Among the most fascinating ideas to come out of the anthropology of the Amazon is the one known as Amerindian perspectivism. It is neither a religion nor a rite, but a way of describing how many Amazonian peoples think about the relationship between humans, animals and spirits. Understanding it helps to grasp the role of the shaman and the special place the jaguar holds in these cultures.
An idea born from listening
The term was made famous by the Brazilian anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, who proposed it in a series of essays in the 1990s, developing observations also shared by other scholars, such as Tânia Stolze Lima. It is not a theory invented at a desk: it arises from comparing the stories, myths and explanations of many peoples of the Amazon and neighbouring regions.
Everyone sees themselves as people
The basic idea can be summed up like this. According to many Amazonian peoples, animals and spirits see themselves as people. The jaguar, the peccary, the snake, each in its own world, lives in villages, has chiefs, holds feasts, drinks manioc beer and follows social rules, exactly as human beings do.
What changes is the point of view. An often-cited example: what to humans is blood, to the jaguar is manioc beer. What to us is a mud pool, to the tapir is a great ceremonial house. The jaguar sees itself as a man and sees human beings as prey.
In this view, humanity is not a feature exclusive to our species, but the original condition shared by all beings. Indeed, many myths tell that in the first times everyone was a person, and only later did some take on the form of the animals we know.
The body as clothing
If the soul is similar in all, what distinguishes a jaguar from a man? The answer of many Amazonian peoples is: the body. The body is not just flesh and bone, but a set of habits, abilities and ways of perceiving. It is often described as a garment or a mask that can be put on and taken off.
Hence the importance of the practices that «make» the human body: food rules, body painting, ornaments, the way children are raised. Being human is not a given of nature, but something to be built and maintained within the community.
The shaman: one who crosses points of view
In this context the shaman has a precise role. He is the person able to pass from one perspective to another: to see animals as people, to speak with them, to negotiate with the spirits who protect the game, and then to return among humans bringing back what he has learned.
It is a dangerous task. Whoever enters too deeply into another being's point of view risks being unable to come back, of becoming that being. Many stories tell of hunters who, following an animal into the forest, end up living with it and forgetting their own family. The shaman is the one who knows how to go and come back.
The jaguar and the shaman
Of all animals, the jaguar has a special place in the Amazon. It is the great predator of the forest, the being that looks at humans as prey. For this reason it is often associated with the shaman: in many Amazonian languages the words for «jaguar» and «shaman» are close or linked, and it is said that great shamans can take the form of the jaguar.
The anthropologist Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, who studied the Desana of the Colombian Amazon for many years, described the link between jaguar, shaman, power and transformation in their cosmology. The image of the jaguar-man also appears in the pre-Columbian art of several regions of South America.
Why it matters
Amazonian perspectivism has had great influence on contemporary anthropology and philosophy, because it overturns an assumption of Western culture. We tend to think that there is a single nature, the same for everyone, and many different cultures that interpret it. Many Amazonian peoples seem to think the opposite: a single culture, shared by all beings, and many different natures, that is, many bodies and many worlds.
This idea should not be taken as a uniform doctrine of all the peoples of the Amazon, who are very numerous and very different from one another. It is rather an interpretive key, born from careful listening to their words.
In short
- Amerindian perspectivism was described above all by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro.
- Animals and spirits see themselves as people: what changes is the point of view.
- The body is seen as clothing that determines perspective.
- The shaman is the one who can cross points of view and come back.
- The jaguar, the great predator, is closely associated with the figure of the shaman.
