia de los “otros” que en situaciones de encuentros neocoloniales globalizados aparece como la contraparte de la “mimesis.” A lo largo de este proceso de “canibalismo cultural” y mercantilización, las prácticas nativas son simplificadas, secularizadas y pasteurizadas en maneras que contribuyen—aún si de manera no intencional—a perpetuar la antigua oposición entre el Occidente “civilizado” y los Otros “salvajes.

Latin American Indigenous Warfare and Ritual Violence

Book review of Latin American Indigenous Warfare and Ritual Violence. Richard J. Chacon and Rubén G. Mendoza, editors. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2007. x + 293 pp., illustrations, notes, references, index. ISBN 978-0-8165-2527-0

Amerindian Torture Revisited: Rituals of Enslavement and Markers of Servitude in Tropical America

Western fascination with the body and all things corporeal has permeated millennial anthropology,capturing the attention of anthropologists working in different parts of the world. In lowland South America, Seeger, da Matta, and Viveiros de Castro (1979) called attention, early on, to the Amerindian propensity to use the body as the main instrument to convey social and cosmological meanings. In a now famous essay entitled “Of Torture in Primitive Societies,” Pierre Clastres (1974) suggested that Amerindian initiation rituals—always entailing some kind of torture and bodily modification—were meant to mark initiates not only as adults but, above all, as fellow and equal tribes people. In this article I contend that Clastres was right in stating that in Amerindian societies the body is the most important means for the inscription of social knowledge, and that such inscription often takes place under the form of ritual torture. I question, however, the idea that the purpose of Amerindian torture was always to stress tribal membership and social equality. Through the analysis of three lowland South American societies that practiced captive slavery at the time of contact, I contend that torture and bodily markings were frequently used to achieve radically opposite goals, namely,to set war captives apart—at least temporarily—as alien, less-than-human, and inferior subordinates. Thus, Amerindian ritual torture should not be regarded only as an inclusionary mechanism at the service of social integration and egalitarianism,but also as an exclusionary means for enforcing marginalization and social stratification. Amerindian bodies may be socially constructed and ritually inscribed, but far from being monothematic, the messages they convey may have widely different contents. La fascinación occidental con el cuerpo y todo lo corpóreo ha invadido la antropología de comienzos del nuevo milenio, capturando la atención de antropólogos que trabajan en diversas partes del mundo. Para las tierras bajas de Sudamérica, Seeger, da Matta, y Viveiros de Castro han llamado tempranamente la atención sobre la propensión amerindia a utilizar el cuerpo como el principal instrumento para impartir significados sociales y cosmológicos. En un famoso ensayo titulado De la tortura en las sociedades primitivas, Pierre Clastres (1974) sugirió que los rituales de iniciación amerindios—los cuales siempre implican algún tipo de tortura y mortificación del cuerpo—tenían por fin marcar a los iniciados no sólo como adultos sino, por encima de todo, como iguales y contribales. En este artículo argumento que Clastres estaba en lo cierto al afirmar que en las sociedades amerindias el cuerpo es el más importante medio de inscripción de conocimiento social y que dicha inscripción frecuentemente asume la forma de tortura ritual. Cuestiono, sin embargo, la idea de que el objetivo de la tortura amerindia fuese siempre la de enfatizar la membrecía tribal y la igualdad social. A través del análisis de tres sociedades de las tierras bajas de Sudamérica que practicaban la esclavitud de guerra en la época de contacto, sugiero que la tortura y el marcado corporal era usado con frecuencia para lograr objetivos completamente opuestos, a saber, el marcar a los cautivos de guerra—al menos temporalmente—como subordinados foráneos, inferiores y menos-que-humanos. Así, la tortura ritual amerindia no debería ser considerada únicamente como un mecanismo incluyente al servicio de la integración social y el igualitarismo, sino también como un mecanismo excluyente utilizado para reforzar formas de marginación y estratificación social. Puede que los cuerpos amerindios sean socialmente construidos e inscritos, pero lejos de ser monotemáticos, los mensajes que transmiten pueden tener contenidos muy diferentes

Human motion retargeting to generate robot trajectory-replication of human-guided path

In this project we propose and study a methodology to generate a robot motion by the retargeting of human motion captured using an HTC Vive system. As a way to test the outcome, the human motion was obtained by the performer trying to mimic or follow a robot end effector in real time. Our task is to take the human motion as an input, use several techniques to process it and then reconstruct from it the motion that the performer was trying to achieve. We then compare this motion to the original motion recorded from the robot itself. The processing of the data consists of applying PCA to obtain a two-dimensional projection, computing the approximate period of the movements by the location of points, sampling average points at points evenly spaced in time along the cycle, and then using a Bspline to reconstruct a continuous, smooth and closed curve. A generic method is developed utilizing Python script, except for a first preprocessing step realized with Blender. The results of our study show that from a dataset with variation in the order of 10 to 20cm (the human motion) we obtain a result with an error in respect to the motion recorded from the robot in the order of 1 to 5cm.Grado en Ingeniería en Electrónica Industrial y Automátic

García Jordán Pilar, Cruz y arado, fusiles y discursos. La construcción de los Orientes en el Perú y Bolivia, 1820-1940, Institut français d’études andines/Instituto de estudios peruanos, Lima, 2001, 476 p., bibl., ill., tab., cartes

Cruz y arado, fusiles y discursos introduces a much needed comparative perspective into the processes of take-over, occupation, and incorporation of Amazonian and other tropical territories into South American nation-states. Until now, such studies have focused on specific regions – e.g. Southern Pará (Schmink and Wood 1992), the Llanos of Colombia (Rausch 1994), Loreto (Santos-Granero and Barclay 2000, 2002) – privileging a micro, rather than a macro-historical approach. In contrast, García ..

The BXD21/TyJ recombinant inbred strain as a model for innate inflammatory response in distinct brain regions

Oxidative stress and inflammatory cytokines affect the human brain, increasing the risk for mood and cognitive disorders. Such risk might be selective to brain-specific regions. Here, we determined whether BXD recombinant inbred (RI) mice strains are more suitable than C57BL/6J mice for the understanding of the relationship between antioxidant response and inflammatory responses. We hypothesized that inflammatory responses could be independent of antioxidant response and be inherent to brain-specific regions. This hypothesis will be addressed by the analyses of mRNA expression. We explored, at 7-months-of-age, the innate activation of proinflammatory cytokines (tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) and interleukin 6 (IL-6), as well as Kelch-like ECH-associating protein 1 (Keap1), nuclear factor erythroid 2 related factor 2 (Nrf2) and glutathione peroxidase 1 (Gpx1) mRNA in both male and female BXD84/RwwJ RI, BXD21/TyJ RI and control strain (C57BL/6J mice). We report that: (1) The cerebellum is more sensitive to antioxidant response in the BXD21/TyJ RI strain; (2) The cerebellum, hippocampus and striatum show increased levels of cytokines in the BXD21/TyJ RI strain; (3) The BXD RI strain has lower brain weight relative to control strain (C57BL/6 mice). In conclusion, our novel data show the utility of the BXD21/TyJ RI strain mice in offering mechanistic insight into Nrf2’s role in the inflammatory system

Interaction among sex, aging, and epigenetic processes concerning visceral fat, insulin resistance, and dyslipidaemia

The distribution of adipose tissue is influenced by gender and by age, shifting from subcutaneous to visceral depots with longevity, increasing the development of several aging-related diseases and manifestations such as obesity, metabolic syndrome, and insulin resistance. Epigenetics might have an important role in aging processes. The aim of this research was to investigate the interactions between aging and epigenetic processes and the role of visceral adipose tissue, insulin resistance, and dyslipidaemia. Two different study samples of 366 and 269 adult participants were analyzed. Anthropometric, biochemical (including the triglycerides-glucose (TyG) index), and blood pressure measurements were assessed following standardized methods. Body composition measurements by Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) were also performed for the second sample. Methylation data were assessed by Infinium Human Methylation BeadChip (Illumina) in peripheral white blood cells. Epigenetic age acceleration was calculated using the methods DNAmAge (AgeAcc) and GrimAge (AgeAccGrim). Age acceleration (AgeAccGrim) showed better correlations than AgeAcc with most of the measured variables (waist circumference, glucose, HOMA-IR, HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, and TyG index) for the first sample. In the second sample, all the previous correlations were confirmed, except for HOMA-IR. In addition, many of the anthropometrical measurements assessed by DXA and C-reactive protein (CRP) were also statistically associated with AgeAccGrim. Associations separated by sex showed statistically significant correlations between AgeAccGrim and HDL-cholesterol or CRP in women, whereas, in men, the association was with visceral adipose tissue mass DXA, triglycerides and TyG index. Linear regression models (model 1 included visceral adipose tissue mass DXA and TyG index and model 2 included HDL-cholesterol and CRP) showed a significant association for men concerning visceral adipose tissue mass DXA and TyG index, while HDL-cholesterol and CRP were associated in women. Moreover, structural equation modeling showed that the TyG index was mediating the majority of the visceral adipose tissue mass action on age acceleration. Collectively, these findings showed that there are different mechanisms affecting epigenetic age acceleration depending on sex. The identified relationships between epigenetic age acceleration and disease markers will contribute to the understanding of the development of age-related diseases