Song Paths_the Ways and Means of Yaminahua Shamanic Knowledge

8/10/2019 Song Paths_the Ways and Means of Yaminahua Shamanic Knowledge

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Graham Townsley

Song Paths The Ways and Means of Yaminahua Shamanic

KnowledgeIn: L'Homme, 1993, tome 33 n126-128. pp. 449-468.

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Townsley Graham. Song Paths The Ways and Means of Yaminahua Shamanic Knowledge. In: L'Homme, 1993, tome 33 n126-128. pp. 449-468.

doi : 10.3406/hom.1993.369649

http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/hom_0439-4216_1993_num_33_126_369649
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/author/auteur_hom_7608http://dx.doi.org/10.3406/hom.1993.369649http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/hom_0439-4216_1993_num_33_126_369649http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/hom_0439-4216_1993_num_33_126_369649http://dx.doi.org/10.3406/hom.1993.369649http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/author/auteur_hom_7608


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Graham

Townsley

Song Paths

The Ways and

Means

of

Yaminahua

Shamanic

Knowledge

Graham

Townsley,

Song

Paths. The Ways and Means of Yaminahua Shamanic

Knowledge.

This

paper

examines

the nature

of shamanic

knowledge

amongst the

Yamin

ahua

f Southeastern Peru. It departs from the

observation

that Yaminahua shamanism

has

grown

and

flourished at

the same

time

as much

of its

traditional social and cultural

context has been eroded and transformed

by

the

modern

world. It

goes

on to question

the idea that shamanic

ritual should

be understood primarily

as

either expressive or

communicative

of

anything

like a

symbolic structure

et

alone

a

traditional one. The

paper

chooses

instead to focus on shamanism as

a

set

of

techniques

for

constructing knowl

edge

rom the

visionary experience of

shamans

in

the

course

of

their

ritual.

It

emphasizes

ways of

knowing rather than

a

system

of things

known.

It

shows how the arena

of

thought

in

which shamanism

operates is constructed through certain core Yaminahua

concepts about persons,

spirits

and the non-human world. The paper

then

analyzes the

songs and elaborate song-metaphors through which

shamans

claim to bind

these

together.

Yaminahua shamanism, like shamanism everywhere, claims

for itself

a

host of

extraordinary powers to cure and

kill.

All

of

these claims, howe

ver,

rest on

a prior one: shamans understand things

in

a

way

that

other people

just

do not. They understand

them

better

and

more

profoundly.

They really know (tapiakoi),

they

see (ooiki).

The

idea of

this

paper is to take

this

claim

seriously

and,

without diving

immediately

into

familiar

anthropological

discourses

of

ritual and symbolism,

ask

what, exactly, this knowledge might be

like.

It is an attempt, then, to deal with some of the paradoxes

which

have always

confronted anthropologists when

trying

to go

beyond

a mere catalogue of beliefs,

songs and ritual actions to

search

for

a

cogent rationale which could reasonably

link these

things

together, not merely

in

the analytical space

of

the symbolic

structure but also in the space of real

acts

of cognition or

understanding

by

the subjects

who perform them;

something, in short,

which might correspond

to the idea of knowing.

The

most

obvious and accessible

parts of

shamanic knowledge

are

the

relatively

standardized

discourses

of

tradition

in

which shamans tend to be experts:

L'Homme

126-128, avr.-dc. 1993,

XXXIII (2-4), pp. 449-468.


3/21

450 GRAHAM TOWNSLEY

mythology, the various categories and beings of the

spirit

world and

cosmos. Not surprisingly these have been seized upon by

ethnographers.

This

is a recognizable form of knowledge, at least

in

the sense of a cultural invent

oryf

meanings.

It

is relatively systematic, it can be learnt, it

can

be explained

and, when

analyzed

as symbol systems, can in different

ways be

seen to reflect

social categories

and

salient aspects of social ideology.

There is now a growing body

of

literature

on

Amazonian

shamanism

which

has

done

just

this, showing how shamanism is bound up with cultural

constructions

of

the body, society and the natural

world,

and how it

is

symbolica

llyinked to

ideologies of

hunting,

warfare

and other features

of its traditional

setting.

Now

although shamanism obviously

is, in some

way, a construct

of

the

social

worlds

and ideologies

in

which it participates, and these analyses

have

shown exactly how this is so,

the

view of shamanism'

rationale

that

has inevitably

tended to emerge is the

classical

one of ritual action as the

mise

en scne of

established,

traditional

discourses

of meaning and

order,

and their

communication to

other

ritual actors.

This

view

runs into

numerous

problems.

The

first

and most obvious

derives

from the simple observation

that

in the face of the tide of

colonialism which

has

been overwhelming native societies for

a

very

long

time now in Amazonia,

traditional

native discourses

of meaning and order, whatever we might

imagine

these

to

have

been (and it

seems

clear

that

they

were never as

stable,

static

and

bounded

as anthropology has tended to present them), are being

brutally

and

profoundly transformed. Nevertheless,

shamanism thrives and grows. If

we have an idea of

shamanism

as too

radically

bound up in its

traditional

setting

and

stable sets of cultural

meanings,

we

are faced

with

the paradox that while

these traditional settings

are disappearing

and, in many cases,

traditional

meanings

abandoned

wholesale, shamanism

persists and even flourishes. The

remarkable efflorescence of shamanism in the interstices between indigenous

and

non-indigenous

worlds and,

for

instance,

in urban

centres

throughout Peru,

is ample

testimony

to its adaptability and capacity to

operate

free

of

these

traditional settings.

The Yaminahua

are a

case

in point. Contacts with Peruvians and

missionaries have profoundly

re-orientated their social life

and,

inevitably, their

understanding

of

the world

around

them.

Even

though

most Yaminahua

groups

were only

contacted

in

the last

30-40

years, a world without these modern

foreigners is already

inconceivable

to

them.

It is now over 100

years since

the

Amazonian rubber

boom brought the first non-indigenous populations to

their territory. Since that time the Yaminahua population

has

been more than

halved by the combined

effects of epidemics

and

violence.

Their local groups

have been

fragmented and dispersed.

They have been

displaced from

their

traditional territories in the headwaters of the Yurua river and have spread

out

into

a

large

area

of the

Brazilian

and

Peruvian

Purus

where

almost

all

now live in some sort

of

contact with mestizo populations and missionaries.


4/21

Yaminahua Shamanic Knowledge 451

Many

Yaminahua

men

are periodically involved in some

form

of paid labour,

and the western goods they receive

as

a

result

are an

integral

part

of

their economy.

These events

have inevitably

transformed not only the internal fabric

of

their

communities but

also

the discourses of meaning and

structure which

formerly

bound

all aspects of the

human

and

non-human

worlds

together

in

a dual,

totemic organization. Their

traditional

moiety

organization has effectively

disappeared and much

of

their

ritual organization

along with

it.

Former

political

systems,

so closely

tied to symbolic and

ritual

forms,

are also undergoing a process

of atomization as the authority of village headmen and elders,

along

with the

values

they represent,

are

progressively eroded by involvement in the modern

world.

Yet, paradoxically,

Yaminahua

shamans and shamanism

have

not only

survived in

this present-day

context of

rapid

social change, they have

done

rather

well from it. Traditionally, it

seems that

they

were

excluded

from political power

in the community.

The

roles of headman (diyaiwo) and

shaman

(yown) were

clearly distinguished and never occupied by the same person. With the decline

of

the

old

political

organization

there

has

been a

noticeable

tendency

for

shamans

to take

on

the role of headman

so that

these

spheres

of

activity are

tending to

be

merged.

One factor contributing to

this

has

been

the success of shamans as brokers

between the

Yaminahua

and the

non-indigenous

world. Shamanism is probably

the only

aspect of native

culture which

is

valued and

supported

by

non-native

society.

The

mestizo world is both horrified

and

fascinated

by the primitive-

ness

of

Indians.

It

constructs them as

animal-like

and close to be the forces

of nature.

The

corollary

of

this

construction is the

belief

that Indians control

strange powers

of

the forest. Many segments

of

mestizo society

have

a

fervent

belief

in

the supernatural and

have

frequent

recourse

to Yaminahua shamans

in

order to cure

illnesses,

help

them in

their love affairs and dispose

of

their

enemies.

Shamanism thus receives a certain positive support from the non-

indigenous world and is probably the only aspect

of

their culture to do so.

There are other sociological reasons for the persistence and growth of Yamin

ahua

hamanism in

this transformed setting, but

these fall beyond

the scope

of

this

paper.

The

important point

here

is

that

all

this

leads

us

to

re-question

the

idea that

what

shamanism

is really about is the manipulation and communication

of traditional

meanings bound to a

traditional social

order. This is even

truer

given the fact that the artifacts

of

modernity outboard

motors, radios,

shot

guns and the like

now

thoroughly permeate shamanic imagery,

just

as they

do

the

real

lives of the Yaminahua. In fact Yaminahua shamanism has shown an

almost infinite capacity to absorb and accommodate imagery and

ideas

from

the

non-indigenous

world,

re-fashion them

and build them into the core of its

own practice.

This creativity

and radical

openness

to the

new

leads

us

back to the theme

of

knowledge.

If

shamanic knowledge

is

not

only

knowledge

of

already

constituted discourses

of

meaning, then

what

type of

knowing is it?


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452

GRAHAM

TOWNSLEY

In

this paper I

want

to look more closely at Yaminahua

ideas

of knowledge

and, finally, at the ways

in

which shamans construct meanings from the actual

experience of

their ritual. Although it

will first

be

necessary

to discuss

some

of

the basic Yaminahua ideas about the constitution

of

the world which provide

the framework for shamanism

and attribute

particular

significances

to its

experiences,

my focus will, in the end, be upon its practice.

The

central idea

of

the paper is that Yaminahua

shamanism

cannot be defined by a clearly

constituted discourse of beliefs,

symbols

or meanings. It is

not a

system of

knowledge or facts

known,

but rather an

ensemble

of

techniques

for

knowing.

It

is not a constituted

discourse

but a way

of

constituting one.

Chief

amongst

these ways and techniques of knowledge are those of

song.

Yoshi

The

central image dominating the whole field

of

Yaminahua

shamanic

knowl

edge is

that

of yoshi

spirit or

animate essence.

In

Yaminahua thought all

things

in the world

are animated

and

given

their particular qualities

by

yoshi.

Shamanic knowledge is,

above all,

knowledge of these entities, which are also

the sources

of all

the powers that

shamanism

claims

for

itself.

Everything

about

the domain of yoshi is marked

by

an

extreme

ambiguity

not only

for

the

outside

observer, but

for

the

Yaminahua themselves.

For

most

Yaminahua they are

things associated

with the night, the

half-seen

and

dreams.

They

are called upon to

explain

a host

of

events that seem uncanny,

strange or

coincidental.

However, their significance

goes

far

beyond

this; they

are implicated

in all the

literally

vital questions of human existence: birth, growth,

illness

and

death.

For

humans

too are animated by

yoshi, entities

just

like

the essences of other things, which grow with the body

through

life and

finally

cause

its death by leaving it and travelling to the

land of

the dead.

The

relation

ship

f

the yoshi to the body

in life is

a

tenuous

one.

It is said

to

wander

and be subject to the influences of other yoshi. It is these influences which

are used

to

explain

all illness and constitute the field of shamanic activity.

The

basic parameters of shamanic knowledge are thus formed around

this

highly ambiguous

relationship of animate essences

and bodies. The

source

of the ambiguity is

that

while yoshi

are very

much

a part

of nature

and

the

bodies they animate, they are at the same time quite beyond them, in

a

realm

where even

the yoshi of trees and insects live

intelligent,

volitional lives.

All bodies are suffused with their yoshi and the logic

of

most

dietary

restrictions is formed by this

simple

idea.

Thus

pregnant

women

should not

eat any

fish that

hides itself in

palisades

or any animal

that

lives in the ground,

because these

characteristics and

ways of

behaviour are

contained in some

essential form in their flesh, would be communicated to the

woman by

eating

them,

and

make

her

childbirth

a

difficult

one.

Jaguars

and

anacondas

should

never be

eaten

by

anybody

but shamans because their

yoshi

are too strong .


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Apprentice

shamans learning to

sing must

not

eat animals

that are

mute

but

are

obliged to eat songbirds, whose

flesh will

give

them

their

voices. For

the

Yaminahua, it is the reality of yoshi which transforms relationships that

for

us are ones of metaphor and analogy between

unrelated

domains into substantive

connections which

can

be

worked

upon to

actually

transform the state

of

things.

In one

way,

then,

a

yoshi is

simply

all the empirical characteristics of the

thing with

which it

is

associated,

hypostatized and raised to the

status

of some

independent being an essence. This at least accounts for the very high

degree

of empirical

knowing involved

in

shamanism.

To

know the

yoshi of

somet

hing is to know in

detail

the

appearance, behaviour and

characteristics of the

thing it animates. This fine-tuned empiricism is evident

throughout

shamanic

practice and

in

the

shamanic

songs to be discussed later.

But Yoshi are

much

more

than

this. They also have an

intelligent,

volitional

existence in

a

supra-sensory

realm.

It

is this fact which,

for

the

Yaminahua,

makes them

so

hard to know.

The only

established discourse

about this

realm

is that of mythology.

The

creation myths which

tell

how, out of the original

chaotic flux

of

the time

of

dawnings , the things

of

this world came to be,

are not simply

regarded

by shamans as tales

of some

distant past.

The

powerf

ullux

of

the

time

of dawnings is regarded as in

some

senses still present

in the

spirit

world. It is precisely these mythical,

transformational

powers with

which yoshi are

charged

and that shamans

see

themselves as tapping. Origin

myths are seen

as

providing

paths

into this

spirit

world

and

true

accounts

of

the nature

of

yoshi.

This

is

why

shamans

will

sometimes chant origin myths,

transformed into

the elliptical

language

of shamanic

song,

because these

are

the paths which take you to

a

yoshi .

The

Yaminahua are only

too

aware

of

the extreme

ambiguities

and paradoxes

surrounding

yoshi. All accounts

of

them stress their mutability and the

fundamental difficulty of knowing

them.

As

a

shaman, who

like

all

shamans claims to

see

and

deal with them

directly, said to

me:

You never really know yoshi

they

are

like

something

you recognize

and

at

the

same

time they are

different

ike when I see

Jaguar

there

is something about him like a jaguar, but perhaps something like a man

too

and

he

changes

...

For

the

Yaminahua

there

is

no

possible

unitary

description

of

a.

yoshi.

They are

always

like and

not

like ,

the same

but

different .

This profound

duality

marks not

only

all accounts of them

but is reflected

in all

shamanic and ritual

dealings

with them.

As I will

discuss

later in

this paper,

these

are consciously and

deliberately

constructed

in

an

elliptical and multi-referential fashion

so

as to mirror the

refractory

nature of

the beings who are their objects.

As far as the Yaminahua

are

concerned, the key to the nature of this

yoshi-

world is the dream.

Dreams, of course,

are precisely

understood

as the

wanderings of

the human

yoshi in

this ordinarily

unperceived world.

Perhaps

the

best

image

we can

have

of the

way

they

view

their

knowledge

of

this

world

is the one the Yaminahua use themselves when they refer to both myths and


7/21

454

GRAHAM

TOWNSLEY

shamanic songs as paths (wai). These are the hunting paths which

radiate

out

from

every

Yaminahua village

into

the vast

surrounding

forest. Near the

village

the

paths

are

open, wide and

well-trodden.

These

are

the myths, the

shidipaowo wai, the

paths

of the old ones who

went

before ,

transitted

by

everyone and well known.

These

paths, however, soon

become smaller

ones, often only

known to the

one or two hunters

who

use them, which thread their

way deep into

the recesses

of the forest. These

are

the songs. As

a

hunter walks along these paths in

search of game, very little is revealed to him directly. He relies on signs: tracks,

the

chewed

remains

of

jungle fruits, droppings,

smells

and, above all, sounds,

as the

only

indications of the

presence

of game. Usually, until the

very last

moment, this remains hidden from him in the shadowy depths of the

forest.

Finally,

his

only way

of

locating

it is

by

calling. Hunters

imitate

the

calls of

their prey with remarkable

accuracy

and it is only

through this

imitation

that game

animals

can be

made

to

reveal

themselves by responding.

This

mimicking,

through which

humans momentarily gain control over the

non-human

by

becoming

like

it,

thus creating a shared space of communication,

is precisely the goal of the shaman's

song.

My songs are

paths

said

a

shaman,

Some

take

me

a short

way

some take

me

a long way I make

them

straight

and I walk down them look

about me

as I go not a thing escapes my

notice

call but I

stay on

the

path.

The

image

of

the hunter on

his

path sums up perfectly the

types of

knowl

edge

shamans

use,

and

their

context.

Firstly,

the

vast

and

detailed

empirical

knowledge; the

understanding,

achieved by

constant

practice,

of

the

things of

the forest, their forms, colours, sounds, habits, the places they frequent and

the foods they eat. Secondly, the knowledge of signs; the

ways

to interpret

the traces

left

by things that rarely

reveal

themselves directly (the

interpretation

of dreams

and visions

is

a

fascinating

and

vast topic

which

I

will not

treat

here, but it is worth mentioning

that beyond

the direct

communications

shamans

claim from yoshi, they

also

interpret all aspects of their

visions

movements,

colours, formal distortions as indirect, coded communications). Finally,

shamanism is also knowledge

of

the

paths,

the myths

and,

above all, the songs.

Knowing

Given

that shamanic knowledge,

beyond its empirical

and mythic content,

is constituted as

a

set of

ideas

and techniques

related primarily

to dreams,

controlled hallucinations and

all that

a European would call the

imaginary,

it seems important to consider the Yaminahua

model

of cognition which

frames

this knowledge and gives it its

particular

weight. One

of

the

keys

to this knowl

edge

and, more widely, the whole question of the so-called primitive

mind

which

shamanism

has

so

often

been

taken

to

exemplify, seems

to

me

to

lie

exactly in an image of the

person and

knowing subject which,

paradoxically,


8/21

Yaminahua Shamanic Knowledge

455

has no place

for

a

mind and associates

mental events with

animate essences

which can

drift

free from bodies and mingle

with

the

world,

participating

in

it

much

more intimately

than

any

conventional

notion

of

mind

would allow.

The

person, in Yaminahua

thought,

has

three

significant components: one

of

which is physical, the body or flesh

(yora),

and the

other

two

of

which are

non-physical the

diawaka

and the wroyoshi.

It

is

this

latter which is a yoshi

of

the same

type

as those

of other

things

in

the world. The former is somet

hing

possessed only

by

humans.

Both

the diawaka and the

wroyoshi

are present in

germinal

form in or

around

the body at

birth,

grow

with

it

throughout

life and finally leave it at

death.

The wroyoshi,

always prone to wanderings away from the body

and

promiscuous minglings

with

the

non-human, actually

causes death by its final

flight

to the

land

of the

dead.

It

becomes

one

of the

bai

iri

yoshiwo

(flood-

land-spirit-people),

who live eternally beyond the edge

of

the world ,

where

the

water

comes

from

and have little interest in the living. Their land is

beautiful

(sharakoin) fragrant

fini)

and they cannot

stand

the

stench of

this

one,

where

everything

rots and decays. The

diawaka on the

other hand,

after death clings to the

flesh

and the human

world. It is

said to be grief

stricken, disorientated

and highly

dangerous.

The

form

of

funerary rites is

largely dictated by the need to

placate

this

spirit, make

it lie

down , cool

its

anger ,

and finally banish it.

The

diawaka is the

shadow ;

the word means shadow and expresses metap

horically

the

idea

that

in

life

it

is

closely

and

continuously attached

to the

body.

The diawaka ,

said a

Yaminahua

explaining the idea, gives ideas tells me

what

to

do.

When I

think,

when I

decide

to do

something

all

that

is the dia

waka. In

a simple way, most

aspects of

everyday

consciousness,

the thoughts

and actions that make up everyday life, are considered to be the province

of

the

diawaka.

It

is the seat of intentional thinking and reflection.

Clear thought,

speech and action are

all

considered to be

manifestations of

the diawaka. In

ways

too

complex to explore

here, it

is the source of all that is distinctively social

and human. It is

associated

with the names that place every Yaminahua in

a

determinate position in the kinship

order.

Just as these names

are

reproduced

according

to

fixed

rules in

every

second

generation, so

every

Yaminahua

is

considered

in

certain important ways to be the

reincarnated diawaka of

a

parti

cular

grandparent. As the representation of death makes clear, the diawaka

clings

to the human world. Above all, it is the bearer

of

language, and

in

funerary rites is

addressed, cajoled

and

pleaded with in

ordinary language.

All this is

in absolute

contrast to the wroyoshi, an entity which is, perhaps,

much

closer to

a

European idea of

soul.

It is

a person's vital

essence,

the

thing

that animates and gives life. Without the wroyoshi , the same Yamin

ahua

xplained to me, this body is

just

meat. It is the wroyoshi

that causes

death by

finally abandoning

the body and travelling to the

land of

the

dead. I

say

finally because

unlike

the

diawaka

the

connection

of the

wroyoshi

to

the body in life is

tenuous. It

is said to wander

and be

subject to

a host

of


9/21

456

GRAHAM

TOWNSLEY

influences

of which the

person's

ordinary

waking

consciousness (the diawakd)

is unaware.

Dream

and hallucination are proof positive

of

these

wanderings

of the

wroyoshi,

wanderings in

which it

comes into contact

with

other animate

essences. It is these contacts

which are thought to be the root cause

of all

illness and

much serious

misfortune. The

wroyoshi'

s association with dream

and hallucination, whose visions are taken to be those

of

the errant wroyoshi

itself,

are clear

evidence of

its nature as something

more

than an abstract vital

essence.

Like the

diawaka,

the wroyoshi

has

a role

in

conciousness. The

wroyoshi

(literally eye spirit), the Yaminahua

say,

is

what

sees ,

and,

by

extension, feels. It is

perception.

In their

notion of

the person, therefore, the Yaminahua

have

a simple tr

ip rtite schema:

a body; a social, human

self

associated with

reason

and

language;

an

animate, perceiving

self

which

is

neither

so

social

nor

human,

mingling

easily

with the non-human yoshi who are beings

of

the same type.

It

can

be

seen,

then, how the Yaminahua have no notion of anything that would

approach

our idea of mind as an

inner

storehouse

of

meanings, thought and experience

quite separate from the world. All that is

mental

is the property of entities

which, although

closely related

to

particular

bodies,

are not

permanently

attached

to them.

It

is

through

the relationship between these two entities that the whole

arena

of

Yaminahua thought

about

the sameness and difference between the

human and

non-human

develops. And as should be clear by now, it is through

the idea

of yoshi

that the fundamental

sameness of

the human and the non-

human

takes shape, creating

the

space

for

the

animal

transformations

of the

human and the attribution

of mental

and human characteristics to

all aspects

of

nature.

This, of course,

is the arena

of

shamanism.

Of the two human

essences

it

is

the wroyoshi, the seat

of

perception,

whose

nature and

relationship

to the body is the

key

to shamanic

vision. The

diawaka

is not

in

the body but firmly

attached

to it; the metaphor

of

the shadow conveys

the idea well enough. The

wroyoshi on

the other

hand

is treated as not only

permeating the

body, but also

as an entity

which can leave,

wander, come

back

and so forth.

Whereas

everybody's wroyoshi

does this in the

course

of

dreams,

it is only

a shaman

who has

so developed

both wroyoshi and body that he

can

control

the

former's movements

and

perceptions. For

the

Yaminahua,

then, shamanism resides primarily, not

in

a

type of thinking

nor

in

a set

of

facts known, but

in

a

condition of

the body and

its perceptions.

The

physicality

of this shamanic

knowledge

is reflected in

a multitude

of

song

images

which

picture the shaman's songs and powers gestating in his belly,

coursing

in his

veins, making

his

breath

either

strong and hot or fragrant and cool.

The

point

I am developing is that shamanism is

in some

senses a logical

consequence

of

a particular

model of

the person and cognition. Like any

model

which tries

to grasp the relationship between the physical and non-physical

aspects

of

personhood,

it is permeated

by

paradox. Yet even this cursory treatment

of

it

allows

us

to

be

clear

about

some

of the

specific

paradoxes

it

creates which

generate the

space

for Yaminahua shamanism. The first is of

a

faculty of


10/21


perception

which permeates the body and at the same

time

can float free of

it.

The second

is

of

a

perceiving

and vital self, radically

mutable,

which

can

transform

itself

so

as

to participate

in

all non-human aspects of the world.

Shamanic

initiation is aimed precisely at achieving this

transformation.

There is no room

here

to go into the details of the long

and

complex procedures

of

initiation, but their goal

is conceived of as

a

radical transformation of

the

body and wroyoshi of the person. He takes on something of the essence of

other animal

species: above

all, anaconda and jaguar, the

most

powerful of

shamanic

animals. Above all,

he learns

to sing.

Singing

What

Yaminahua

shamans do,

above everything

else,

is sing. Songs

are

a

shaman's

most

highly prized

possessions,

the vehicles of his powers and the

repositories of his knowledge. They

are usually sung under

the

influence

of

a hallucinogenic brew (shori) made from lianas of the banisteriopsis family and

a

shrub, psychotria viridis.

Learning to be a shaman is learning to

sing,

to

intone

the

powerful

chant rhythms, to carefully thread

together

verbal images

couched in

the

abstruse metaphorical

language

of shamanic

song, and

follow

them. A song is a path you

make

it

straight

and clean then you

walk

along

it.

What a shaman

actually does when

he

cures is sing.

His

singing will

be

intermittently accompanied by

the

blowing

of tobacco smoke on the patient

or

a

more rapid, vigorous

and

staccato

blowing

onto the

crown

of the patient's

head, but the effective healing

power

is thought to originate in the

song.

The

blowing

effects

a sort

of

physical

transfer of

the meaning and

power of

the

song

into

the

patient.

The word

koshuiti has

its

roots in

an

onomatopeia:

kosh - kosh - kosh as an imitation

of

that

controlled, staccato

blowing sound.

The

association

of

different

types of

breathing

with shamanic action is

a central

one. Thus in contrast to koshuiti we have shooiti, witchcraft songs, also an

onomatopeia: shoo - shoo - shoo as an imitation of the powerful, prolonged

breath which will

blow

away

its

victim's

soul.

The

power

of

a

shaman's

breath is

seen as the foremost

sign of his

bodily

transformation.

One

of

the

reasons dolphins are feared as

shamans

is

that

they unmistakably breath in

these powerful

shamanic

ways.

Although these songs are usually sung under the

influence of

shori,

I

was

told on

a number

of occasions that the koshuiti of

a

really good

shaman would

be

effective

even

without

the

drug. Nevertheless, shori

and

shamanic

song

are inextricably

bound up together. It is shori that is always

considered

to

give primary access to the world

of

animate

essences.

Mot Yaminahua men

take shori regularly

and they

all

sing to the

yoshi

visions which the

drug

induces.

The

songs

they

sing,

however,

are not

koshuiti',

they

are

called

rabiai

and have

a different form,

language

and

intention. They

are sung

in

ordinary,


11/21

458

GRAHAM TOWNSLEY

everyday speech.

They

are

intended

to stimulate and

clarify

the visions

of

the

yoshi

from

which knowledge might

be gained but they

are

not

credited

with

any

magical

efficacy.

Koshuiti on the other hand are thought to have real

efficacy

and are only

sung

by

shamans.

As already

mentioned, their

language

is made up

of

metaphoric

circumlocutions

or

unusual

words

for

common things which are

either archaic or

borrowed

from neighbouring languages.

Each

song is defined

by a

core constellation of these metaphors. Songs do not have fixed and

invariant texts although, particularly in the

case

of songs constructed from myths,

they may

have

a

minimally

fixed

narrative

sequence

of metaphors

and

images.

Beyond

this, the

actual

performance of

a song

is dictated

by

the skill,

intentions and particular visionary experience of the

shaman

who is singing

it.

Shamans are certainly aware

of

this element

of

individuality

in

the

performance

of

songs and, indeed, are proud

of

it. They also create new songs

and

invent fresh

metaphors,

as

is

obviously

the case

with

those to

airplanes,

outboard

motors and

so

forth. Nevertheless, they do not view

even

these

modern songs as a totally personal creation. In

fact,

they are

adamant

that

the songs are not ultimately

created

or

owned

by

them

at all, but by the

yoshi

themselves, who show or

give

their songs, with their attendant powers,

to those shamans

good

enough to

receive

them. Thus,

for instance, in

their

portrayal

of the

process

of initiation, it is the yoshi

who

teach and

bestow

powers

on the initiate; other shamans only facilitate the process and prepare the initiate,

clean

him

out ,

so

as

to receive these spirit

powers.

The

songs

are

metaphoric in

two

distinct ways. They make

very

little direct

reference

to the illness

or

to the real

situation which

the

song

is

intended

to

influence.

Instead,

they create elaborate analogies to it. Confronted

by

an

illness,

a shaman sings a song to the moon, to an animal, or perhaps chants

a

myth.

This

is

the

first way in

which

these

songs are

metaphoric:

the

overall

form of the song as

a

whole is

constituted by

an extended

analogy

to the

real

context of the songs performance.

The

creation of these types of extended analogy has, of

course,

been noted

by many

studying

ritual chants and

other

speech

forms

thought to

have magical

efficacy. This

pervasive

use

of

analogy

in

magical

formulas

has

commonly

been

analyzed in

terms

of

the ritual

specialist's intent

to communicate

important

messages to

other

ritual

performers,

messages

which will

be made all the more

persuasive

for

being embedded in metaphors and symbols

loaded

with cultural

resonance.

Thus

Tambiah argued

that the

performance of

these

types of

ritual

metaphor served

to restructure and integrate the

minds

and emotions of other

actors in the ritual, directing them to certain perceptions and persuading them

of the truth of certain proper

attitudes

(Tambiah 1968).

Similarly,

in

a

study much

closer in its ethnographic content to the present

case, Lvi-Strauss

analyzed

the chant

of

a Cuna

shaman in

terms

of

an

elaborate

metaphoric

communication

from

shaman

to

patient.

The

patient

in

this

case

was a woman

suffering in

a

difficult childbirth,

and

Lvi-Strauss showed how


12/21


the shaman's song

built up

a mythic narrative which

could

be read as an extended

analogy

to the woman's condition and the

process

of

childbirth.

His idea

was

that, comparable

in

some

respects

to psychoanalytic procedures, the provision

of

alternative

frames of reference

through

which the patient could view his

or her

experience could restructure

that

experience

and

of

itself produce the

cure .

Both

the classical approaches above

proceed

from perceptive and,

it

seems

to me, essentially correct observations about the communicative capacities

of

metaphor to the inference that the motivating rationale for their

performance

is the communication

of

important

cultural truths

to

other

ritual actors.

Although this

inference

might

seem reasonable,

and

is possibly true in other

cases, it is

certainly

not

so

here.

Lvi-Strauss was undoubtedly

correct

to view the song

as

an extended analogy

to the woman's condition

n

the Yaminahua

song

which I

will

discuss later

this

type of

analogic structure is very obvious.

However,

at least

in

the Yamin

ahua

ase, the idea that this use of

analogy

has its rationale in the intent to

change the

patient's

consciousness runs

counter

to the whole

rationale

of

shamani

ractice which, as we shall see, is intented to

construct a

particular

type

of

visionary experience in the

shaman himself

and a communication, not with

other

humans,

but

with

the non-human

yoshi

who populate that

visionary experience.

The clue to

this

is

given

by the fact

that most

Yaminahua

can

barely understand

the songs. Many

shamanic

songs are almost totally incomprehensible to all

but

other

shamans.

The

reason

for

this

is

the

extensive use

of the other

mode

of

metaphorization mentioned. The actual language

of

the song, used to build

up the overall

analogy,

is itself densely

metaphoric. Almost nothing

in these

songs is referred to

by

its normal name.

The

abstrusest metaphoric circum

locutions are used

instead.

For

example,

night becomes swift tapirs , the

forest becomes cultivated peanuts , fish are peccaries , jaguars are baskets ,

anacondas are hammocks and

so

forth.

Most Yaminahua are at a loss to

understand the

sense

of these esoteric metaphors.

The question

of

the

types

and modes

of

communication

between

shaman

and

patient

is

a

highly complex one. To be treated

properly

it would require

an account

of

the

whole

night-long

ritual

which

is

the

context

for

the

performance

of

the

songs, complete with

the

effects created both

directly and indirectly by

its asides,

comments

and

dramatic

swings from the blazing intensity of the singing

to the

delirious

good humour

of

the joking which intersperses it.

Obviously,

patients are moved

in

some way by

all this,

by the heightened

experience of

themselves

as

afflicted and by the dramatic

efforts of

the shaman to cure

them. Many patients also

understand

something

of

the

songs,

some

of

which

could probably be decoded

by most

Yaminahua without much effort, as the

examples

to be

discussed

later

should

make clear.

However the question which interests

me

here is the motivation of song

and

song

imagery

for

the

Yaminahua

themselves.

This

clearly

runs

counter

to

any

simple idea about the communication

of

cultural texts to

other

ritual


13/21

460

GRAHAM TOWNSLEY

performers.

Whatever

it is that other actors

understand,

it is not such texts,

facts or

truths,

which would

all

be communicated

much better if

patients and

others

could

follow

the imagery of the

songs

clearly. They

can

seldom do

this. In the course of trying to

understand a number

of the songs I had recorded,

I

could

often find no non-shaman,

even

among apprentice shamans,

who could

make the slightest sense

of

them.

The

important thing,

emphasized by

all

shamans, is that none

of

the things

referred to in the

song should

be referred to

by

their proper names. One

might

assume that these circumlocutions were not consciously metaphoric usages at

all, but culturally

fixed

equivalents which

were learnt

and employed automatically

with

no

awareness

of

their metaphoric content. This is certainly not so. In

every instance

the metaphoric

logic of these

song words

could

be explained

with

no

hesitation.

In every

case

the

basic

sense

of

these

usages

was

carried

by

finely observed

perceptual resemblances

between

the song-word and its

referent. Thus fish

become

white-collared peccaries because of the

resemblance

of

a fish's gill to the

white

dashes

on

this

type of

peccary's neck;

jaguars

become

baskets because the

fibers

of this

particular type of

loose-

woven basket

(wonati)

form

a

pattern precisely similar to

a

jaguar s

markings,

rain becomes big

cold

lean-to

because

the slanting sheets

of

rain in a down

pour resemble the slanting roofs

of

the lean-to's which the

Yaminahua build

for shelter when they

are

away from the

village.

Shamans are

clearly aware of the underlying

sense

of

their koshuiti metaphors

and

refer

to them

as

tsai

yoshtoyoshto

twisted

language

(literally:

language-

twisting-twisting). But why

do they

use them? All

explanations

clearly

indicated that

these

were

associated with

the clarity of visionary experience

which

the songs

were intended

to

create.

With

my koshuiti I

want to

see

singing,

I carefully examine things

twisted

language brings

me

close but not

too

close

with normal words I

would crash

into things

with

twisted

ones I circle

around

them

I

can

see them

clearly.

There

is

a

complex representation of the use of

metaphor

and its

capacity

to create immediate

and

precise images, contained within these

simple

words. Everything said

about

shamanic songs points to the fact that as they

are

sung

the

shaman

actively

visualizes

the

images

referred to

by

the

external

analogy

of

the song, but that he

does

this through a carefully

controlled

seeings the

different

things

actually

named by the internal metaphors

of his song.

This

seeing

as

in some way

creates a space in which powerful visionary

exper

ience can occur. It is in this visionary experience that the magical efficacy

of

the song is thought to lie. The song is the

path

which

he

both

makes

and

follows. It sustains

and

directs his vision.

Whether

or

not the patient can

understand the song is irrelevant to its efficacity as far as he is

concerned.

At this point

it would

be useful to consider an example of

a

shamanic

cure

which

will

show how koshuiti and their metaphors are combined. Below is a

transcription

of

a

koshuiti sung

to

cure

a

woman

who

had

given

birth

two days

earlier and was continuing

to lose blood. She

appeared

to be

haemorrhaging.


14/21

Yaminahua Shamanic

Knowledge

461

For

about

half an hour the

shaman

sang to

himself

and to

his yoshi helpers, calling

their songs to him

( It's

not me who cures

it's

them I

call

them they

come and sit

by me

show

me what

to

do ).

These

introductory

songs are

full of phrase

sequences such as: Here

I

am pushing

in My

shaman song

I will

go spilling them Perfect first shamans Their songs filling my mouth

From

the

sky's

end

Filling my

mouth

Seeing everything I go

What

foreign yoshi

here?

Like all koshuiti they have

a

declamatory style, stating

facts, declaring

the songs

beauty

and

power ( my decorated song , my

swift

song , my perfumed song , etc.), the ways

he is

releasing

them

into the

world

and onto his

patient

( spilling them , painting them , lining them up ,

etc.),

declaring the

shaman's

vision and imposing the

truth

of

what

he is, or will

be,

doing. They are chanted in

a

simple, monotonous and repetitive melodic phrase

mirroring

the short and

grammatically

condensed

phrases of

the

song.

The

incessant

and monotonous regularity

of

the

rhythm of

the song, along with the

repetitions

of its

declamatory phrases,

have

an important function

in sustaining

the

trance-like

state of the

shaman

and his visions.

Then,

with the woman lying in front of him in a hammock, he began to

sing

a song to the moon over

her.

There

are, of

course, important

mythic

precedents

linking

the moon to menstrual blood and all things related to reproduction and

birth.

Most

importantly, there is

a central

myth recounting

the origins

of

the

moon and fertility. This myth is common throughout Amazonia. It tells how

the moon was originally an

incestuous

brother. Hidden

by

the night he would

creep

into

his

sister's

hammock

and

make love

to

her.

To

find

out who

he

was,

she smeared dark, genipa dye on the face

of

her anonymous lover.

When,

next

day,

she saw

the

marks on her

brother's face,

a train

of

events was

set in motion

which

culminated

with the brother

being

decapitated in

a

hunting

raid.

Converted

into a monstrous rolling

head ,

begging

for

food and water which he cannot

digest, the brother is

rejected by

his relatives. Cursed

for his insatiable

appetites,

he rises into the sky to become the moon,

vowing

that he will

continue

to

make

love

to women. Still with the dark blotches smeared on his face

by

his sister,

it is Moon who makes women fertile

by

making love to them at night. Since

he

ejaculates

not semen but blood, they

also

bleed.

The Shaman

sang:

Dawning people

dtdawawo

Becoming

used to

being iwodiwo

wawra

Inside

dawning hunting-blind dtshowo mrasho

Woman,

young woman wado shawaw

Swift dark tapirs

chshe awa

sbeai

Her flesh-blood person came aw yora wawkai

Beside

her the man takdika

odiwa

Touched uterus there a dati meki

Here,

I

am

going

to

watch

it

e

ddo

onano

Pungent tapir standing asho awa

didya

Went gathering it wiwitai

akasho


15/21

462 GRAHAM TOWNSLEY

Pungent tapir pressing asho

awa

chiditai

What type of person? aw dawa wkai

Touched

my uterus?

a dati ma

Swift tapirs coming

chsh

awa

wsowi

That flesh-blood man

owa

odi yorawo

There coming creeping ado kambebakai

There touching her uterus ado dati mki

That

dawning person

owa

dtdawawo

His

face there aw wso kayan

Pungent tapir water asho

awa

dpa

Smearing there

ado

kamwashatai

This, of course, is the

opening

section

of

the myth mentioned above, describing

the

incest

and

the discovery of

the

brother's

identity.

It

is

couched

in

the

twisted

language of koshuiti, in which house becomes hunting

blind ,

night

becomes

swift dark tapirs , Genipa

becomes

pungent

tapir ,

etc.

In

this fashion the

shaman

sang the whole myth from

beginning

to

end

which, with all its

detail

and

the repetitions of its phrases, took

about

half an

hour.

It ended with the

shaman

singing over and over again

phrases

such

as

I have

seen

it all

I am taking

it out

foreign yoshi

there

now

leaving

making

you leave

my

wonderful

song

my

shaman's song

making you

leave .

He rewitnesses the myth

by

chanting it in the

power

idiom of koshuiti and by doing

this

knows , grasps

in the

most

absolute way possible, the yoshi whose origins it recounts. He then

banishes

it.

Having

followed

this path , one

of

the wide

paths of

the shidipaowo,

he

then

set out on

another,

singing to the sun. The

transcription

below lays out

the basic phrases

of

the

song

in their sequence. Once again, in the original these

were

repeated

many

times

and frequently

broken

up

with

fragments

of

song

referring to the

shaman's

own powers,

how

he

was seeing

all

this ,

lining up

his

powers ,

his

fragrant songs and how he would spill this fragrance onto

her.

The

song begins with an image

of

sunrise

:

There height's skirt odo

man

chikan

White h eight's

skirt

osho

mana

chikan

There

at

the skirt chikanio

odowaa

The

big fire

a chii

wara

Huge ball

of fire cotton chii shapo wara

There height's small-of-back odo mana chrnao

There small-of-back

chrnao akaw

Big

cotton-ball strolling shapo wa bshowii

Comes strolling bshonatiwrakii

There with painted crown

odokam maowi

That

huge

fire a

chii wara


16/21


Ball

of fire

cotton is the

sun

and the image here is

of

the

sun

rising

above

the

horizon, metaphorically pictured

as the

waist

band

of the

woman's

skirt

with

the small of her back as the lowest

part

of the sky.

The

song then goes on to

follow the sun's path

through

the sky

in

the course

of

a whole day.

Heart

of fire cotton

ball chii

shapo

datora

Huge

fire

cotton ball shapo wa chiiraa

There height's crown

painted

odo mana maowi

Passing crown painted

maonati

wowaki

His

fire

scorching aw chii rwa

There

at

the highest

point

odo kme kadio

Fire comes looking down

chii

wkwkaki

Fire

passes

looking

down

chii

wkwoaki

During the course

of

the song

numerous

qualities

of

the

sun

are referred to,

both

empirical and

mythic. In

a

Yaminahua

myth, the

sun

was originally

much

lower and

so

hot

that it

scorched the earth and forced the ancestors to remain

in their houses. One day a small

child

wandered out and was burnt alive by

the sun.

The

furious ancestors rushed out with a long

pole

and

pushed

the sun

higher into the sky.

The

references to harming and scorching are to this

myth.

Heart

of

huge

cotton

ball

shapo

wa datora

Up there shining odo mana

yoriwa

Making things shine

yoriwawawadiwaw

Huge

fire lighting

chii wa chashadii

Huge

fire

brings

day

chii

wa pdadi

Huge

fire

cotton ball

chii

shapo

wara

His harming

fire tdteba chiiwo

His harming power

tdteba

pawo

Our people there

doko

yora wawera

His

fire

harmed awe chii

tdei

Harming is

what he did

tdikadiwaw

His

fire

made

them

hide aw chii radowi

Fire cotton

ball

shining chii

shapo

yoriba

Made everything shine

yori

badiwawra

The

song proceeds onwards to sunset which, as

we

shall see, is the central

image that links the song to the woman's

bleeding. It

returns to the image

of

the

horizon with

which it started.

This image,

the

woman's

waist,

is of

course

literally

where

the haemorrhage is

taking place.

There at

the height's skirt

Odo mana chikan

There at the skirt chikanio odowa

Cotton ball

at

the skirt

shapo

aw chikan

Fire going out Chii dokawaino

Fire cooling Chii batsiwaino


17/21

464

GRAHAM TOWNSLEY

The

crucial metaphoric link which the

song

establishes is between the woman's

blood

and the red sky

of

sunset. This often appears quite

dramatically

in the

jungle as a

band of

deep

red light

rising above the horizon referred to

in

the

song as

' 'painted cliff

'

In his

song the

shaman seeks

to establish the real identity

of the blood and the sunset, with the

result

that the

woman's bleeding

will

disappear

just as the red of

sunset

inevitably fades with the approaching night.

There the height's skirt odo

mana chikan

Painted cliff people dawa bawa kdya

It is

real

human

blood

dawa ibi kowikai

There height's

small of

back odo

mana

chrnao

Peoples

real blood dawa ibi kowikai

Comes

spreading up kyokoini

woaki

It is real human blood rawa ibi koikai

Falling on

this

earth

da

mai

pakba

Their

big

blood aw ibi nwane

Has touched the

woman's

womb wado shaki

mea

It

has

touched your womb

bia

shaki

mea

There it is

finishing

ado pashpa akano

Woman's

womb

inside

wado shaki

mradowa

Right there it is stopping ado te ahano

Real

human

blood

dawa ibi kowira

There I am

cutting

it

off ado

trasiino

There

is

a

complex

and

subtle play of images within the

song

mirroring the

progress

of

the shaman's

visionary experience. He establishes

the analogy be

tween

the woman's belly (the small of

her

back, the

band

of

her

skirt) with the

sky and then

carefully

envisions the

sun

traversing the dome

of

the sky from

sunrise

to sunset; the dome

of

the sky which

is all

the while her

belly.

In twisted

language

he enumerates all the characteristics of the sun, both empirical and mythical,

making his vision as

accurate and

complete as

possible.

Once again, his aim

is to envision the sun

so

directly, immediately and totally that he can know and

grasp it

in

some absolute

way.

Phrases

like:

Here

I am,

seeing all this seeing

everything my

beautiful

songs ,

are

constant refrains of the

songs.

Having built

up

his

vision

and grasp on

this

yoshi he pulls together the

two stands

of his analogy

to make them

one,

establishing

that

the red of the sky at

sunset

and the woman's

blood are no longer just

analogies,

they are really

connected,

metonymically linked

as parts of

the single

whole

forged by

his vision. He

thus

binds

her uncertain

condition

to an absolutely predictable

natural event so that

the fading sun

will

drag away her

bleeding

with it. His power as

a shaman

is thought to lie exactly

in

a

visionary experience intense and acute enough to be able to achieve

this

transformation.

While

the song

is

clearly aimed

at

the most

precise

and

complete

description

possible of the

spirit

being at

which it

is aimed,

it

rigorously avoids

ordinary

naming of any of the elements of

this

description.

Here, all its reference is

' twisted'

Faced with

this

complex play of metaphor we

are

obviously

directed


18/21


to

more

familiar

ideas

of

the

relationship between

word, image and the

imagination,

in

which

metaphor

and

other

tropes

play

such

a

large part.

The

idea that the split-reference characteristic of metaphor has peculiar

abilities

to

create immediate and

resonant

images is

a well

established one. As Herbert Read

wrote, A metaphor is the synthesis of

several

units

of observation into one

commanding image;

its

the expression

of

a

complex

idea, not by analysis, or by

abstract

statement,

but by

a

sudden perception

of

a.

relation

(quoted

in

Basso

1976: 98). It is, of

course,

this

ability to create and reflect images of great

complexity,

in the direct and immediate fashion of

a

creative

insight,

that has

given metaphor its central place in,

for

instance, European

poetic

traditions, as

Ricur and many others have pointed

out. It is thus

not

hard

to

see

how, by

only using

words

which

draw

attention

to the minute similitaries

between

dissimilars, the

shaman

tries to sharpen his images at the

same time

as

creating

a

space in which his visions can

develop.

His statement that normal words would

make him crash into things conveys the idea well

enough.

However,

the

whole context of thought surrounding this

metaphorizing

is

obviously

radically different from that of the poetic metaphor, both in the

degree

of

reality attributed to the

things

imaged and

in

their capacity to affect the

world. Yoshi are real beings who are both like and not like the things they

animate.

They

have no

stable or unitary nature and thus, paradoxically, the

seeing as

of twisted language is the only way of

adequately

describing

them. Metaphor here is not improper naming

but

the only proper naming

possible.

The

whole

strategy

of the song is precisely to drag these

refractory

meanings and images

of

the yoshi world out into this one and embed

them

un

mb i guou s l y in

a real body.

It is interesting in

this context that the only thing

named by

direct, as opposed

to twisted language, is the

woman's

body

itself

at the moment in which, precisely, the images of the

song are

intended to physicallycrash into

it,

effecting the

real

cure.

This

conversion of

the meaningful into the material

is, of

course,

unthinkable

from the standpoint

of

a

model of cognition

which places

all

meaning

operations

in

a

mind ,

something interior to the

person

which leaves the material

world

unaffected.

From

this

standpoint, not

even

the often mentioned idea of

illocutionary force , or of any speech act or narrative which changes the world

by redefining it or changing peoples

perception of

it,

could

possibly encompass

the sheer

physicality

of the

transformations

claimed

by shamanism.

As

mentioned

before,

from

the very

different standpoint of

the

Yaminahua

model

of cognition, the idea that

experiences

and meanings

can

be

embedded

in the non-

human world is a less problematic one.

It

is the concept

of

a

type of

perceiving

animate essence

shared by the human and the non-human

alike,

creating

for them

a

shared

space

of

interaction, which opens up this magical arena shamanism.

This formulation is, of course, only the starting

point

for the

much

more

extensive

and complex analysis which would be necessary to understand the

extremely

complex

web

of

signification in

Yaminahua

thought binding the

human


19/21

466

GRAHAM TOWNSLEY

to the non-human and the mental to the material. Nevertheless, it is this

starting

point,

emphasizing

the

cultural construction

of

the

knowing, cognizing subject,

which

I have

been interested to consider

in

this paper. This

is

congruent

with

the move away from seeing ritual as

a

mise en scne of anything like

a

symbolic

or social structure

and

the move towards

seeing

it

as

a set of

techniques for

inducing

certain

types of

experience, and asking about the

types of significance

attributed

to these experiences.

In

showing how shamanic

visions and

song-images

are

constructed

and

sequenced, how the paths

are

made and followed,

criss-crossing

the boundaries

of

the yoshi-world

of

myth and this one,

I

hope also to have shown how the

descriptions of

the

world contained in

an

Amazonian

cosmology are

actually

known

and

constructed.

This

emphasis on

the

techniques

of

knowledge

helps

us to see how such

a cosmology, far from being a

complete

and

ready-constituted

system of

things

known is, for the Yaminahua themselves, always

a

system in

the

making,

never

finished

and

always provisional. It

certainly

has stable

reference points fixed by tradition,

such as the wide paths of

the myth-songs,

however there are not very many of these and once off them, the song-paths

followed

by

shamans are multiple and

idiosyncratic. In

this context we should

pay attention to their own image of their knowledge

as

a network of

paths.

These

paths

are tenuous and impermanent, threading their

way

through a

vast

and

refractory space

of

signs

and images which, like the

forest and

the dream, offers

the occasional glimpse of

something,

but is fundamentally opaque.

Yaminahua shamans

have no

certainty about what this space

contains

and

are

always ready to discover

something new

in it. It

should not be surprising

that they have been

so

ready to embrace the experiences of the transformed

setting

of their modern-day existence. Yaminahua

shamans

have now made koshuiti

to almost all aspects of

this

world. There

are

songs to

outboard

motors (hard-

fire-baskets), good

for

curing headaches and working

on

the resemblances be

tween

the

sound

of

a distant outboard and

the throb of

a headache;

to engine

oil (fire-sun-water),

good for children's

diarrhoea and

working on

the remarka

le

imilarities

between the used oil of an outboard and

a child's

diarrhoea;

also

to airplanes, shot-guns,

cinemas, radios,

sunglasses and

much more.

When

we first

saw

these

things we

examined them

carefully, asked ourselves what their

y

os

hi

were like, and then found their song. These are viewed as

welcome

and

important additions to their

repertoire.

Like good bricoleurs, Yaminahua shamans have found

a

use for every

thing. Along with the social circumstances paradoxically favourable to

them,

it

is this creativity of Yaminahua shamanic

knowledge which

has

contributed to

its

growth

in

the modern context

of

violent

social transformation.

London School of Economics


20/21

Yaminahua Shamanic

Knowledge 461

Acknowledgements

The

fieldwork on which this

paper

is

based

was made possible

by

grants

from the SSHRC of Canada and the Horniman Foundation. Subsequent

research has been

funded

by the British Academy and the Fyssen Foundation.

I

am

pleased

to

acknowledge

the

support of these

institutions. Above all, thanks

are

due

to the Yaminahua and,

in

particular, to

Komaroa

and Raondi. I would

also

like to thank Carlo Severi, Jean-Pierre Chaumeil, Anne

Christine

Taylor

and Vigdis

Broch-Due

for their helpful

comments

on an

earlier

draft

of this

paper.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Basso, K. H.

1976

Wise

Words of the

Western

Apache , in K.

H.

Basso

& H. Selby,

eds.,

Meaning

in

Anthropology.

Albuquerque, University of New

Mexico

Press:

93-122.

Lvi-Strauss, C.

1963 The Effectiveness of Symbols , in

Structural

Anthropology. Harmondsworth, Penguin

Books.

Tambiah, S. J.

1968

The Magical

Power

of

Words ,

Man,

n.s.,

3

(2): 175-208.

RSUM

Graham

Townsley, Des

Itinraires

chants.

Formes

et

moyens

de la

connaissance

chama-

nique

yaminahua.

Cet article tudie la nature du savoir

chamanique chez

les Yaminahua

du

Prou

sud-oriental.

Constatant

que

le

chamanisme yaminahua

s'est

considrablement

dvelopp en

dpit

de l'rosion de son

contexte

socio-culturel, l'auteur met en

cause

l'inte

rprtat ion du rituel chamanique comme

moyen d'exprimer

une structure symbolique

,

a fortiori traditionnelle, prfrant aborder le

chamanisme

comme un ensemble de techni

ques our laborer une

connaissance

partir de l'exprience visionnaire du

chamane.

L'accent

est

donc mis sur le chamanisme comme manire de connatre plutt

que

comme corps de

connaissances. Enfin l'auteur montre que

l'espace de

pense

o se

dploie le chamanisme

est

construit partir de notions

cls concernant la

personne,

les

esprits

et le

monde non

humain ; il analyse

alors les

mtaphores et

les

chants

par

lesquels les chamanes disent

mett

re

n rapport

ces diffrents domaines.


21/21

468

GRAHAM

TOWNSLEY

RESUMEN

Graham

Townsley,

Itinerarios

cantados.

Formas

y

medios

del

conocimiento chamnico

yaminahua.

Este artculo estudia la naturaleza del conocimiento chamnico entre los

Yaminahua del Per sudoriental.

Constatando

el desarrollo considerable que

experimenta

el chamanismo yaminahua

a pesar

de la erosin del contexto socio-cultural, el

autor pone

en

tela de

juicio

la interpretacin del ritual chamnico como medio de expresin de una

estructura

simblica

, a

forteriori tradicional, y prefiere abordar el chamanismo como

un

conjunto

de

tcnicas

para

construir

el

conocimiento

a partir de

la experiencia visionaria

del chaman. Asi pues el chamanismo sera considerado como una manera de

conocer

mas

bien que como

un

conjunto de conocimientos.

El

autor

muestra

como el

espacio

del

pensamiento

en

el que

se despliega

el chamanismo esta construido

a partir de

nociones

claves que

conciernen

a la

persona,

los espritus y el

mundo

no

humano

; analiza las

metforas

y los cantos por medio de los cuales los chamanes creen

poner

el relacin esos diferentes

dominios.

Documents

Song Paths_the Ways and Means of Yaminahua Shamanic Knowledge