Anaconda-becoming

Huni Kuin image-songs, an Amerindian relational aesthetics

Bibliographic Data

ID2493349
AuthorsEls Lagrou (0009-0008-0262-5000, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume24
Issue51
Pages17-49
Publication date2018-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHorizontes Antropológicos (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0104-7183 • E-ISSN: 1806-9983
PublisherFapUNIFESP (SciELO) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1590/s0104-71832018000200002
OpenAlexW2895336559
SCIELO_PIDS0104-71832018000200017
LanguageEN
Citations received15
References cited20

After depicting the contemporary scene of Huni Kuin ayahuasca shamanism and artistic agency, I analyze a selection of image-songs from this ritual. The songs unveil the workings of embodied perception and synesthesia, that is, the transductions of bodily sensations and perceptions in vision, rhythm, song and sound. The experience entails a process of other-becoming where to know means to see through the eyes of Other; to be covered with the skin/ornaments of those beings one has consumed and to sing through their voice. This other-becoming is a becoming in a deleuzian sense, which means that the lived experience is situated in-between the space of self and other. In this context the expression 'you are what you eat' has specific implications for one's health and for the acquisition of agentive and perceptive capabilities of other beings. The ritual technique of almost becoming consists of alternatingly producing and undoing temporary transformations through song

Aesthetics · Agency (philosophy · Art · Context (archaeology · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Perception · Situated · Synesthesia · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Computer Science · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Philosophy · Psychedelics and Drug Studies · Psychology

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