Amerindian Sociocosmologies of

Northwestern South America: Some

Reflections on the Dead, Metamorphosis,
and Religious Specialists1
By
Ernst Halbmayer
Philipps University Marburg

Resumen
Este artı́culo analiza las relaciones con los muertos, las formas de la metamorfosis y el
papel de los especialistas religiosos entre diferentes grupos Chibcha (Kogi, Barı́), Carib
(Yukpa) y Arawak (Wayuu). Estos grupos desvı́an de las nociones convencionales del
animismo amazonico. A pesar de su heterogeneidad comparten la creencia en una
interacción continua con los muertos y al mismo tiempo la practica de la metamorfosis
voluntaria esta ausente. Las relaciones con los espı́ritus y los muertos son de mayor
importancia que las relaciones inmediatas con los animales de caza, que generalmente
no tienen la misma interioridad que los seres humanos. Esta diferencia coincide con
formas del chamanismo y el sacerdocio basado en la adivinación, los sueños y el
dominio de espı́ritus auxilares. La area Istmo-Colombiana está entonces marcada por
formas de animismo jerárquico en lo cual relaciones con la collectividad de los muertos,
‘pagamentos’, ofrendas y en el caso de los wayuu sacrificios juegan un papel importante.
[Área Istmo Colombiana, socio-cosmologı́as amerindias, rituales mortuorios, Yukpa,
Barı́, Kogi, Wayuu]

Abstract
The article discusses relations with the dead, forms of metamorphosis, and the role of re-
ligious specialists among Chibcha (Kogi, Barı́), Carib (Yukpa), and Arawakan (Wayuu)
groups of northwestern South America. Each of these groups deviates from standard
understandings of Amazonian animism. Despite their heterogeneity, the groups share
a belief in a continuous interaction with the dead and, at the same time, lack notions
of voluntary and purposeful metamorphosis. Relations with spirits and the dead are of

The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, Vol. 0, No. 0, pp. 1–19. ISSN 1935-4932, online ISSN
1935-4940. 
C 2018 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/jlca.12381

Amerindian Sociocosmologies of Northwestern South America 1

 greater importance than immediate relations with game animals, which are generally
not considered to have the same interiority as humans. This difference also produces
forms of shamanism and priesthood based on divination, dreams, and the mastery
of spirit helpers. The Isthmo-Colombian area in northwestern South America is thus
marked by forms of hierarchical animism in which relations to the collectivity of
dead, offerings, gifts, and, in the case of the Wayuu, sacrifice play an important role.
[Isthmo-Colombian area, Amerindian sociocosmologies, death rituals, Yukpa, Barı́,
Kogi, Wayuu]

This article discusses ethnographic evidence regarding the dead, metamorphosis,

and religious specialists among contemporary2 indigenous Chibchan (Kogi, Ika,
Barı́), Cariban (Yukpa), and Arawakan (Wayuu) groups in northwestern South
America. Although Carib and Arawak are outposts of the main Amazonian lan-
guage families, Chibcha speakers are located at the core of what has been identified
as either the “Chibcha area” to the south of Mesoamerica (Kirchhoff 1943), the
“intermediate area” (Haberland 1957), or, more recently, the “Isthmo-Colombian
area” (Hoopes et al. 2003). All these classifications, including Julian Steward’s
(1948) “Circum-Caribbean Area” suggest that the area is characterized by more
elaborate forms of hierarchy and sociocultural complexity than Amazonia.
It seems reasonable to question, therefore, how groups belonging to Amazonian
language families, such as the Wayuu (Arawak) and the Yukpa (Carib), are related
to the emerging Chibcha spectrum. Do they deviate from the core characteristics
of their language families? In what ways might they have adapted to a more
complex sociocultural context? The Yukpa, while definitely Carib in terms of
social organization, show many non-Carib features, such as elaborate secondary
burials and an enduring relationship with the dead (Halbmayer 2013); an absence
of shamans of the classical Guyanese type (Wilbert 1960); pictographic mnemonic
systems, at least among some Yukpa subgroups (Sociedad de Ciencias Naturales
La Salle 1953; Wilbert 1960); and—typical for this northwestern area—the lack
of bitter manioc and a high symbolic relevance of maize. The Arawak-speaking
Wayuu, who are not covered by the comparative volume on Arawakan groups
edited by Hill and Santos-Granero (2002), show a number of features that are
absent among other Arawak-speaking groups: they have matrilineal clans, practice
secondary burials, are dreamers on command,3 and are now cattle breeders. In
terms of an Arawak ethos (Santos-Granero 2002), they lack religious specialists
who would assign to religion a central place in their social and political life. In
contrast to the explicit repudiation of internal warfare among Arawak groups,
there is also internal war and conflict among ranked clans and families (e.g., see

2 J ournal of L atin A merican and C aribbean A nthropology

Perrin 2003). For these reasons, I argue that the Arawakan and Carib groups, when
migrating into the region, were transformed by and have contributed to a regional
sociocultural environment that was mostly shaped by Chibchan groups.4
The contemporary Chibcha spectrum is highly diverse: this article focuses on
the strictly egalitarian Barı́ and the internally stratified Kogi. Despite their typical
Lowland social organization, the Bari’s cosmology shows features in which collec-
tivities of spirits and especially the dead play a much more prominent role than
animals. The Chibcha-speaking Kogi, Ika, and Wiwa of the Sierra Nevada de Santa
Marta have elaborate and complex cosmologies with analogistic characteristics, an
institutionalized priesthood, and temples.
Taking classical Amazonian animism (Descola 2013b; Viveiros de Castro 1998)
as a starting point,5 we might expect to find the notion of metamorphosis between
humans and animals as a key element of animic ontologies, and interaction between
collectivities with disparate bodies or physicalities. The differences among the
groups of northwestern South America notwithstanding, however, this is not the
case, and all groups deviate in crucial aspects from standard Amazonian notions
of the dead, metamorphosis, and religious specialists.
In contrast to animism, where different species and beings form separate
collectivities, analogism, according to Descola (2013a:83), is based on entities that
“are fragmented into a multiplicity of essences, forms and substances separated by
minute intervals, often ordered along a graded scale.” These entities differ in terms
of their physicality and interiority but are connected by analogies, “linking the
intrinsic properties of each autonomous entity present in the world” (2013a:83).
In fully developed analogic systems, a “hermeneutic dream of completeness and
totalization” (2013a:84) prevails, possibly with the concomitant notions of circular
causation along analogical chains and a cosmological order that structures the
components of the world. This belief may result in closely related micro- and
macrocosmological analogies that can be affected and endangered by individual
behavior. Analogic systems, therefore, produce a single collectivity, “coextensive
with the world: cosmos and society become truly indistinguishable” (2013a:88).
The exterior of the collective “is not entirely ignored; it remains an ‘out-world’”
where, as Descola further observes, “disorder reigns, [in] a periphery” feared and
despised (2013a:88).
It is useful to ask, therefore, what ontological forms have developed in the
so-called Isthmo-Colombian area. Following Descola’s (2013a, 2013b) fourfold
ontological schema (animism, naturalism, totemism, analogism), the region can
be placed somewhere between animism and analogism. From a comparison of stan-
dard Amazonian animism with South East Asian concepts, Århem (2016a, 2016b)
has proposed a spectrum of ontologies ranging from a symmetrical, venatic,6
and immanent animism (his Amazonian standard) to an asymmetrical, sacrificial,
and transcendent animism, in which domestic animals play an important role as

Amerindian Sociocosmologies of Northwestern South America 3

 intermediaries between humans and the spirit world. Hierarchical animism in its
most developed form adopts a number of aspects of analogism and contains the
idea of ranked classes of different kinds of humans (2016a:18), while the notion of
analogism is relegated to premodern states (2016a:16).
The differences between venatic and sacrificial animism are also expressed in
terms of the dead, whereas in “Amazonia, the dead are generally conceived of as
entirely disconnected from the living” (Århem 2016b:289), and become Others,
enemies, or animals, in Southeast Asia,

the dead are socially and metaphysically continuous with the living. Through the
institution of ancestorship . . . the living maintain a relationship of social and
metaphysical continuity with their deceased relatives. Mortuary rituals are . . .
public rituals. Family tombs and ostentatious lineage or clan ossuaries are visible
manifestations of the rank and wealth of the deceased’s family or lineage/clan.
(Århem 2016b:290)

In Amazonia the picture is also more complex. The “predilection for ancestry,
genealogy and inherited rank” (Santos-Granero 2002:45) plays an important role
among Arawak speakers, and in northwestern Amazonia, human souls should
return to their ancestors’ “houses” and be reborn as the same kind of person (e.g.,
see Wright 1998:200–203). Chaumeil (2007) distinguishes two opposing ways of
dealing with the dead in lowland Amazonia: while some groups erase the deceased
from their memory, others desire to remain in contact with them. He refers to the
Yukpa, a Carib-speaking group of the Isthmo-Colombian area, as an example of
the latter practice. Thus, in what follows, I begin by presenting some ethnographic
evidence on the Yukpa and the role played by the dead and metamorphosis in their
conception of the world.

The Yukpa

Among the Yukpa, the group with which I am most familiar from my field research,
metamorphosis in its classical sense is strikingly absent in human–animal relations,
as is perspectivism. Animals once were human-like protohumans (Yukpa-pe),
but as their reproduction with the original culture hero proved impossible, he7
transformed them into contemporary animals. Thus, while in the mythical past
they were human-like, today they are not. There are masters of game species
(watupe or uatpe), but hunters do not establish exchange relations with them in
order to foster success in hunting, nor are gifts offered or a direct exchange of
human and animal souls effected. The masters of animals, however, may take
revenge in the case of overhunting or human misconduct, by causing illness or
accidents. The Yukpa are careful when handling animal remains: they pack the

4 J ournal of L atin A merican and C aribbean A nthropology

bones in bundles and return them to the forest in order to enable the regeneration
of the species—a practice that can also be found among Arawakan or subarctic
North American groups.
While working among the Yukpa I did not hear any mention of the idea
that humans transform or have the power to transform themselves into animals.
If at all, spirits show themselves in animal guise, for example, as animals that
behave in peculiar ways, or appear in human form. The latter is the case with
the generally benevolent Pakosa-Yukpa (a jaguar-Yukpa/Sokorpa-Yukpa; called
tuweprucha among the Irapa-Yukpa). This jaguar-Yukpa may appear in human
form and talk to people. Several informants told me of their personal experiences
with these beings and described them as smoking a pipe, wearing their human
guise as a garment that could be taken off like a jacket, but having—in a reversal
of common perspectivism—a jaguar’s interiority. Jaguar-Yukpa visit people in
order to give advice and may even predict the Yukpa’s future or foretell upcoming
events.
Even in myths, metamorphosis between humans and animals is rarely men-
tioned and is not taken as a sign of increased shamanic power. In the mythical
past, culture heroes such as Amoricha had the power to fabricate and transform
the world and human-like protoanimals into proper animals (Halbmayer 2016).
Osema, who introduced agriculture to the people (Wilbert 1974:127–128), and
has power over the growth of plants, is a powerful being that represents, as does
Amoricha, an ideal type of shamanic power. Neither of them, however, transforms
himself. Even the mythical twins—who are powerful and highly transformative
figures in the Makunaima mythological complex of the Pemon (Koch-Grünberg
1923)—do not transform into other beings or change their appearance in the
Yukpa version, where they are called jirwatch or kosanoch (the two of grandmother
toad).
Only a handful of Yukpa myths mention that humans transform themselves
into animals. In the myths of pishigatcha (the bat) and amusha (the deer), a man
has a secret relationship with a bat or deer woman and progressively transforms
himself into the other being. He acquires the species’ abilities and attitudes through
the continuous exchange of food and sexual intercourse. The logic displayed in
this myth is that such a transformation does not result from the active change of
perspective or the shift of shape, but is caused by a continuous relationship and
exchange with the Other. The sharing of sex and food plays a central role and refers
to issues of marriage, adultery, and adoption. These issues are phrased in terms of
communities of substance, exchange, and sharing and must either be conducted in
socially accepted ways or avoided altogether. Socially inappropriate ways of com-
mensality and sexuality (adultery, incest, or exchange with non-Yukpa others, for
instance) are dangerous and may not only cause transformation and monstrosity

Amerindian Sociocosmologies of Northwestern South America 5

 but even a far-reaching cosmological transformation and dedifferentiation that
may manifest themselves in solar eclipses or droughts.
Only in one instance can the explicit and intentional expression of differ-
ent points of view, and the fact that humans are perceived as nonhuman spirits
from the others’ point of view, be found: in the relationship with the dead. No
taboo against mentioning the names of the deceased exists among the Yukpa,
and no strategies of active disremembering can be found. On the contrary, the
Yukpa try to stay in contact with the recently deceased, they try to preserve their
memory and their bodies over long periods of time, and they keep the bones
of close relatives in their homes for several years or even decades (Halbmayer
2013).
Before the first burial the dead are still considered to be like living humans.
They are offered food and other supplies necessary for their journey to the realm
of the dead. Once they arrive in the land of the dead, they see the world dif-
ferently and perceive the living as spirits; they are afraid of them and disgusted
by their smell. In this context metamorphosis plays a key role, not just in terms
of a change of perspective but as a physical process that accompanies the des-
iccation of the corpse and may involve forms of intense communication with
the deceased—mostly through dreams. First, the deceased’s personalized spirit is
called okatu. After the secondary burial, he or she becomes part of the imper-
sonal collectivity of the dead—also called shiriptu or hereptu. Then they have a
different view on the world and exist in an environment that is largely similar to,
but an inversion of, the world of the living. There is a clearly marked difference
between the individual existence of the dead in this world and the time after the
secondary burial, when they are reunited with their deceased kin and become part
of the collectivity of the dead, which manifests itself in this world only as fog or
wind.
Yukpa cosmology, like other cosmologies of the region, thus establishes human-
specific cycles of transformation between humans and the dead. In the land of the
dead the deceased return to their villages and kin. They have a different perspective,
but they do not transform themselves into animals, as is the case in large parts
of Amazonia. Animals, rather, prey on the dead on their way into the land of
the dead, which must be avoided in order not to become lost eternally. The
Yukpa practice includes the dead’s gradual transformation, which culminates in a
collective desentierro (deburial) ritual. As Reichel-Dolmatoff (1945:62) observed,
“the important point is not the secondary burial per se, but the deburial, the
‘resurrection’ of the deceased, his dance with family members and his sojourn in
their homes” (my translation).
According to Yukpa mythology, the process of desiccation and decay and the
achievement of eternal life could once have been reversed. This regenerative, life-
giving aspect of dying does not take place in this world but rather in the world

6 J ournal of L atin A merican and C aribbean A nthropology

of the dead, where the arriving Yukpa are offered food and maize beer by their
deceased relatives in the form of a welcome celebration.
How can these unusual (in comparison to other Carib-speaking groups) par-
ticularities of the Yukpa serve to identify specific features of the study area? To
what degree are identical principles present and developed among other groups?
In order to answer these questions, I will next discuss the Arawak-speaking Wayuu
and then the Chibcha-speaking Barı́ and Kogi. Below, I explore their respective
relationship with the dead and the role played by shamanism and metamorphosis
in their conception of the world. Before doing so, however, I briefly reflect on
the idea of metamorphosis itself, which is so central to animism and so unevenly
developed in northwestern South America.

Metamorphosis Versus Partial Encompassment and Subjection by Offerings

In the European intellectual tradition, “metamorphosis” refers to a processual, lin-

ear, and directed transformation. That is, it describes a change of gestalt (Gestalt-
wandel) or form—a shifting of shape: in biological terms, for example, this would
be a shift/change from caterpillar to butterfly. Metamorphosis thus describes a
specific case of transformation. The term has also been used to describe various
notions among Amazonian Amerindians, which concern mythical and shamanic
transformations between human and other-than-human beings, such as animals,
spirits, natural phenomena, or material objects. In this context, metamorpho-
sis has been described as either changing into the Other, in terms of a physical
metamorphosis that results in a change of perspective (see, e.g., Viveiros de Castro
1998), or—in a more literal sense—as shape shifting into “distinct but qualitatively
equivalent ghosts” (Praet 2005:140).
Other studies have focused on processes and techniques of exchange and the
control of food and sexuality, on various kinds of matter that enter or leave the body
(food, sperm, blood, breath, for example; Chaumeil 2005), and on the controlled
adoption of the Other’s qualities or capacities. These studies agree that no “real”
physical metamorphosis takes place (Chaumeil 2005:166; Prinz 2010).
Through the process of metamorphosis the world appears different, a person
acquires different abilities and, moreover, a change of perspective is effected in
such a way that particular, otherwise imperceptible, aspects of the world become
visible. Thus, a more coherent image of the world may emerge, which enables
interaction and communication among a multitude of beings.
This process does not necessarily result in the complete adoption of that per-
spective, nor in a physical change into the Other. It rather initiates a gradual change
through the partial incorporation of substances, capacities, and even spiritual en-
tities. Thus, control over other beings, and the capacity for communication and

Amerindian Sociocosmologies of Northwestern South America 7

 interchange with them, is gradually transformed and expanded. This process also
involves the incorporation of specific substances: plants, hallucinogens, or ant and
wasp stings, for example. The latter transform the body, but plants conceptualized
as persons also teach and transform a person’s spirit.
What happens in northwestern South America is therefore neither a metamor-
phosis nor a complete change into the Other. Rather, these processes are seen as
something to be avoided or at least closely controlled (Halbmayer 2010:593–594;
Prinz 2010). Metamorphosis is considered dangerous because it may be beyond
a person’s control and may turn out to be irreversible, engendering monstrosity,
death, or a reverse transformation (Guss 1991). Among the Yukpa, for instance,
such dangerous metamorphosis may occur through improper mixing in terms of
food, commensality, or sexuality. Sharing and exchange in improper ways may
cause death, and creates the possibility of a dreaded uncontrolled metamorphosis
from human to animal. Such metamorphosis, which is beyond the control of the
person who experiences it, can be avoided only by proper behavior.
What is intended in this region is not a metamorphosis but rather a controlled
partial incorporation of external aspects and capacities that result in a gradual
transformation to a different form of personhood that allows interaction with the
Other. Such partial incorporation and graduated animation, agentivity, and reflex-
ivity take place under specific conditions, when there is not always a radical discon-
tinuity between soul and matter or spirit and substance (Halbmayer 2012). These
processes depend on the skill to subjoin aspects and subject the Other through
offerings and animal sacrifices as among the Wayuu. This resembles the South
East Asian situation in an interesting way, where the counterpart to the classical
Amazonian shape shifter is “a powerful medium whose body serves as a vehicle for
multiple spirits, and through which the powers and agency of the auxiliary spirits
may be harnessed for curing purposes—combating and expelling invading spirits
and retrieving the soul of the afflicted patient” (Århem 2016b:294). When classical
shamans are present in northwestern South America, as among the Wayuu, they
are not “temporarily adopting an extra-human body,” but, much like the Southeast
Asian shaman-healers, “incarnating powerful tutelary spirits” (2016:294).

The Wayuu

The Arawak-speaking Wayuu show a number of similarities to the Yukpa and,

given the unusual importance of otherwise absent animal husbandry among the
Wayuu, come closest to Arhem’s (2016a, 2016b) observations on hierarchical ani-
mism. The dead and secondary burials play important roles in the conception of the
world and there is a marked difference in the status of the dead before and after sec-
ondary burial (Perrin 1987). Nevertheless, among the Wayuu, there is an analogical

8 J ournal of L atin A merican and C aribbean A nthropology

principle—which is absent among the Yukpa—that resolves differences into over-
arching similarities. This seems to be typical for many Arawak-speaking groups. Ac-
cording to Descola (1992), the cosmologies of these groups are organized through:

a dualist principle which distributes human societies, animals and supernatural

beings in two domains, ontologically distinct and mutually antagonistic . . . One
of these domains has a positive value and includes beings that share an essence . . .
The second domain has a negative value and is defined by its radical otherness . . .
The relation between the two is one of a struggle between good and evil. (Descola
1992:121; see also 2013b:352–359)

Perrin (1987) has shown that these principles are expressed among the Wayuu
by the mythical couple of Juya and Pulowi. The female Pulowi usually resides on
small hills or in clumps of dense vegetation; these places are considered dangerous
and to be avoided because they may cause illness. Pulowi appears in many shapes
that become visible through certain beings and their effects that are manifestations
of herself (Perrin 1987:86). Pulowi has power over game species; she can assume
their shape and select animals such as reptiles or large snakes as her emissaries.
Pulowi is associated with drought, heat, death, and darkness and is considered the
mistress of game. Her most important and dangerous emissaries are the wanülü,
which belong to Pulowi’s family and are earthly manifestations of the long-time
dead.
Juya, Pulowi’s husband, is highly mobile and appears as an ordinary Indian.
He is associated with the (female) rain and the wet season. In the semidesert of
the Guajira Peninsula, rain is identified with life and rebirth, light, and coolness.
In myths, Juya is portrayed as the male master of rain, the master of the hunt, and
the enemy of the manifold appearances of Pulowi.
The above-mentioned wanülü are the souls of long-deceased people who return
to earth from the realm beyond death. They are former yoluja (the dead before
the secondary burial) that “hail from Jepira,” the land of the dead. The Wayuu
thus distinguish between different stages of death: they identify those who have
been dead for a long time either with Juya, since they can change into rain, or
with Pulowi, since they can turn themselves into wanülüs.8 The “dual presence
of Juya and Pulowi in a realm beyond death that leads directly to life on earth
. . . is marked by the simultaneous presence of ‘principles’ associated with life and
‘principles’ associated with death” (Perrin 1987:108). Finally, the dead return to
earth, either in association with the rains or with the wanülüs (see Fig. 1). This
indicates belief in a human presence in climatic phenomena, in disease and death,
and, indirectly, in fauna and flora. Thus, as Perrin (1987:109) explicitly states, “a
highly anthropocentric view of the world” is created.
Thus, among the Wayuu there exists a closed anthropocentric cycle in which
the long-time dead may assume either a benevolent or a dangerous shape, whereas

Amerindian Sociocosmologies of Northwestern South America 9

 Figure 1 Life, death, and long dead among the Wayuu.
Source: Perrin (1987:109).

among the Yukpa two ultimately separate realms exist that are connected mainly
through the death ritual.

The Barı́

Comparatively little is known about the ontological concepts of the Barı́—the

southern neighbors of the Yukpa. Prior studies generally agree that, unlike other
Chibchan groups, the Bari have neither shamans or religious specialists nor a
marked sociopolitical hierarchy. They lived in common longhouses and exhibit
a pronounced ethos of internal peacefulness and integration, whereas the Yukpa
and Wayuu, who lived in small dispersed settlements, are still characterized by
violent internal conflicts and an ongoing state of war between subgroups (Yukpa)
or matriclans (Wayuu).
The dead—basunchimba (or basungchingba)—have a profound impact on the
daily life of the Barı́. They pervade the Bari concept of life and can be encountered
in many aspects of everyday existence (Castillo 1989:281). The dead reside in a
particular layer of the sky and play a central role in all kinds of conversations and
activities surrounding the construction of the longhouse, the making of artifacts,
and in hunting and fishing (Villamañán 1975). They appear in myths and in the
songs sung when a person dies. According to Villamañan, the Barı́ also sing to the
basunchimba at night and on their way to the forest, and they make offerings of
tobacco in order to ensure success in hunting. After the hunt, certain parts of the
kill are offered to the dead. Moreover, the dead play an important role in initiation
and marriage rituals. For this reason, Villamañan (1975) states, the Barı́ are almost
continually calling their dead.
Castillo (1989), however, was unable to find evidence for such offers or
“prayers,” and questions the accuracy of the information provided by Villamañán.
These differences notwithstanding, both authors agree that the perceived attitude

10 J ournal of L atin A merican and C aribbean A nthropology

of the basunchimba is one of protection toward the Barı́. The basunchimba live
together as a group and are friendly, benevolent, and supportive toward humans
(Villamañán 1975). Unlike the Barı́, they live in peace with all other beings and
never suffer. The basunchimba can travel to any place in the world and no one can
harm them. In their realm in the sky the dead are organized like the Barı́ commu-
nities on earth, but they are more powerful and strive to protect, support, cure, and
defend the Barı́ on earth, for example, against dabiddú (spiritual people living in
the thick forest, who aim to establish sexual contact with the Bari, inoculate them
with poison and cause illness and death), which are held responsible for death and
illness: they live in the bush and forest, may appear to humans in the guise of a
partner of the opposite sex, and seduce Barı́; through their poison they cause death
by sexual intercourse.
According to Castillo (1989:281), “this common awareness of life after death
among the Bari is one of the essential and most important elements of their
tradition,” (my translation) and is also expressed in hunting and fishing practices.
According to Beckerman and Lizarralde (2013:209), “some men were believed to
have a special ability to understand animals . . . [which] made them superior
hunters . . . [T]his ability could be lost if their wives had sex with other men.”
Hunting success depends on a man’s ability “to visit the land of the basungchingba,
the spirits of the dead, by soul travel.” The exact nature of the relationship between
the basunchinga and game is not specified, but most of this relationship, like soul
travel, is enacted in dreams. At night, the spirit of the Barı́ (Boróubarı́, “the dreaming
Barı́”) travels to beautiful places in the land of the dead and, in return, the dead
visit the living in dreams (Castillo 1989:281, 346). The relationship is destroyed
when the Barı́ behave badly (Castillo 1989:391). Hunting success depends on
“being reserved, not talking too much, and sexual moderation” (Beckerman and
Lizarralde 2013:209).
As among the Kogi (see below), here, practices of interrogation, confession,
and the judgment of individual behaviors can be observed among the Barı́. Con-
fession takes place when a person approaches the land of the basunchinga (Castillo
1989:282, 288) and is received by the culture hero Sabaséba. According to his
judgment, the dead are allocated residential places in different parts of the land
of the dead (1989:283).9 The land of the good dead, the east, is a place of eternal
youth, without evil or illness. The regeneration of the dead and their resulting
immortality in the afterworld is expressed by the symbol of water: bathing10 in a
large pool of blue water brings rejuvenation. Vultures collect the meat of the dead,
carry it up to the sky and regurgitate it: in this way, dead people are rejuvenated
and reunited with their kin. The dead wear long red and yellow tunics with long
sleeves, and a necklace of toucan feathers (1989:284).
In summary, among the Barı́, transformation results neither in the separa-
tion of the perspectives of the living and the dead, as it does among the Yukpa,

Amerindian Sociocosmologies of Northwestern South America 11

 nor in a double existence of the long-time dead—one dangerous and the other
benevolent—as among the Wayuu, but rather in a close protective relationship. The
dead support the struggle of the living against the dangerous and life-threatening
forces of the bush. They also provide food by granting game and fish to the living,
without changing into animals.

The Kogi

As a final example I turn to the basic dimensions of the cosmology of the Kogi,11 in
which the individual and the universe are closely related and humans are ranked in
terms of different kinds of potency. The Kogi have no shamans but have unusually
elaborated genealogies of priesthood, and worship at sacred sites and in temples.
It is the task of these mamas (Kogi spiritual leader or priest) to mediate between
humans and the universe.
Among the Kogi, a dual logic is expressed at various levels—from the individual
(differentiated by gender), to ceremonial houses, to the cosmos. The universe is
separated into two parts by the course of the sun, which, moving from east to
west, divides the world into a right half and a left half. This dualism can also to be
found in categories of animals, plants, and minerals, of colors, winds, diseases, and
with regard to notions of good and evil. Every person carries the polarity of good
and evil within them. The main problem of human existence concerns finding a
balance between these two opposed yet complementary forces and establishing a
harmonious relationship between them.
The Kogi’s dualistic concept of complementary opposites expands and gener-
ates a quadruple principle that organizes the cosmos. This is connected to the four
cardinal directions that are associated with different qualities and pairs of male and
female mythical beings, who originate from the Great Mother Goodness Sea—the
highest being in Kogi cosmology. This differentiation into sets of four is also re-
flected in the eight main clans of the Kogi. To the four cardinal directions are added
zenith, nadir, and center, thus creating an octahedron that encompasses the cosmic
egg. The cosmic egg is differentiated into nine different layers, or nine worlds—
four above and four below this, the fifth world. There are also detailed and graphic
analogies between the macrocosm and the microcosm, the house or temple, the
body, the loom, the mountain, and the universe. Kogi cosmology contains an elab-
orate system of multiple analogical meanings among different yet cosmologically
connected and interacting forms and entities (see Reichel-Dolmatoff 1984, 1985:
225–226). Human action, thought, and sexual desire have the ability to influence
the world and are regulated through confessions to the mamas and by the advice of
priests. An institutionalized form of self-control—at the levels of the individual and
the society—governs daily life and sexuality. People’s responsibility extends beyond
their society to the whole of mankind. The relationship with natural phenomena

12 J ournal of L atin A merican and C aribbean A nthropology

is guided by yülüka (“estar de acuerdo,” to agree), by maintaining harmony with
and becoming part of the phenomenon or one of its aspects, and by assuming its
characteristics. This “‘agreement’ implies the identification of the individual with
the personification (of the great and omnipresent Mother, the Masters or owners,
the rain, illnesses, etc.12 ) and its simultaneous neutralization” (Reichel-Dolmatoff
1985:95).
The Kogi dead demand to be nourished by individual and collective offerings
made by the mama and can cause illness or death if their demands are not met.
When people become ill, it is considered to be their own fault because they have
failed to make the required offerings. Such offerings are conceptualized as “food”
and consist of stones, necklaces (whole or pulverized), human sperm (conceived
as a fertilizing liquid), human hair or nails, cotton thread, or small sea shells. The
individual dead (heiséi) who represent the personalized dimension of the collective
concept of the dead (also called heiséi) intervene directly in this world by sending
illness, hunger, or death. They must be fed with offerings, which are food for the
dead (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1985:87–88). Such offerings generally have a preemptive
character. When a person does not provide food, the heiséi will send disease or
demand a child.13
The offerings therefore have a double significance: they are “food” and at the
same time a fertilizing matter—male semen—that impregnates the personification,
that is, the anthropomorphic counterpart of a plant or an animal, which thus
maintains its capacity to create and procreate. When, for example, a Kogi makes
an offering to the Mother of Maize, she is not only nourished by this offering but
also inseminated and will thus produce more maize.
The Kogi have various conceptions of the beyond (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1984),
which are of different complexity, ranging from common laypeople’s versions
to those of high-ranking individuals from prestigious lineages, who have su-
perior social status. In the former, the dead stay in one of nine villages that
are located on the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada. In the latter, by con-
trast, once they arrive there, “a loosening of the dead” (hiséi kéihi) ritual is per-
formed, which lets the souls of the chosen ones “leave this world altogether and
undergo another, far more important cycle of purification” (Reichel-Dolmatoff
1984:68).
In order to achieve this transformation one must become seiváke, “cold, vir-
ginal, innocent; it stands for thoughts devoid of all sensuality, unaware of, or rather,
beyond sex. In summary, the person must lose his or her individuality” (Reichel-
Dolmatoff 1984:70). According to Reichel-Dolmatoff, “Seivakein geina can stand
for ‘ways of completeness, of perfection,’ or it can be interpreted in sexual terms as
incest with the (original Great, [my addition]) Mother” (1984:73). The "beyond"
is conceptualized in terms of the living, functioning body of the Mother, and the
dead person’s soul is at that level imagined as a fertilizing principle, which “has

Amerindian Sociocosmologies of Northwestern South America 13

 to impregnate it to become its own begetter and to be reborn from her womb.
Rebirth occurs after nine months or nine specific units of time, and now the soul
enters the snowfields in a state of eternal bliss” (1984:82).

Conclusion

This article has taken the deviation of the Yukpa from other Carib-speaking groups
as a starting point to inquire into different sociocosmologies of northwestern
South America. Faced with the absence of direct, unmediated, and actively sought
metamorphosis between humans and animals and the specific relationship toward
the dead among the Yukpa I have asked how far not only Yukpa but also other
sociocosmologies of the region diverge from classical Amazonian animism.
Differences among the four studied groups and between the Isthmo-
Colombian area and local Arawak and Carib groups notwithstanding, I examined
the ways in which human-specific transformational cycles and the dead play a
significant role in this northwestern part of South America. All groups maintain
intensive contacts between the living and the deceased by means of dreams,
rituals, and gifts.
Among all four groups, humans possess a single soul or spiritual aspect, which
may leave the body in dreams or during illness and ultimately departs after death.
It gradually transforms itself on its way to the other world and assumes differ-
ent qualities. The human-specific cycle of transformation differs in certain details
among the four groups. Among the Yukpa, the long-time dead ultimately form a
collectivity of Others who see the world differently from humans after a secondary
burial. Contact, exchange, and commensality with them are restricted to the sec-
ondary burial rite, which is a temporary ritual synchronization of the co-present
worlds of the living and the dead.
The Barı́, by contrast, strive to stay in contact with the dead, who—once reborn
in the other world—protect and defend them as powerful intermediaries between
humans and other beings, such as the deathly dabiddú. They provide humans with
access to the animal world.
Among the Wayuu, the yoluja must be fed and remembered but commensality
must be avoided. The long-time dead change either into rain or become wanülü
after the secondary burial: “Wanülüs and Pulowi are the masters of game animals
and distribute them to men parsimoniously, while the rains cause cultivated plants
to spring up and grow. The wanülüs are to the game animals what the rains are to
cultivated plants (wanülüs : game :: rains : cultivated plants)” (Perrin 1987:115).
Thus, an “anthropocentric view of the world” emerges in which “humankind is
ultimately in the essence of beings and things,” and the idea of nature plays a
minor role (Perrin 1987:109). Game species and cultivated plants have a human

14 J ournal of L atin A merican and C aribbean A nthropology

appearance in the realm beyond death, which serves as “an illustration of that
anthropocentric view of the world” (Perrin 1987:115). This notion, however, is
“far removed from a belief in reincarnation as animals” (1987:115).
Among the Kogi, the dead are neither considered helpful and protective, as
among the Barı́, nor is a distinction drawn between helpful and dangerous forms
of the dead, as among the Wayuu. The dead make demands and may cause illness
or death and therefore must be nourished by offerings. A lay version situates the
other world on the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada in close proximity to the Great
Mother. In that locality a second transformation takes place, which is reserved for
high-ranking individuals once they arrive in the land of the dead. The process does
not only lead to eternal life but also implies transformation into a fertilizing matter
that inseminates the Great Mother Earth.
In all cases, the transformation is of an anthropocentric nature, and game
animal collectivities play a marginal role. The latter are organized like humans and
are represented by masters or owners.14 Close relationships with the human interi-
ority of animals are rare and dangerous, if not absent, whereas the anthropocentric
transformative exchange between humans and the dead takes center stage. The
metamorphosis of humans into animals and vice versa is still a possibility, but is
something to be avoided and is not considered to be the culmination of the human–
animal relationship. Animals generally had human-like attributes in the mythical
past but are not considered humans in the contemporary world. They have not only
different bodies and capacities, but also a different interiority. The metamorpho-
sis of humans to animals would nullify crucial distinctions established by culture
heroes such as Sabasewa (among the Barı́) or Amoricha (among the Yukpa). As
a consequence, the fact that direct and actively sought metamorphosis of animals
to humans and vice versa is avoided, and that anthropocentric human transfor-
mational cycles are established, creates a greater ontological distance between hu-
mans and gradually different game species. The relationship with them is mediated
through offerings, the return of their bones, or by the spirits of the dead themselves.
Such conceptions also influence shamanism. Classical shamans are absent
among the Yukpa, Barı́, and Kogi, whereas among the Wayuu shamans work with
the wanülü, the long-time dead, as spirit helpers. The Kogi priests, who are not
morally ambivalent, possess special esoteric knowledge obtained through a long ap-
prenticeship and training marked by abstinence and avoidance rules from birth on
(Reichel-Dolmatoff 1976). However, they are not shamans who know “how to heal”
(Reichel-Dolmatoff 1985:151; see also Reichel-Dolmatoff 1974:291), but are con-
cerned with maintaining cosmological harmony. Among the Yukpa, spiritual work
is done either collectively in rituals and song-dances led by the tomaira (a specialist
in singing who “owns” songs; serves contextually as a ritual specialist and may direct
collective rituals), or was in former times individually carried out by the tijisnocha
(a spiritual specialist who may influence the weather, the growth of food plants and

Amerindian Sociocosmologies of Northwestern South America 15

 the behavior of animals; “commands the food”)15 who has almost ceased to exist
today. The tijisnocha had the power to command food, and to send disease by blow-
ing substances and uttering spells; they also used the spirits of wooden figurines16
as helpers. All of these ritual specialists divine from dreams and work with spirit
helpers, but do not transform themselves into animals. They represent a mediated,
associative, mimetic, and divinatory form of nonmetamorphic religious specialists.
The ourakuy (diviners) among the Wayuu may even become possessed by spirits of
the dead (yoluja). Dreaming, trance, divination, and offerings play a much more
important role than ecstatic experience, which is often induced by hallucinogens.17
Thus, the issue is not so much a metamorphosis of shape or perspective as a
partial encompassment of alterity. Cosmological interventions by religious spe-
cialists can open up an overarching space that neither relies on the change of form
nor implies the specialists’ metamorphosis from one kind of being to another.
Rather, these interventions transcend those boundaries due to morally unambigu-
ous contemplation and by controlling, commanding, and manipulating analogical
resemblances and forces—like the dead—that provide a basis for inferences and
exercise spiritual influence through ritual synchronization and adjustment, div-
ination, dreams, and gifts. Anthropocentric cycles of transformation establish col-
lectivities beyond living humans. Outside of this transformational cycle, a dreaded
and dangerous periphery and other collectivities can be found. With regard to
this periphery, metamorphosis is theoretically possible, but to be avoided. If it
does happen due to a person’s wrongdoing, it is likely to cause illness, death, and
possibly the destruction of the cosmos.
Thus, the dead are of central importance for mediating larger cosmological
relations: offerings (among the Kogi and, according to Villamañán [1975], the
Barı́) conceptualized as food and animal sacrifices (among the Wayuu) serve to
influence these relations. The Yukpa do not give offerings to their dead after
the second burial. They interact with the collectivity of the dead during feasts
and through the collective consumption of maize beer. As Hugh-Jones argues
(2013:368), with reference to Strathern (1988:238), “food should be treated to the
same range of objectifying operations as indicated for wealth items and persons,”
which “seem(s) especially apposite . . . in relation to beer” (Hugh-Jones 2013:368).
In contrast to standard Amazonian animism, in the Isthmo-Colombian area
more hierarchical forms of animism prevail, which show a number of signifi-
cant similarities to animist forms in Southeast Asia, such as a preponderance of
divination and dreaming, the importance of the collectivity of the dead and fu-
nerary rituals, indications of spirit possession and incorporation, as well as the
appearance of spirits in human form. In Southeast Asia, sacrificed livestock create
alliances with the spirits as ontological Others, while in Amazonia, livestock and
a logic of heterosubstitution—in which “animals and artifacts stand for human

16 J ournal of L atin A merican and C aribbean A nthropology

persons or parts of their body” (Descola 2001:110f)—is absent. The mediation
between the “Others” is carried out by persons, parts of persons, or nonmaterial
subjective qualities, such as names, souls, and songs (homosubstitution). In the
Isthmo-Colombian zone heterosubstitution is an important feature among the
Wayuu (Descola 2001:113), but offerings also play a central role among the Kogi
and probably among the Barı́. When the Yukpa establish contact with the collec-
tivity of the dead through maize beer, it is not only an act of commensality, but
the offering of a processed personalized plant classified as meat. In northwestern
South America, as in Southeast Asia, hierarchical forms of animism prevail, where
heterosubstitution is important. Their specific logics and processual characteristics
will have to be identified by further research, however.

Notes

1 This research was supported by a senior fellowship of the European Institutes for Advanced Study

(EURIAS), Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions of the European Commission.

2 In the sense of an “ethnographic present,” based on recent anthropological studies, which are

contemporary in the case of the Yukpa and the Wayuu, but comparatively old due to the lack of more
recent studies in the case of the Kogi and the Barı́.
3 Rêveur à volonté (Perrin 1994:34).
4 For historical evidence, see Oliver (1989) and Zucchi (2010).
5 Descola (2013b) rejects the idea that generalized predation is the prototypical modality of rela-

tionship in Amerindian cosmologies and considers perspectivism a specific case of animism.

6 An animism based on hunting relationships.
7 Called differently among the different Yukpa subgroups: Amoricha [Irapa-Yukpa], Otompa [Iroka-

Yukpa], or Aponto [Iroka-Yukpa, Sokorpa-Yukpa].

8 On the multiple meanings of wanülü as an anthropomorphic being, the cause of illness, and as

shamans’ spirit helper, see Perrin (1987).

9 A similar notion of the cause of death and residence in the afterworld is expressed by the Yukpa

and the Kogi (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1985b:153–154).

10 Among the Wayuu, the bones of the deceased are washed during the secondary burial, and the

Yukpa state that they once refused the rejuvenating water and since then have been unable to change
their skin and must die forever.
11 The following description is based on the work of Reichel-Dolmatoff (1974, 1976, 1985a, 1985b).

See also Otaegui (2008).

12 The Mother gives, the owners of plants or animals grant permission in exchange for offerings,

and the dead demand (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1985b:88).

13 A similar idea exists among the Wayuu (Barbara Kazianka personal communication, August 9,

2016).
14 This is the case even among the “analogistic” Kogi.
15 They are known as tyenompe among the Iroka-Yukpa.
16 For a picture, see Sociedad de Ciencias Naturales La Salle (1953, plate XXXI).
17 In terms of Hugh-Jones’ (1994) distinction, central aspects of vertical shamanism dominate over

horizontal shamanism.

Amerindian Sociocosmologies of Northwestern South America 17

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