A HISTORICAL MULTILEVELED

ONTOLOGY

Conviviality and the Challenge for a moral Humanity in the Amazon

London School of Economics and Political Science

Department of Anthropology
MSc in Social Anthropology

Master’s thesis
Candidate number: 67183
Word count: 9971
Abstract

Following the increasing consensus around the “Ontological Turn” within the Anthropological
debate, the amount of inquiries on Amazonian communities rapidly increased. What is probably
more striking about this shift is the repositioning of premises it introduced in our discipline, the
production of investigations regarding the Amazon inaugurated a new era for Anthropology. The
comprehension of the experiences related to those civilizations who do not share the “Western”
ontological premises has become crucial both in the development of our discipline and in the debate
around the constitution of the Moderns, namely, the distinction between Nature and Culture. The
core assertions of these new perspectives, mainly rotating around the work of Viveiros de Castro,
regard the ontological foundation of reality. The cosmological perception shared within the Amazon
postulates a common Humanity underpinning the living experience of every entity. In addition, due
to this common essence, each animal species perceives itself as human, or, in other words, the only
epistemology is the “human one”: each entity is human in its perception of the world. What
implicates the evident differences in resemblance, behaviour and perception within the animal
kingdom – including human species – is the complete and essential diversity of bodies. My argument
blossoms from this discussion but tries to make a step forward. I will argue how in terms of morality
– phrased through the concept of conviviality –, this proposal appears too dichotomous, is indeed
clear how, in some Amazonian contexts, the overarching essence of every entity, humanity, is
disposed hierarchically. I will show how, through comparison of different Amazonian communities,
Animality and Humanity rely on similar essences, but are, and this is fundamental, disposed in a
hierarchical scale: animal perspectives are a corrupted form of humanity. In addition, since the body
is the central foundation of ontology, I will argue how humanity is crafted and preserved thanks to
techniques of the body. In order to go beyond this impasse between ontological studies and more
traditional ones, I am suggesting the term historical multileveled ontology to refer to this context in
which Being appears as a horizontal, but hierarchical, array of forms of humanity, and in which
morality and behaviours form the ontology of entities. My argument will advance a theoretical
proposition that can represent a via media between the Ontological Turn and more conviviality-
centric interpretations and therefore can be a fruitful contribution to the debate on Amerindian
ontological questions and, more broadly, to the development of Anthropology after the critiques
represented by Post-Modernism.

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Table of Contents

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………….4

Chapter I: Viveiros de Castro and the Ontological Turn………………………………………………………6

I.I The Crisis of Representation…..…………………………………………………………..6

I.II The Ontological Turn…..…………………………………………………………………7

I.III Body as Being…..………………………………………………………………………..9

Chapter II: The Challenge of Conviviality......……………………………………………………………….11

II.I The Centrality of Tranquillity.….……………………………………………………….11

II.II Techniques of Humanity……………………………………………………………….13

Chapter III: An Historical Multileveled Ontology……………………………………………………………17

III.I Transformation…………………………………………………………………………17

III.II Alterity, Animality and Immorality…………………………………………………...20

Conclusions…………………………………………………………………………………………………...23

Notes………………………………………………………………………………………………………….26

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………………………..29

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 Introduction

Throughout the last three decades of the setting millennium, the field of Humanities and Social Sciences has
witnessed a crucial event, a large-scale debate leading to the deployment of a whole arsenal of critics and
objections, especially against the theoretical pillars of the previous century. Starting from the dreams of
Nihilism of the end of the XIX century and the European political tribulations, this wave of suspect and
criticism culminated with the – pompous and maybe melancholic – declaration of Post-Modernity.
Anthropology joined this debate as well. To a certain extent, this paper reclaims the legacy of those debates,
its focal point is indeed the Ontological Turn (OT from now), a trend that I like to define as “the first
anthropological Post-Post-Modern attempt”. If Post-Modernity shacked the foundation of epistemology, the
OT is the first attempt to test “new foundations” – if this expression can still be applicable. The results are
doubtlessly remarkable, but the hurry for an ontologically systematic stance overlooks ethnographic
materials and the way in which communities live their lives. This is where the present work tries to
contribute.

In reference to Amazonian communities and ontological themes, Viveiros de Castro proposed a system
which had been named Multinaturalism or Amerindian Perspectivism. His work is a first attempt – especially
in combination with similar tries (see Latour 2013) – of creating a new theoretical frame which can ground
the debates around Amazonian sociality and cosmology without falling into an – by now – easily criticisable
structure. The attempt – which is, in the first place, a rethinking of epistemology and relationality and
therefore Anthropology – has been, to a certain extent, successfully, but it operates at the expenses of the
ethnographical debate. This paper tries to conjoin the brilliant work of several scholars focused on
Amazonian communities and the ontological debate on the area. The result is a via media. If Viveiros de
Castro, quite rightly, focuses on ontological cannibalism and ontological predation, the actual way of
interpretation these communities employ takes a slightly divergent path: morality and conviviality. As I
argue, ontological cannibalism and predation are doubtlessly present threats among these communities, but
their danger, as ethnographic materials confirm, is phrased as an attack to sociality.

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It is important to notice that the issue is not just sociological, either. Irreversible transformation and
cannibalism are actually addressed as threatening possibilities in a system in which differentiation – in a
Deleuzian sense – and predation are the forms of Being. What about Multinaturalism then? To what extent
can we employ it? Evidentially, not methodically, even if the nature of the system is not systematic. This
employment has to merge with ethnography. The result of this fusion is what I attempt to expose. Among
several Amerindian communities, humanity is certainly transversal but, contra to what Viveiros de Castro
claimed, is also hierarchical. There is certainly a single epistemology but the shapes it takes diverge and
form a scale. In this scale, different entities are situated according to their moral or unmoral behaviour. At
the peak of the scale, due to their “almost perfect” sociality and ethics, humans dwell. On lower levels, due
to their immoral attitudes and their envy, animals reside. Human ontology is therefore shared but
multileveled. These unequal rungs are performative, in the sense that are productions, differentiation
occurring since mythical times due to actions and behaviours. This performative and experiential nature of
ontology suggests that the essence of Being resides not in Identity, but in Movement. Species’, as well as
single individuals’, essence are not considered arising from what they are, in a classical ontological sense,
but from what they do and how. In this sense, in light of the fact that in this context, transformation is an
endlessly present possibility, and considering that being-through-others is the form of Being, the Ontological
affirms its historical – in-becoming – nature.

The first chapter will analyse precisely these themes and the OT more generally, the second chapter will
focus on ethnographic materials regarding tranquillity and conviviality as the core elements of Amazonian
sociality, it will also concentrate of how this sociality is created and, since it is considered to form humanity,
how it is preserved. The last chapter will instead focus on transformation as the central feature both of
Mutlinaturalism and conviviality. The reasoning around the essence of Being as Transformation, and the
moral shaping it entails, will be conjoined in a new term that can reflect an onto-social and moral perception
of life: a historical multileveled ontology.

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 I

Viveiros de Castro and the Ontological Turn

I.I The Crisis of Representation

As Viveiros de Castro discussed himself (2015), there are two main aspects that introduced Post-Modernity
which, in my opinion, are two sides of the same coin: the crisis of representation and the “social” approach to
science. The stimulus relies on the crisis of representation. In the Social Sciences, this shift is represented –
among others – by the work of Lyotard (1984), and initiated a process of unbalancing the stability of the
concepts of subject, object and the relationship between the two. What started to crack is the “Myth of the
gaze”. The gaze stopped to be a means of investigation and became the source of the issue, the gaze passed
from being the guarantor of epistemology, to its first enemy. The crisis stroke both the subject-subject gaze
and the subject-object gaze. In Anthropology, this had taken two parallel tracks, the demystification of the
traditional ethnographic gaze – “the Griaule case” 1 – and the “ethnographicalisation” of Science.

The upset of the ethnographic authority – the crisis of the subject-subject gaze – refers to the ethnographical
epiphany regarding alterity as subject. This revelation – a late realisation in the post-Victorian age – entailed
an equivalence between the two alterities involved and not an evolutionist development. Interpretation
started to be considered as not the result of a gaze and a consequential investigation upon another – less
developed – subject and his/her customs, behaviours, meanings and symbols. Ethnography becomes a
dialogue, a negotiation between two points of view, a historically produced discourse which now includes
misunderstandings – a central feature of relationality (Viveiros de Castro 2004b). The concepts of knowledge
and truth vacillate. The production of knowledge ceased to be considered a “discovering” of social “facts” 2, a
triumphant unveiling of reality. It started to represent a contingent process relying upon negotiation,
interpretation and misinterpretation, related to a plurality of inquiring subjects: anthropologists but also
“natives” – who now started to be considered inquiring subjects as well. Inevitably, some corollary issues
take shape: What knowledge? What discovery?

The study of science and its temples – guarantors of the subject-object gaze – initiated a similar process on
the other side of the coin. The shaman and the scientist, the engineer and the “bricoleur” (Levi-Strauss 1996),

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all these characters started to be considered more similar in their daily crafting of truth: scientists as shamans
and conversely. Most famously, the objectivity of the world and the role of sciences as unveiling forces of
natural laws, was critically analysed by Bruno Latour (1993) 3. The result of his work was a profound critique
on Modernity – and therefore Post-Modernity – and its works of Purification and Translation: A
demystification of the concepts of Nature and Society – and the twin dichotomies of objectivity/subjectivity
and non-human/human. Nature, he comments, is not truly objective; Society not truly subjective. Reality is
hybrid. Latour demonstrated that nothing is Natural, but he was well aware that nothing is Social either – as
Relativism and Post-Modernity claimed4: Viveiros de Castro’s work blossoms from here.

I.II The Ontological Turn

The works of Viveiros de Castro joined the “Ontological Turn” (see Holbraad & Petersen 2017) which
became a solid enclave in the anthropological discussion in the last few decades. The Brazilian
Anthropologist is not, needless to say, the only scholar who worked on ontological and epistemological
themes in the last thirty years (Blaser 2009, De la Cadena 2010, Descola 2013, Kohn 2007, Ingold 1996,
2011, Echeverri 2000) but is among the ones who introduced these countertrending formulations in
Anthropology and enlarged their dimension. The OT therefore became not only a wide and substantial
debate within the Anthropology of South America, but has, more recently, extended its reach to other areas
of the world in which its premises have found a fertile ground (see Willerslev 2004, Poirier 2004, Holbraad
2007). It has also encouraged discussions in other closely related debates, such as the traditional one
regarding Christianity and its influence on local “cosmologies” (Scott 2005, Vilaça 2015, 2016) and the links
with “native” historicity (Sahlins 1983, 1985).
The main question employed to understand the range of the OT, resides in the concept of Perspectivism.
Perspectivism is a system of mutual relationality between all the existent, a non-positional – non-identity
based – philosophy, in Viveiros de Castro’s opinion a cosmological system – and much more –, dwelling the
Amazonian area.

The starting point of Perspectivism, the initial intuition that opened the gates, has been present in Amazonian
ethnographies for a long time and it refers to the relationship between humans and non-humans (Mullin
1999). This understanding is almost diametrically opposed to the common “Modern” frame: the idea that
humans and animals see themselves and each other in similar ways – the paws of a jaguar are hands from its
point of view. On the contrary, there are several aspects that form the “Modern scaffolding”: Identity,
Human superiority, Cartesian dualism and Network relationality. In the “West”, humans and animals are
considered immanent physical entities, made of a similar substance – materiality – and differing from each
other in their essence. Animals are similar to each other to a certain extent and different to another, but both
similarities and dissimilarities pertain to the ontological reign of physicality. Humans, on the other hand,
dwell this reign as well, they function according to similar instincts and bias but, on the other hand, are
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considered superior entities. Humans are believed to have “discovered” the rules of the game – Natural
Laws. Humans know, understand and, to a certain extent, master the secret gear of Nature, the hidden
mechanism – and this is a “moral condition which excludes animals" (Viveiros de Castro 2012 p.116). This
premise is followed by an atomistic understanding of the self, an identity-based philosophy 5 postulating that
everything is identical in itself. The scaffolding entails also a separation between “mind” and “body” –
Cartesian Dualism – that could sustain the human claims of superiority. It follows that the kind of
relationality entailed in this structure is Network: “connect the dots”. Each entity enters in a relationship with
other entities, but this relationship-as-bridge forms a relationality which postulates an ontological
differentiation with alterity. In other words, relationality is contact between two identities 6, two selves that
tend their hands to reach a portion of alterity and solely that; what is not considered is identity as difference,
motion and process – Deleuze again. Some recent works propose instead, difference as internal, not as
identity expanded – as in a network kind of philosophy – but, if anything, as alterity narrowed.

At a macro-level, this “Modern” position entails a Multiculturalist perspective. Every “culture” – as every
individual to a different extent – projects categories, symbols and meanings onto nature, onto the
fundamental substratum of reality. There are interpretations of reality – animist, scientific and so on – but
reality itself, what it is, is there for everybody to be seen. If in the past of the Anthropological tradition, the
accurate and truthful explanation was reserved to the West and its truth-revealing tools, in following times,
the relativistic position gained consensus. Reality is still there, one, unique, immutable in its functioning, but
is “read” in various ways by different cultures according to their interpretative equipment, and if, thankfully,
the scale of truthfulness disappeared and every “culture” had the right to express its opinion about what
reality is, the impasse did not chase to exist: Nature is still unique, and is inevitably interpreted culturally.
What, instead, the Brazilian anthropologist promotes is a change of direction: Multinaturalism. At a micro-
level, Multinaturalism entails a multiplicity of natures – of realities – over the singularity of cultures.
Muticulturalism affirms that every entity sees the same world in a peculiar way: different species, or even
different individuals perceives a river in a specific way, but the river is, was, and will, be moving water.
Different species perceive the same river differently, but, in the case of Multinaturalism

“the opposite applies: all beings see (“represent”) the world in the same way—what changes is the world
that they see. Animals impose the same categories and values on reality as humans do: their worlds, like
ours, revolve around hunting and fishing, cooking and fermented drinks, cross-cousins and war, initiation
rituals, shamans, chiefs, spirits. . .” (Viveiros de Castro 2012 p.107)

Instead of a reality “seen” by multiple epistemologies – animal, human, and within those, species related
epistemologies – there is a single epistemology, the “human” one, which perceives different realities, a
plurality of worlds.
Every entity perceives itself as anthropomorphic, as human.

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At this point our thinking needs to avoid an easy impasse: Extra-species relativism. The river in which
crocodiles dwell, or humans sail, is not a river perceived in a different way by different entities. If this was
the case, there would be a “riverness”, a Kantian identity grasped and experienced in opposed ways, as house
for crocodiles, as aquatic medium for humans. No “riverness” exists in Perspectivism, everything is for-
somebody. In an ontological sense “river” is not something to grasp nor a prior-to-experience essence, what
exists is instead being-as-house and being-as-moving water, two ontologically separated realities. Not
noumenon manifested in phenomena, not transcendental dialectically shifted, but immanent ontology
postulating difference in action – being-through-other7 – as its “mantra”.
The situation is antithetical to Multiculturalism and what I called the “Modern scaffolding”:

“An ontological regime commanded by a fluent intensive difference which incides on each point of a
heterogenic continuum, where transformation is anterior to form, relation is superior to terms, and interval
is interior to being. Every mythic being, being pure virtuality, ‘already was before’ what ‘it was going to
be after’, and for this reason is not – since it does not remain being – anything actually determined.”
(Viveiros de Castro 2007 p.158)

Identity presents an interval within itself, not between itself and alterity, and therefore loses its meaning of
“selfsameness” and gains a pronominal nature. This concept is fundamental because, if Being is separated in
itself, as a consequence, Network relationality shifts towards a being-through-other nature, a mirror-
ontology, every entity is something else to other entities: humans are humans to themselves, prey to jaguars,
jaguars to prey. It follows rather clearly that in Viveiros de Castro’s opinion, the Western concept of
superiority over animals is not available9.

I.III Body as Being

Since mind/rationality is not a specific human feature, the body assumes a crucial importance in the
Amazonian area – and in other Multinaturalist contexts. What specifies the peculiarity of each entity is their
corporeality, their body, their affections, their habitus. Since a mind, soul, or rationality as identity is lacking
from the Amazonian cosmological world – and needless to say, this is an inversion of Cartesian Dualism –
the source of specificity resides within the clothing of flesh. What provides the being-through-others, the
mirroring essence of reality – which is existence itself – is the body. A body positioning itself to others is
brought to being by this process, existence is being in a mirroring position, being a point of view rather than
an identity. It is therefore not surprising that, since the body is point of view – a physical engagement in a
mirroring game, non-humans are entitled to subjectivity, to dwell both “universes”: “wherever there is a
point of view, there is a “subject position”.” (Viveiros de Castro 2004a p.467), and not, as Descartes would
propose, the opposite.
This is a source of serious concern.

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Only shamans, due to their knowledge and experience, have the ability to see the other side of the mirror
relatively without dangers. If subjectivity is diffused, the risks of losing oneself is infinitely present. This
hazard is brought by the principle of transformation which, in this context, dominates over the principle of
production: to be is to play a mirror-game in which every entity is human and each individual is in constant
motion. Since every epistemology is human-like, losing oneself would mean transforming into animal and
not being able to realise it. Its extreme is cannibalism: a human in jaguar form would not be able to recognise
fellow humans and, since would perceive them as prey, would attack them. 8 For this reason, killing and
hunting have to entail a process of incorporation: “The killing is represented as either creating or expressing
a social relationship, or else as the collapse of a social relation” (ibid. p. 479), a transformative collapsing, a
fusion. Because body is subjectivity, appropriation of bodies through these activities, demands fusion of
subjectivities.

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 II

The Challenge of Conviviality

II.I The centrality of Tranquility

The analysis of the OT and the theory proposed by Viveiros de Castro brought us to recognise, in the
Amerindian context, the existence of a Multinatural system. A system based on predation, transformation
and “mirroring” ways of being. This structure postulates an every-day life focused on avoiding what has
been called “Cannibalism”, the systematic risk of losing oneself into the other, the danger of perennial
transformation and the consequential loss of “humanity”. This emphasis is without a doubt extensively
present in the Amazonian context1 but, in many cases, is represented less as a visceral fear of cannibalism
and more as a potential eruption of social tension. The presence of tension is antithetical to the supreme
value of Amazonian social life: Conviviality (Overing & Passes 2000a p.4). In The Anthropology of Love
and Anger2, conviviality is interpreted as the fundamental concept around which the whole Amazonian
sociality rotates. Conviviality entails several qualities and attitudes that, together, avoid social tension,
distress, anger and can, consequentially, guarantee a happy and peaceful life: generosity, mutual support,
productivity – both in economical and reproductive terms (see Overing 2003) –, calm orientation, kindness,
and, in general, signs of mutual appreciation and hard-working attitude.

For example, Among the Piro communities – East Peru and West Brazil – where Gow worked (2000), the
sense of tranquility is considered a fundamental quality that needs to be preserved. This emphasis produces a
mechanism of mutual help in the case a member of the community is experiencing grief and sadness and
therefore is vulnerable, helpless – wamonuwata. There are different causes that produce this situation of
helplessness: one of the most common is the loss of a family member or a friend. In other situations, infants
are considered helpless. The whole problematic of the condition of helplessness rotates around the lack of
‘kinspeople’, which affects both infants and mourning adults. The motivation is simple and it will become
clearer in the next chapter: since physicality and the body is the centre of relationality of the individual,
infants are not able to enter relationships properly because they lack an actual human body. This is not

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because they are not fully developed but because, since identity is processual, the human body is a
continuous creation; they still need to go through a series of crafting rituals.
The answer to helplessness is compassion, this sincere and genuine response is what is expected in a
supportive and cohesive community and has several virtues: it secures the tranquility of the social group, it
prevents disruption and it qualifies Piro people as truly humans. To live peacefully is to be generous,
productive and respectful, and, as a corollary, to live peacefully is to be human3: the most genuine way of
living, the most prototypical humanity is, in their opinion, enacted by the Piro community itself.

“Indeed, Piro people consider themselves, as a whole, to be kshinikanpotu, ‘with lots of nshinikanchi’,
and they array all other beings below them. Thus, they consider the neighbouring Campa people to have
less nshinikanchi, while white people and animals are mshinikatu, ‘thoughtless, forgetful, without
nshinikanchi’ […].” (Gow 2000 p. 51)

The term nshinikanchi has multiple meanings – thought, memory, respect and love – depending on the
situation in which it is employed, it is clear that what every meaning has in common is a nuance of
conviviality, a sense of shared experience, careful attitude and immediate empathy. This pivotal concept is
what sustains the peaceful living of a community and what has to be preserved at any cost.
A careful reader probably already noticed that the variety of “convivial qualities” is not just what makes
“humans” what they are, but, at the same time, is what animals essentially lack 4. I want to stress this point,
animals, as considered among many Amazonian communities, are deficient in this respect: they are not able
to live in a tranquil manner, and they are chronically envious 5. Among People of the Centre – South
Colombia, for instance, this is quite explicit:

“Evil beings (mostly animals) strongly threaten the uniquely human capacity to achieve the bodily health
and the proper sensibilities that are necessary for the maintenance of the community. They destroy
people’s health and supplant their tranquil, loving, conscientious thoughts with those agents’ own
antisocial, misanthropic motivations.” (Londoño Sulkin 2000 p.171)

The ways in which nshinikanchi sustains conviviality are multiple and can be found in other Amazonian
communities as well, in confirmation of the diffuse centrality attributed to happiness and quiet living in the
Amazonian area (Walker 2015b). This tendency is echoed in the domain of linguistics, Piro communities use
the term gwashata to define the condition of cooperative happy daily existence, but, at the same time, the
literal meaning would be “to reside and do nothing else” (Gow 2000 p.52), it is also significant to notice that
the contrary of ‘doing nothing’ is ‘suffering’. Among the Trio – dwelling the forest area between the
Orinoco, the Amazon and the Rio Negro –onken is a common expression, which illustrates a daily life lived
in accordance with the values of mutual support and shared felicity. Similarly, this concept, describes,
literally, the feelings of calmness, tranquility and quietness (Rivière 2000 p.256).

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As mentioned, Amazonian people proudly refer to themselves as possessing the supreme and more perfect
form of convivial behaviour, other beings – from the most similar ones (neighbours) to the most dissimilar
ones (animals) – are indicated as fatally lacking these harmonious attitudes. Many anthropologists have
heard indigenous’ unambiguous and hateful comments about this crucial moral distance between indigenous
communities and the “rest”. Gow himself refers to the common opinion Piro have of ‘white people’ and their
disrespectful manners, both with each other and with other – indigenous included – people: “Go to the white
man’s house and see if the will feed you! That’s where you will learn to suffer!” (2000 p.52). It is clear that
disrespect is compared to refusal of assistance and it entails consequences which are antithetical to the
tranquility and peacefulness achieved through conviviality. On the contrary, the Piro community, since
“’humanity’ is intrinsically multiple” (ibid. p.48)6 represents itself as constantly engaged in safeguarding its
members, whether through kinship narratives or ritual healing chants (ibid p.59). As we will argue, the
opposite attitude is prototypical of animals and, in a Perspectivist context, it designs a moral hierarchy
between “more” and “less” humans. Differently from Viveiros de Castro, I propose not a single ontology but
a moral and historical multileveled ontology produced through the ethical or unethical everyday life of
beings.

II.II Techniques of Humanity

As previously observed, the ‘well living’ emphasised by Amazonian communities is compared to a specific
array of attitudes, this set of ‘moral conducts’ are what sustain humans in their humanity. It should therefore
not be a surprise as to why there is such a focus on polite behaviours, reciprocal support and a hard-working
attitude: it makes humans what they are and prevents them from falling into animal immorality. There are
several methods of experiencing and reinforcing humanity and they range from social visiting to helping
with daily productive duties. For example, among the Yanomami – Northern Brazil, Southern Venezuela –
the habit of visiting relatives and friends is widely practised. In these communities (Alès 2000 p. 142-143),
we observe the same attribution of importance we noticed in other Amazonian groups regarding conviviality
and the values of polite and supportive –in terms of productivity and emotions – behaviour it entails. What
these contexts have in common is a specific centrality attributed to corporeality, the whole process of
crafting – infants – and maintaining humanity is indeed body-based: whether in the case of hard-working
attitude or in the case of moral conduct. As we will argue in the last chapter, hard work and productivity are
not just socially or morally fundamental, but also ontologically, as they constantly assure the transformation
of potential evil and destructive forces into fertile and prolific ones which can sustain human communities.
In the same way, since humanity, in this context, as Viveiros de Castro rightfully noticed, is ontologically
diffused7, children have to be educated through but most importantly to the body. Within this ontological
structure in which the body is what distinguishes beings, educating to the human body means preserving the
uncorrupted form of human ontology.8

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In another example, among the People of the Centre, the centrality of the body is quite explicit and
accompanies the whole life of individuals, from birth to death and beyond. The elements around which the
embodiment of humanity takes place are mainly ‘tobacco’ and ‘mambe’ – coca leaves. These substances are
considered to give shape to human beings and they are also responsible for the behaviours and attitudes
people have. In the case of tobacco9, which is the most fundamental substance among these communities, its
effect on people is represented as ‘speech’ or ‘breath’. In this sense, people are considered to be containers of
speeches, a shell through which tobacco talks and acts. Tobacco itself has important sociological
consequences; it makes humans talk and behave; it is the guarantor of the sociological gender order – male
authority – due to the fact that is transmitted through patrilineal descent; it is the source of human
knowledge; tobacco also equips humans with unique capacities such as the power of seeing evil, predators
and prey, or the power of invisibility, invulnerability and the capacity to kill; it is also generally employed in
rituals and healings whose objective are to re-establish the functioning of the ill person’s tobacco. People
consume tobacco very often, both privately and communally, it is also used to greet relatives and is part of
the gifts people make when they invite each other to dance rituals and other, more “mundane”, forms of
social life. In summary, tobacco is a nourishing and fertile power-granting substance which, if not corrupted,
grants the long-yearned for stability and tranquility. Among the People of the Centre, tobacco is consumed in
the form of a paste, the leaves are cleaned, boiled – in order to render it pure and powerful – and eventually
mixed with a vegetable salt – mainly derived from palms. This process is a moment of great importance and
apprehension, since a corrupted or malfunctioning tobacco can cause serious issues. In order to avoid these
consequences, the tobacco has to be treated with extreme care, the mambeadores – tobacco makers – have to
nourish and protect the product throughout the process. These special treatments include both the moral
conditions of the producer – he needs to be a pure “tobacco container” – and a more active process of
shaping.

“Emanuel explained to me that proper tobacco had to be cared for through speeches in which the
mambeador raising it listed the names of the kind of tobacco it should be: tobacco of the life of the
Centre, cool tobacco, tobacco of apprising, tobacco of enlightenment – and so on (ed). […] Emmanuel
claim was that thus named in effective speeches, the tobacco became a life-giving substance that cooled
people and provided them with moral, sociable discern and predatory capabilities.” (Londoño Sulkin 2012
p.99-100)

The importance attributed to tobacco relies on the fact that it acts as a moral discriminator, material elements
– body itself or, in this case, tobacco – are indeed judged as the moral definer of an entity. Every being has
its own tobacco but only the truly human tobacco assures a proper human way of living, the other forms of
tobacco are instead corrupted versions of human substances and therefore they produce, even in a
Perspectivism context in which human experience is diffused, impure, noxious and false forms of humanity:
animals and dead. As we have noticed from the care Emanuel consciously underlines regarding tobacco
preparation, the process is not just extremely important in itself but, given the ‘embodied knowledge’

14
(Lagrou 2000 p.157) role substances play, it is also a procedure that bounces back and forth among
materiality, embodiment, ontology and morality. This last feature is responsible not only for the relative
overlapping of these concepts but is also what produces a moral hierarchy between beings which shapes, in
turn, a historical multileveled ontology.

The importance of substances – and the moral hierarchy which historically produces the ontological scale in
which humans and animals dwell – is attested by the role they have in education. Education, to be precise, is
not just achieved through embodiment but it also includes the transmission of other-caring habits and a hard-
working attitude (Overing 1989 pp.165-167) which, together, can grant the material and social reproduction
of the community. This transmission is not solely performed by parents but by the whole community, the
responsibility of the group is therefore substantial, not just because they are responsible for the moral
education of the infants, but also because, in a context where morality is a matter of educating to the body,
people are able to physically shape bodies, especially infant’s due to their malleability, through their acts and
words.

Since a new life is considered particularly fragile and malleable, the process of humanisation 10 starts even
before birth. Among the People of the Centre, due to babies’ malleability, the use of an analogy between
pottery-making and pregnancy, is common. Women are responsible for these parallel activities and it is their
duty to diet during “production” in order to produce a healthy and prosperous offspring, or resistant and
functional vases. Raquel, for instance, was very proud of her progeny: “My aunt did Arón, Sara and Rebeca
and they are big-bellied and have ugly faces. She did not diet properly. The ones I did myself all have flat
bellies and good faces, because I did diet.” (Londoño Sulkin 2012 p.39). This process continues soon after
birth11 and includes protective practices and, later on, rituals of knowledge – learning how to weave baskets,
producing and consuming tobacco and coca leaves. Naming is also a crucial event in Amazonia – and
probably everywhere else in the world, including the “West” –, among People of the Centre a central ritual is
‘watering’ (níífaikunihi). This process requires an expert in the field of tobacco and speeches of apprising
who narrates the whole history of the child’s kin group and the diseases and tribulations the clan is
particularly vulnerable to. At the beginning, the elder would lick tobacco paste and sit reflecting until the
tobacco tells him the “ritual” name the child will have. He then whistles a chant over some water, this
incantation follows the tune of the litany he was mentally performing and the whole process should prevent
the evils to affect the water used for the naming ritual and, consequentially, the child. The parents of the
child then receive drops of this water to give to the child.

This first step of human ontogenesis has multiple functions. It is, indeed, not just a process of naming and
assuring a healthy and well-mannered infant, “ritual” naming has also a gendering and a personality-shaping
aspect: the activities the person will perform 12 are indeed mentioned through speeches, this would make the
child behave according to its gender. It follows that naming, as a body shaping procedure, can have
substantial consequences on people:
15
 “David, Raquel’s brother, questioned his father Francisco’s competence as a watering expert. He told me
that one of his little sons moved around too much because when Francisco had watered him, Francisco
had ritually ‘named’ […] his grandson as a certain bird that could walk as soon as it broke out of its
eggshell.” (ibid p.41).

This particular “baptism”, despite possibly originating from the Christian tradition imported in the area,
emphasises well the power accorded to body shaping – through naming or other practices – in a Perspectivist
context. As Belaunde (2000) has shown, these processes – including mocking children, teaching a still body
posture and preventing them from getting used to seeing adults angry or, from feeling anger themselves – are
prototypical of the preoccupation for the body and the fear of losing the peculiar sociability and tranquility,
proper of “real humans”. In the next chapter, in reference to other entities, especially animals, it will be clear
how these beings lack such features – not because of what they are but because of their immoral behaviour –
and are therefore disposed inferiorly on the ontological and moral hierarchy.

16
 III

A historical multileveled ontology

III.I Transformation
In the previous chapters, I emphasised two main points. Firstly, the twin concepts of conviviality and
tranquility some scholars proposed as the key to interpreted Amazonian sociality, and secondly, the OT
approach to the same field. The two approaches overlap in many ways. For example, both accord a crucial
significance to social tranquility, the difference relies on the fact that Overing and Londoño Sulkin, most
directly, present it as the most relevant feature of Amazonian sociality, while Viveiros de Castro proposes
the concept of Cannibalism as a source of explanation. What is also shared by both perspectives is an
emphasis on the concept of Transformation which is, not just in my opinion 1, the core element. I am
proposing a via media between a Multinaturalist approach and a more socio-central one. The work of
Viveiros de Castro has been one of the most ambitious in the last decades in Anthropology and the system he
is proposing has doubtlessly represented a fresh and apt interpretative approach, its remarkable value lies on
his attempt to change not just the content – proposing an interpretation over another – but also the shape, the
essence of Anthropology itself.
The impasse consists of the nature of systems – and therefore, of this particular one – in themselves. Despite
Viveiros de Castro aspired to formulate a non-systematic system, a non-structuralist – in a Levi-Straussian
sense – structure, a non-propositional – or non-identity-based – scaffolding, he ended up reaching the similar
conundrum Latour landed at2. If he managed to succeed in this non-Kantian project – and in my opinion, he
did –, while also saving Levi-Strauss, he reached another impasse, more mundane and immediate:
ethnography. This is where the other approach shines. Throughout the lines of different authors, we realise
that actually, the issue of cannibalism is presented as a threat to social order and peaceful living, we also
notice that Perspectivism is morally emphasised, which means, opposed to Viveiros de Castro, that the

17
human diffused epistemology is divergent in itself, it presents intervals. Human ontology and identity is
indeed formed by multiple shapes disposed on a hierarchical scale according to morality and ethics – from
disgraced to pure humanity. In this sense, the concept of humanity loses significance, or, at least, it loses its
meaning as the “West” would conceive it: as identity. A Multileveled Ontology, then. But historical as well.
If the interval within this non-propositional in-becoming entity we call humanity is indeed a moral process, it
follows that the Essence, the Ontology, dwells in Time and not in Being. Ontology is processual, an in-
becoming, historical and contingent – even agency-based – core. A Historical Ontology, then. As we will
argue, Transformation is thence the concept that links and overlaps the Essence of reality: multiple plateaus
and in-becoming.

As Viveiros de Castro has profoundly analysed (1998) – and other scholars confirmed (Overing 1993, 2000b,
Lagrou 2000) – Perspectivism postulates an ontological pre-historical time in which not just human
epistemology was diffused, but also human physicality: a world populated by humans. For various reasons,
mainly because of a punishment decreed by the creator(s), animals mutated their shape while keeping their
epistemological form of humanity. This pre-historical event explains and sustains Persepctivism and its risks
– cannibalism – and defines the ontological system of Amazonian communities. Most entities mutated their
human resemblance – and therefore their mirroring-role – but kept their intrinsic, ontological humanity.
Transformation is still possible however. Since humanity is historical and in-flux, transformation is the
essence of relationality: every entity continuously transforms into itself through alterity and transforms
alterity through itself3. It is a game of exchange: every entity gives the reality of alterity and receives its own
reality: continuous differentiation towards itself through exchange, is what the subject is. It is therefore not
surprising the emphasis humans put on transformation and exchange, both at an ontological – which includes
the body – and on material level (Londoño Sulkin 2013). Exchange and transformation – which we now
realise are overlapped – are the mode of relation within Amazonian ontologies.

In a context in which undifferentiation4 is the primordial feature of Being, and in which the same
undifferentiation is a continuous threat, it is predictable that these communities grant a specific value onto
transformation as differentiation – in the sense of bringing a positive and moral attribute to what, in
principle, is problematic. Since humans differentiated themselves due to their sociability – animals, plants
and other entities are intrinsically deficient in this –, the ongoing transformation into humanity entails a
process that adds nourishing and social capabilities to the reality people encounter. From a status of
misanthropic undifferentiation, Transformation shapes these powerful energies into sociable forces: it is a
process of humanisation that shifts the essence of an evil animal/vegetal cosmos into a proper human source
of development.

Among the People of the Centre, once again, this difference between rough and processed is explicit. The
activity of gardening and house building are clear examples. Gardening in the Amazon is technically referred
to as slash-and-burn. This is a communal effort that usually, as many other activities, requires collaboration
18
between multiple households. It starts with the definition of the area of intervention, the area is slashed,
plants and trees are cut down and left to dry out. The result is an area of dead vegetation which is set on fire
in order to fertilise the underlying ground with the resulting ashes. Successively, cultigens are planted –
including tobacco and coca. This procedure is moralising and is addressed as such. Firstly, this feature is
made explicit: “mambeadores also describes these processes as ones that involved the destruction of evil
trees, itchy saps, hurtful vines, and, in general, of sources of bodily and social unease.” (Londoño Sulkin
2012 p.81)4. At the start of this differentiation/humanisation – which is a purification, since it is morally
charged – the workers address the various agents engaging in this enterprise. Tobacco and its speech – the
speech of felling – is the most important to be addressed, since this substance is the guarantor of
transformation, but also the equipment – axes and machetes – and the other concurrent elements, the sun, the
wind, the fire have to “contribute”. Everything has to be instructed to join the symphony. In addition, the
cultigens are usually referred to as ‘children’ – as Pablo indicated (ivi) – that need to be nourished and
protected. There is a clear correspondence between the education of children to humanity and the cultivation
of gardens, this emphasis, echoed by the correlation between a well-kept and productive garden and a
healthy and happy household, explains the similarity of the process implied. The transformation of
vegetation into proper human substances is a physical differentiation and sprouts from the very same
preoccupation already mentioned in the case of children: an education to a specific materiality, an education
to a proper, moral humanity. A transformation and differentiation 5 from a substratum of evil, anti-social and
misanthropic wilderness to a pure, tranquil and productive form of humanity.

Another example of this moralising and humanising nature of transformation is the construction of malocas.
Malocas are wooden traditional houses which require a serious community effort to build. The function of
the maloca can be equated to gardening or other transformative performances: “In myriad expressions,
mambeadores claimed that the maloca and the dance rituals held in it protected people, rid them of their
diseases, behavioural vices, and tribulations and ensured their multiplication, mainly by transforming
substance-like thoughts and agencies.” (Ibid. p.83)

To put it in other words, the whole process sustains and preserves humanity. The process of building is
preceded by ritual meetings in which discussions were held about the speeches of tobacco. As in the case of
gardening, the function of these meetings was to ritually reiterate the process of construction through the
examples of mythical events. The meaning of these ritual reiterations was not, obviously, just to plan the
construction and direct the tasks of the participants, but also, most importantly, to rephrase the way humanity
came to be what it is through the construction of malocas6. This effort is a moral and ethical procedure
which, as in mythical times, transforms the undifferentiated primordial a-sociality into a proper humanity
and therefore proper sociality.

“paths that eventually enable a person to transform the violent, angry, ugly, capricious forces of the
universe into constructive, beautiful knowledge and capacities. These, in their changed state, and in

19
 contrast to their former sterile, destructive constitution, then become generative of sociality and the type
of affective-fertile existence of which human beings, and human beings alone, are capable.” (Overing &
Passes 2000a p.6-7)

Building a maloca has this power, it is an explicit affirmation of humanity, through this transformative
process ‘true people’ state their humanity against animality and the ontological superiority it entails. Since
malocas are considered the ritual and social centre of the owner, its construction is a powerful affirmation of
sociality and, at the same time, a separation from animal misanthropic attitudes. It represents an evolution:
from evil animal predation into human civilised predation (Overing 1993).

III.II Alterity, Animality and Immorality

At this point, the overlapping between these three twin concepts is quite candid. Among several Amazonian
communities, it is explicit how immorality is considered a feature of animality, and how the attitude of the
latter is an archetype of the former.
As we have seen from gardening, education, maloca construction – and so on – the ontological
differentiation is a continuous process of becoming and, what is most important, is morally highly regarded.
The in-becoming process of humanity entails tranquility, civilised predation, domestication, mutual support –
all the desirable attitudes – because it is what assures sociability and, consequentially, reproduction, the most
fundamental principles. On the other hand, animals “constitute — each species in its own way — failures in
moral sociality” (Londoño Sulkin 2005 p.13).
Among the characteristics that define humanity, we mentioned conviviality, productivity – etc. –, animals,
instead, perpetrate incest and lust, laziness, generalised homicide and cannibalism, even among relatives. For
instance, among the People of the Centre, when a ‘proper human’ behaves unmorally, he/she is accused of
speaking the speech of an animal. The most threatening one is the speech of the Jaguar. This speech prevents
the affected person from, in Jonás’ words, saying ‘My brother’ (Londoño Sulkin 2012 p.51), which signifies
that the jaguar speech is making him/her behave destructively and viciously towards his/her own family.
This “breath”, like the other animal speeches, are corruption of the person’s tobacco which prevents him/her
from having a peaceful and collaborative attitude, that person is not him/herself anymore – he/she loses
his/her humanity – and treats his/her kin like the jaguar would treat its own. Another example is the Coati, a
very combative animal which corrupts people’s speeches and turns them against their partner, or the False
Woman who – despite being a “human”, was relegated to the edge of the world in mythical times due to her
unmoral and unhuman behaviour – pushes women to experience vanity, lust or jealousy.

It is also common to hear accusations of animality in practical cases of misbehaviour. These

corrupted/corrupting speeches – jaguar, coati, false woman – and others are doubtlessly employed politically
to express an opinion, to remark injustice, or to better negotiate a solution. But, at the same time, these

20
applications show the profound inequality between humans and animals – or other entities – regarding
morality7. Ethnographic materials seem to confirm the existence of a historical multileveled ontology rather
than a diffused horizontal humanity: purity and degradation are extensively remarked. In a documented case,
Pablo was accused of speaking the speech of the jaguar. After berating his wife Naomi, the latter

“tearfully yelled at their little granddaughters – within his earshot – to stay away from their grandfather,
because he had ‘a big toothed one’ inside and could make them sick. She then cried at him that what he
had said to her was not speech of his father or of his clan, who never spoke that way, but rather the talk of
a ‘big toothed’ jaguar or puma. ‘Kill it or let it kill you!’” (ibid. p.55-56)

Naomi reminded Pablo, a human, that he was behaving anti-socially, as a jaguar. When people behave anti-
socially, the presence of animal speech is indeed considered the first cause. Since humans are morally
superior, and they continuously reaffirm their ontological purity, envious animals are the reason of
disruptions. In another, more compelling, example, a similar problem occurs: Pablo and Pedro are arguing
over Pedro’s fault. He let his pigs graze freely and, eventually, the animals damaged various gardens. This
disrespect for “property” is not just an economical problem, but is considered, fundamentally, a social issue.
What is not tolerated is the neglecting of friendship and being a good neighbour, not the material loss in
itself but the “insult”, the disregard. In this case, as in the previous, the source is animal corruption. In a
Perspectivist context, this moral emphasis is echoed by the deceptions of different shapes of corporality:
“According to Pablo, such an unfeeling disregard for the fate of his kin […] could only be thought/emotion
of an animal who loved its kin pigs more than it loved real people” (ibid. p.61). Pedro was corrupted by the
speech of the pig8.

In a similar context, among the Urarina – North/Eastern Peru – the same animalistic status is directed to
people whose behaviour is considered disrupting of sociality. As among the People of the Center, a different
scale of humanity is drawn between entities, this scale starts from animals and culminates in the community
itself. In addition, we notice the same preoccupation of the body as a source of differentiation. Also in this
frame, the prototypical social failure is symbolised by the jaguar, the predator par excellence. Commenting
on a situation of diffused antagonism and continuous fights within the village, a man explained the reason for
such troubled times:

“their (the fighting inhabitants ed.) lives are different, they’re not yet fully civilized” (conversation with
author, 2006). The term he used, ichao, meaning “life” or “way of life,” is often used to refer to animals,
who just see the world fundamentally differently than do humans. Essentially, the man was implying,
there’s little use here in trying to enforce a universal standard, for animals will be animals, and they will
always pursue their interests as constituted by their bodies.” (Walker 2015a p.50)

21
This example, in combination with the previous, explains how moral deficiency is animal related. And it is
overlapping through the body, not at culture/reason level. Animal costumes are disrupting, anti-social and
violent, and therefore differentiate into a disgraced, anti-social and violent humanity: through everyday life,
animals on one side of the scale, humans on the other, create their ontology. In addition, because a mirror-
game of differentiation is enacted, humans create their ontology through the mirroring with animality and,
conversely, animals disgrace themselves everyday through their not-being-human-enough.

In conclusion, since the mythical exclusion of animality from true humanity, animals’ bodies constantly
differentiate them into immoral subjects that perform evil behaviours, on the other side, humans constantly
differentiate themselves into moral subjects. This continuous differentiatiation and this moral distance shape
a historical multileveled ontology. With this term, I aim to clarify the Ontological Turn’s claims and, more
specifically, Viveiros de Castro’s concepts of shared humanity, Perspectivism and Multinaturalism. As I
argued through ethnographic examples, the framework is less systematic than he stated, it is instead heavily
sustained by the everyday preoccupations of the communities.

22
 Conclusions

In this paper, I tried to grasp both the intuitions of the OT and the ethnographic materials recorded by
multiple scholars who worked in the Amazonian area. As aforementioned, the discussions regarding the
concept of conviviality lacked a more philosophical, ontological and epistemological deepening. What are
the foundations of being? What are epistemology, ontology, identity? We realised that the Amazonian area –
albeit with some variations – stresses similar points of focus. These points of focus gather together around
the concept of conviviality and, consequentially, the main preoccupation, the main threat, is the loss of the
proverbial community life. Easy to imagine, the emphasis these communities give to their tranquil and
collaborative existence is highly morally charged and it represents the supreme value of respect and the
source of happiness that has to be preserved at any cost. The threat of a community rupture is a lurking
possibility, the greatest evil. As we have extensively demonstrated, this perception is confirmed by the
presence of animals. It is here that ontological arguments can help to formulate a more in-depth possibility.
Viveiros de Castro – and, generally speaking, the OT – proposes the concepts of Multinaturalism and
Perspectivism to describe this context. Despite the two approaches both agreeing with each other to a certain
extent, at this point they start to diverge. For the Brazilian anthropologist, the key fear is more ontological –
Cannibalism – than social – Conviviality, in the other faction’s opinion, the threat is social more than
ontological.

What I am proposing is a change of focus: I indeed argue that this risk is not just socio-economical, it entails
ontological consequences. Emotionless behaviour, this attitude, this experience would mean losing humanity
– and vice versa. At the same time, since ontology and sociality are overlapped, it is clear that the risk is not
just ontological. In a context in which sociality and humanity are two sides of the same coin the key factor is
a socio-ontological preoccupation. If the ethnographic material focused on conviviality needs ontological

23
deepening, the work of Viveiros de Castro on “Cannibalism” is problematic as well. The Brazilian
anthropologist is well aware that lived experiences should guide systems of explanation and not the opposite
(Viveiros de Castro 2012 p.65), but, in my opinion, he overlooks every-day life and “natives’” remarks.
What I am proposing is a via media: The incessant threat of predation is present but is framed in a discourse
of tranquillity and the fundamental need for preserving a peaceful and joyful community life. This emphasis
guides attitudes towards generosity, conviviality and tranquillity. At a macro-level this accent reveals a
different understanding of human and animal essence. According to Viveiros de Castro humans and animals
dwell in a horizontal humanity because they are ontologically similar, in terms of myth, this shared essence
is the result of a primordial community which, due to various vicissitudes and events, differentiated itself in
different world-bodies. I endorse a slightly different theorisation. Despite proposing this mythic narration as
well, these communities display more a hierarchical understanding and less a “common substratum theory”.
The “common substratum” theory present as well, is indeed understood as a primordial situation. What is
partially neglected by Viveiros de Castro, is the historical production of ontology – throughout mythic
narration – that makes the dwellers propend towards an opinion that states the ontological superiority of “real
humans”:  

“What is most pertinent to them about animals’ and other non-human beings’ ‘humanity’ and ‘Culture’
(to use Viveiros de Castro’s words) is that they are intrinsically warped and morally and ontologically
inferior to their counterparts among Real People. Thus, certain animals may see their kin and co-specifics
as people, and be seen as such in turn. But unlike Real People, this visual perception is not accompanied
by thoughts/emotions of mutual loving care, respect, and other properly human emotions.” (Londoño
Sulkin 2005 p. 20)

Let me reiterate this point. First, entities are disposed along a scale of alterity that goes, as in many other
contexts, from the community itself to the most distant classes of entities. Second, the scale of alterity is also
a scale of proper humanity and it ranges from animals and spirits – alterity par excellence – to the group
itself. In between, at least according to Amazonian groups, other human groups are placed, from the more
similar to the community – the neighbours – to the most dissimilar human entities – whites. Third, since this
is a scale of humanity, it is a scale of morality as well, as we mentioned in the previous chapters, the more an
entity is human, the more it behaves morally. Lastly, since ontology is historical, as testified both in myth
and in everyday life, moral superiority implies ontological superiority. This ontological and moral scale
commonly highlighted among Amazonian communities is based not on an identity-ontology 1, but on a
historical experience, on everyday life. On the other hand, the Brazilian Anthropologist had certainly the
merit of bringing ontological issues in Anthropology and shifting the conceptualisation of ontology from
identity to movement, but, curiously, he seems to overlook the shape of this movement. The problem with
Viveiros de Castro is the “creation” of Perspectivism as a system, namely that the alternative to Modernism
runs the risk of forcing systematic reading where actually nuanced interpretation would be more appropriate.
And in the case of the Amazonian communities analysed, this nuance and fluid interpretation borrows the

24
concept of conviviality and the everyday experience of people who actually live through this concept. In
order to sum these intuitions, I am proposing the term historical multileveled ontology.

I would like to conclude with a general remark. Despite the OT having been criticised as being a new form of
Idealism (Graeber 2015), it had the merit of introducing within Anthropology, the lights and shadows of an
ontological debate over the pillars of the Western – and not just Amerindian or Siberian – ontology. The
Viveiros de Castro’s proposal (see 2014), due to its countertrending nature, has raised large debates, but
probably it represents a form of thinking we are compelled to explore even more deeply. Learning from
indigenous groups in which existence, and not just knowledge, is comparative; in which the self has been
understood as in-becoming; in which being is a processual activity; and in which being-through-alterity
absorbs identity and differentiates it comparatively. These are the new stimuli of a millennial Anthropology,
and, more in general, the challenge of a globalised world.

As someone once said: “one day, perhaps, this century will be called Deleuzian”.

25
 Notes

Chapter I
1
See Clifford (1983).
2
As Durkheim (2005) would have comfortably affirmed.
3
See also Latour (2010).
4
“All natures-cultures are similar in that they simultaneously construct humans, divinities and nonhumans.
None of them inhabits a world of signs or symbols arbitrarily socially imposed on an external Nature known
to us alone. None of them - and especially not our own - lives in a world of things. All of them sort out what
will bear signs and what will not. If there is one thing we all do, it is surely that we construct both our human
collectives and the nonhumans that surround them. In constituting their collectives, some mobilize ancestors,
lions, fixed stars, and the coagulated blood of sacrifice; in constructing ours, we mobilize genetics, zoology,
cosmology and hematology. 'But those are sciences!' the moderns will exclaim, horrified at this confusion.”
(Latour 1993 p.106)
5
Against which Gilles Deleuze, both in his solitary works and in collaboration with Fèlix Guattari, argued
intensely.
6
In other words, difference and alterity blossom from the view of the other, to be an identity is to be
different from another identity in-itself coagulated.
7
Not limited to the social – “I am a son to my father” – but also to the natural – river to human. This non-
identity relationality is extended to the whole world, to each entity.
8
This mirroring-game is not peaceful, the “Cultural Law” is predation.

26
Chapter II
1
See Viveiros de Castro (1996).
2
See also Uzendoski (2005).
3
“to do human” would be more precise.
4
“A backdrop against which all considerations and evaluations about living an earthly human life are made.”
(Overing 2003 p.299)
5
Santos-Granero (2000) has analysed the sociological consequences of “human” envy in newly founded
Yanesha – Central Peru – settlements. He observed that envy is represented as the principal cause of social
fragmentation (p. 276-277), this feeling is the source of antisocial attitudes and misanthropy both in human
to human relationship and in animal to human ones. On this topic, Overing claims that, for the Piaroa –
Eastern Colombia, Western Venezuela – “many beings at the closure of 'before time' lost their trans-
formational capabilities for hunting, fishing and gardening; and these same beings then entered into 'today
time' to avenge this loss by giving disease to humans” (1990, p.613)
6
People of the Centre use the expression Úro’ mónótatihi: We are never to say – ‘I alone’.
7
As a matter of principle, humanity is horizontal, it embraces every entity. In practical terms this idea is
relatively different. As Viveiros de Castro has himself noticed (2012 p.53), Persepctivism seems to apply to
some animal species which are particularly emphasised in social, mythological or productive terms. More
specifically, prey and predators are elected as having a human ‘soul’, other animals are instead ignored at
this ontological level. My hypothesis in this case is this discrimination is a matter of everyday life, of habit:
some particular species – the ones communities have more contact with – are considered in an ontological
and cosmological narrative. This difference shows the problematic nature of Perspectivism as a system.
8
As much as education is acculturation in the “West”. On the contrary, according to many Amazonian
communities having a human culture does not qualify a person as human. On this topic see Descola (2007).
9
Every entity has its own tobacco, human’s tobacco is purer and therefore entails properly social – ergo
human – attitudes.
10
“a process of […] ‘specification’ realised by means of the body: the desire is to create a human nature
which is more specific than the universal sociality from where the child originates” (Vilaça 2002 pp.359-
360)
11
Astuti (2007), for instance, refers to the way Vezo – Madagasgar – babies are depicted as ugly in order to
avoid the predatory envy of spirits.
12
It is actually this process, rather than the genitalia, that genderises.

Chapter III
1
On this I agree with Viveiros de Castro.

27
2
See Berliner et al. (2013), Sansi (2013) or, more generally, Heywood (2012). The crucial question posed to
Latour is: “Who are the Moderns?”. Augè (2009), Appadurai (2001) and Bauman (2001) tried to give a
definition of Modernity, who the Moderns are and how they conduct and experience their everyday lives.
3
To avoid misunderstandings I reiterate that the term ‘transformation’ would be translated as ‘being’.
‘Transformation’ is understood not just as a cannibalistic shapeshifting. It is, more broadly, acknowledged as
the ongoing process every entity is. Every entity is as-essence continuously given – read ‘transformed – into
itself through a mirroring game with alterity. Beings are “confirmed” as themselves.
4
“a human war against trees” (Londoño Sulkin 2006 p.205)
5
Regarding the definition of ‘differentiation’ we outlined, Lagrou mentions a similar relevance the
Cashinahua – Eastern Peru, Western Brazil – give to cooking – and ritual praxis in general – as a process of
transformation and differentiation: she refers to it as “an obsession with the fixation of forms.” (2000 p. 164).
6
Contra Viveiros de Castro: despite being a Perspectivist context, malocas are, as much as gardening, a
human prerogative.
7
Given that humans are intrinsically moral, even “ethically infallible”.

Conclusions
1
As the “West” would claim. If the latter could seem producing an ontological moral scale as well, one of the
dissimilarities with Amazonian communities is the onto-defining process: not being but doing, process
instead of identity. For an Ecuadorian coastal example, see Praet (2009 p.740-742).

28
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