Weaving the Basket of Life: Poetic Performances
| Autor | Giovanna Micarelli |
| Páginas | 139-172 |
Chapter 4
Weaving the Basket of Life: Poetic Performances
¡Siéntate bien! ¡Piensa bien!
Sit well! Think w ell!
(muin ane m an)
The reasons given by the People of the Center for the failure of develop-
ment call for an examination of indigenous conceptions of health and ill-
ness, asking how they are linked to notions of knowledge, speech, and
agency, a connection which is clearly established by the axiom of mambe
initiation: “think well, speak well, work well, and turn this into abun-
dance for all.”1 This chapter explores the meanings and performances of
the Speech of Life in relation to cosmology and sociality, focusing in par-
ticular on the connections it draws between thought and the senses toward
the goal of recreating and maintaining collective well-being. My suggestion
here is that adherence to the Speech of Life is a way to reaffirm indigenous
values in contrast to the development’s values. In this context, the daily
performance of the Speech of Life acquires a deep political significance
particularly because it conceives of people as creative agents, able to envi-
sion and care for well-being. In so doing, the Speech of Life provides an
implicit commentary to, and it becomes a source of resilience against, the
alienation brought about by development.
1. For a strikingly similar conception of the relationship between thought, speech, and action see
Gary Whiterspoon (1977)
A Muinane Way to Conduct a Project
Unplanned in my project proposal, but soon apparent, indigenous concep-
tions of health and illness turn out to be a central topic of my research. This
realization, though, was met with a frustrating difficulty; all attempts on my
part to approach these issues with my neighbors only achieved the result of
unsettling them. This reaction puzzled me particularly since health is a favor-
ite subject of conversation, and I spent hours listening to my neighbors’ health
problems. I soon suspected that it was not the issue of health itself what was
causing so much embarrassment, but my inquisitiveness. Coincidentally, at a
certain point of my fieldwork I was introduced to Nemesio, a Muinane-Bora
health practitioner formally trained in both traditional and Western health
promotion and prevention. He had recently arrived from the Caquetá region
after serving for several years in indigenous communities as promotor de salud
of the Amazonas Department’s Health Office. Following a conflict with one of
the lineages of his own clan, he had eventually lost his job, and when I first
met him in the N.N.I. maloca he was hopelessly entangled in bureaucratic
turnarounds to get his job back. It was during that time that he started culti-
vating the idea of a research proposal for integrating indigenous perspectives
on health promotion and prevention in the institutional training curriculum
of the Secretaría de Salud (Secretary of Health). He had learned from experi-
ence that, first, the ineffectiveness of health programs in indigenous com-
munities is the result of the Secretaría’s lack of understanding of indigenous
conceptions of health; and second, that the decline of the elders’ knowledge
explained the deterioration of health in indigenous communities. He was de-
termined to make the Secretaría aware of these issues. Shortly after we met, he
paid me a visit; he offered me coca and tobacco, and asked me if I was willing
to help him write a project proposal for the Secretaría. I gladly accepted, and
that was the beginning of a labored path into the intricacies of the People of
the Center’s system of knowledge and health.
Our meetings went on for more than a year. When I finally had to leave
the Amazon, the proposal was ready to be presented to the Secretaría. Nem-
esio’s project was eventually funded, and he spent the following year and a
half working with his father and other knowledgeable elders in systematiz-
ing the People of the Center’s Health Science. This chapter is based on our
collaboration, as well as on my participant observation of ritualized speech
performances in various settings and my observant participation in healing
sessions. During my fieldwork in Leticia I also had the opportunity to attend
140
the Meeting of Traditional Doctors for Actions of Promotion and Prevention
(Encuentro de médicos tradicionales para acciones de promoción y prevención,
April 29-May 5, 1999). This closed meeting was organized by the Secretary
of Health “to continue the process of intercultural dialogue […] on how to
improve actions of health promotion and illness prevention,” and it was at-
tended by traditional health practitioners from the whole Amazonas Depart-
ment. Although I was not authorized to divulge the information transmitted
in the meeting, it helped me validate the data obtained in the Resguardo
Tikuna-Uitoto, as much as it provided me with a perspective on the broad
regional, supra-ethnic significance of this knowledge system.
Nemesio always stressed that the information he was passing on to me
was “encimita no más:” merely superficial. At the beginning of our collabora-
tion, Nemesio made clear that I could not consider myself his apprentice for
different reasons. Firstly, knowledge is transferred through genealogical lines
from father to odd children, and from mother to even children. Secondly,
Nemesio’s specialized knowledge is tied to the consumption of coca, which
is a male prerogative. The fact that I was given coca on a daily basis put me in
an ambiguous position, marking out my non-indigenous identity even more,
but at the same also connecting me in very concrete ways to coca’s symbolic
universe. Thirdly, the apprenticeship for becoming a health practitioner de-
mands a long-time commitment. It lasts an average of seven years during
which the apprentice has to comply with strict restrictions, living at times
a secluded life, passing a series of tests on the basis of which the elders will
decide his path of specialization. He has to pledge his commitment to this
endeavor and keep with it constantly; any deviation constitutes a life threat
to himself, his teacher, and their extended families, and, more generally, to
the whole social and natural universe. Last but not least, to exclude (formal)
apprenticeship from our relationship was a way to protect both of us from
the dangerous power inherent in the knowledge of health and illness.
A person who does not have knowledge of the spiritual world “nour-
ishes him/herself only of material things, and follows a material path, with-
out any commitment (sin ningún compromiso)”. As soon as a person starts
learning “spiritual things”, he/she becomes the target of spiritual powers.
Knowledge pursuit unlocks this dangerous, warlike world. For knowledge’s
intimate relation with mythical substances, it is considered to be ‘hot’ and
a potential source of debilitating illnesses. If humans let these topics alone
no harm will incur. But if someone “opens” (destapar, like to take the top off
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