Amerindian Socio-Cosmologies between the Andes, Amazonia and Mesoamerica: Toward an Anthropological Understanding of the Isthmo–Colombian Area (Routledge Studies in Anthropology)

"This book offers a new anthropological understanding of the socio-cosmological and ontological characteristics of the Isthmo-Colombian Area, beyond established theories for Amazonia, the Andes and Mesoamerica. It focuses on a core region that has been largely neglected by comparative anthropology in recent decades. Centering on relations between Chibchan groups and their neighbors, the contributions consider prevailing socio-cosmological principles and their relationship to Amazonian animism and Mesoamerican and Andean analogism. Classical notions of area homogeneity are reconsidered and the book formulates an overarching proposal for how to make sense of the heterogeneity of the region's indigenous groups. Drawing on original fieldwork and comparative analysis, the volume provides a valuable anthropological addition to archaeological and linguistic knowledge of the Isthmo-Colombian Area"-- Provided by publisher Social Science Cover 1 Half Title 2 Series Page 3 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Contents 6 List of figures 8 List of tables 12 List of contributors 14 Acknowledgments 16 Part I: The Isthmo–Colombian Area in context 18 1 Introduction: toward an anthropological understanding of the area between the Andes, Mesoamerica, and the Amazon 20 Part II: Conceptualizing the Isthmo–Colombian Area from a regional comparative perspective 52 2 An Amerindian humanism: order and transformation in Chibchan universes 54 3 Languages of the Isthmo–Colombian Area and its southeastern borderland: Chibchan, Chocoan, Yukpa, and Wayuunaiki 78 4 Kinship, clanship, and hierarchy in the Isthmo–Colombian Area 105 5 Between Mesoamerica, the Central Andes, and Amazonia: area conceptions, chronologies, and history 140 6 The golden ones: the human body as reflective metallic surface in the Isthmo–Colombian Area 175 Part III: Case studies: change and continuity in shamanic and priestly practices and the conception of things, humans, plants, and animals 196 7 Parents who own lives: relations and persons among the I’ku, a Chibchan group in Colombia 198 8 Tuwancha, “the One Who Knows”: specialists and specialized knowledge in transhuman communication among the Sokorpa Yukpa of the Serranía del Perijá, Colombia 222 9 The Wounaan haaihí jeeu nam ritual with the k'ugwiu: reinforcing benevolence and preventing calamity 251 10 Things, life, and humans in Guna Yala (Panama): talking about molagana and nudsugana inside and outside Guna society 274 11 Plant ontologies among the Bribri of Talamanca, Costa Rica 296 12 The place of livestock in human-non-human relationship among the Wayuu 320 13 Murderous spirits: shamanic interpretation of armed violence, suicide, and exhumation in the economy of death of the Emberá (Chocó, Antioquia, Colombia) 347 Index 362 Analogism;,Animism;,Isthmo--Colombian,Area;,Ontological,Characteristics;,Socio-cosmological,Principles Analogism,Animism,Isthmo--Colombian Area,Ontological Characteristics,Socio-cosmological Principles "This book offers a new anthropological understanding of the socio-cosmological and ontological characteristics of the Isthmo-Colombian Area, beyond established theories for Amazonia, the Andes and Mesoamerica. It focuses on a core region that has been largely neglected by comparative anthropology in recent decades. Centering on relations between Chibchan groups and their neighbors, the contributions consider prevailing socio-cosmological principles and their relationship to Amazonian animism and Mesoamerican and Andean analogism. Classical notions of area homogeneity are reconsidered and the book formulates an overarching proposal for how to make sense of the heterogeneity of the region's indigenous groups. Drawing on original fieldwork and comparative analysis, the volume provides a valuable anthropological addition to archaeological and linguistic knowledge of the Isthmo-Colombian Area"-- Prové de l'editor