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microbes
and other
shamanic
beings
César E. Giraldo Herrera

Microbes and Other Shamanic Beings
Microbes and Other

Shamanic Beings
Somerville College
Institute for Science Innovation and Society
School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography
Oxford, UK
ISBN 978-3-319-71317-5 ISBN 978-3-319-71318-2 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71318-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017961840
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and trans-
mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Cover illustration: Carlos Jacanamijoy Navegación Interna (2009), oil on canvas
Printed on acid-free paper
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Para Enrique:
Mugre en mis ojos
manchas de tigre
Prologue
This book revaluates familiar myths and understandings of the world

with insights developed while doing fieldwork far away from home. It is
part of a trilogy derived from my doctoral dissertation in social anthro-
pology. The dissertation dwelt on Nordic seamanship, on relating to the
environment without and within, on syncretism, perspectivism, and sha-
manism. This book is the last part, the trip back home, back into our-
selves. So, what or who are we?
My grandfather was a rural medic, in Quindio, Colombia a place infested
with venomous snakes. He was adamant that one should get to know them,
to see the world from their perspective, acknowledging their ecology, where
they lived, and what they ate. Most of their attacks were in self-defence, out
of fear. If in your interactions with them you were calm and respectful, even
the most poisonous were mostly harmless. My grandfather supported his
views on animal subjectivity with authors like Konrad Lorenz. He would
have been an avid reader of Ingold, Haraway, Bennet, and Tsing. However,
the roots of his views are more likely to be found in the adventures of the
miscreant uncle Rabbit and his victimized predator uncle Jaguar, which he
used to tell me. Although warranting care for deceiving appearances, these
were more than fables, these are far older stories.
I studied my undergrad in biology, focusing on physiology, ethology,
and theoretical biology, and so, I am an unrepentant functionalist and
would not hesitate to subscribe to a naturalistic1 understanding of reality.
vii
viii Prologue
However, my degree monograph was a theoretical exploration of biose-

miotics, suggesting that organisms and other biological systems develop
processes of interpretation, and in their own ways, and for their own sake
make sense of their world. I find it very hard to fathom how some people
assume humans are the only beings with intentions, points of view, or
emotions: the only beings to communicate, the only persons. My views,
as well as those of my parents, and grandparents, are in many ways closer
to what some authors would denominate animism. So, again, who are
we? We are the Westernized, or rather their descendants, and we are also
descendants of the indianos, the Indianized, the Africanized; the coloniz-
ers, and the colonized.2
When I was little, I was terrified of the night and fascinated by those
monsters that linger in Latin American imaginaries: the witches who
transform into jaguars; the one-legged Patasola; the Duende, a goblin
with a humongous hat and backward feet; and the Llorona, the spirit of
the woman who cries for her abandoned baby. I felt more sympathy for
the Madremonte, the mother of the forest, and for the Mohan, the mis-
chievous guardian spirits of the waters. However, their stories, when they
had them, were so diluted and abstract, that they had become caricatures,
folkloric fictions.
Years later, working with traditional Afro-Colombian fisher peoples in
the Pacific, I met with ‘the visions’, a rich oral tradition referring some of
those stories, linking them with specific ecologies, medicinal plants,
behaviours, and powers. The Tunda was a one-legged Amerindian woman
(Afro-Colombian for Amerinds), who would appear in the shape of a
close relative or a lover, and lure her victims into the wildness of the man-
grove, taking away their speech, reducing them into sexual slavery and
madness. However, there are also herbs and prayers to call Tunda; she
teaches her protégés the art of invisibility, and hides them from the
authorities. These visions could also appear and harass you in dreams. My
friends and hosts interpreted some of my own dreams in that way.
However, the visions seem to flee from modernity, disappearing together
with the ecologies with which they are associated. The visions made evi-
dent that the folkloric monsters of my childhood were translations of the
masters of game, some of the beings with which Amerindian shamans
deal. I sought to explain them as symbolic constructs, enunciating the
Prologue
ix
affordances and dangers of specific environments and the social relations

people established in them.3 However, these interpretations neglect the
experiences associated with these beings, how people understand them,
and the ways people seek to interact with them.
Later still, reflecting upon my experiences while on-board the indus-
trial fishing trawlers in the North Sea, I began to explore how we relate to
microbes, how we may perceive them, and came across a possible alterna-
tive translation, which would seem to account for more of the character-
istics of masters of game. This led me to explore the early records of
Amerindian shamanism and Amerindian myths associated with syphilis,
developing a biocultural ethnohistory of Amerindian shamanism and
microbiology.
Microbes and other shamanic beings explores whether and to what
degree microbiology might be commensurable with shamanism, whether
it might offer better translations than anthropology, following missionary
theology has so far. The book develops three major arguments. First, sha-
manism has been generally understood through reference to spirits and
souls. However, these terms were introduced by the missionaries, who
carried the earliest translations, to convert Amerinds into Christianism.
Rather than trying to comprehend shamanism through medieval
European concepts, we should examine it through ideas that started
developing in the West only after encountering Amerindian shamans.
Since the earliest accounts, Amerindian shamanic notions have shared
more in common with current microbial ecology than with Christian
religious beliefs. Shamans have described the beings with which they deal
in ways that correspond to contemporary understandings of microbes.
Second, various human senses allow the unaided perception of the micro-
bial world. We focus on entoptic vision, which affords the perception of
microscopic objects flowing through our retina. The techniques employed
by shamans enhance these kinds of perception, and their depictions of
shamanic beings correspond to the images produced by these forms of
vision. Third, the theory that some diseases are produced by living agents
acquired through contagion was proposed near after the Encounter by a
physician who translated and adapted Amerindian knowledge about
syphilis, an important subject of pre-Contact Amerindian medicine and
mythology. Amerindian myths of the Sun and the Moon described
x Prologue
shamanic beings causing syphilis and closely related diseases, their

dynamics, histories, and treatments. Western medicine took four centu-
ries before revaluating its paradigms, rediscovering germs, and turning
microbiology into a mainstream science. I argue that a deep decoloniza-
tion of thought should reclaim this knowledge back. At a time when the
war on microbes is becoming unsustainable, shamanism may afford a
refined diplomacy to interact with the highly social microbial worlds
which constitute and permeate us.
References
Descola, Philippe. 2013. Beyond nature and culture. Trans. J. Lloyd. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Giraldo Herrera, César Enrique. 2009. Ecos en el arrullo del mar: Las artes de la
marinería en el Pacífico colombiano y sy mimesis en la música y el baile, Prometeo.
Bogotá: Uniandes – Ceso – Departamento de Antropología.
Herrera Angel, Marta. 2016. El conquistador conquistado. Awás, Cuayquer y
Sindaguas en el Pacífico colombiano, siglos XVI–XVIII. Bogotá: Ediciones
Uniandes.
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. 1998. Cosmological deixis and Amerindian per-
spectivism. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4 (3): 469–488.
Acknowledgements
Being and thinking are collective processes, hence so are researching and
writing. I have been fortunate to enjoy good company, insightful interac-
tions, inspiring conversations, hospitality, and sponsorship throughout
this adventure. Thus, I am deeply indebted to innumerable persons
(human, non-human, and institutional) who have made this work pos-
sible, and although I will certainly miss many important people, I will try
to evoke some of their names.
From the moment of his conception, Enrique, my son, has been a
constant source of hope and inspiration, the most enlightening, exhila-
rating, nerving, and also frightening experience. With him I am begin-
ning to understand my parents, Marta Herrera and César Giraldo, their
caprices, their joys, and their unfaltering support. I have also counted
with the hospitality and the constructive criticism of various texts of my
aunts Leonor Herrera and Carmenza Charrier.
Through my doctoral research at the University of Aberdeen, I was
fortunate to enjoy the guidance and supervision of Tim Ingold. The gen-
erous care he puts onto reading, commenting, and discussing ideas has
allowed us, his many students, to experience the craftsmanship of knowl-
edge. It was an honour and a delighting insightful experience. With his
playful attitude, ruminated words, and gestures encompassing the world,
I could set forth to explore reality at sea, in books, in my body, and imagi-
nation. Through the first steps of this research, my ex-wife, Angélica
xi
xii Acknowledgements
Quintero, was a good listener who patiently supported me in my endeav-

ours. I also had the chance of reading and being read by many colleagues,
sharing good laughs of amazement with Caroline Gatt, Peter Loovers,
Miriam Rabelo, Cristián Simonetti, Jennifer Clarke, Rachel Harkness,
Nicolas Ellison, James Leach, Nancy Wachowich, Arnar Árnason, Robert
Wishart, Ursula Witt, and many undergraduate students. I am also grate-
ful to my examiners Kay Århem and Gísli Pálsson for their challenging
and encouraging readings of the doctoral dissertation, for pointing at
missing paths, and for suggesting alternative routes.
Later, Gísli Pálsson took me under his wing as a postdoctoral researcher
for the project Biosocial Relations and Hierarchies at the University of
Iceland, allowing me to explore the resonance of these ideas working on
biosociality, developing research with microbiologists, and lecturing the
course Body and Society. I also want to thank Guðmundur Hrafn
Guðmundsson, and other members of his lab, as well as the researchers
from Matís Prokaria, for sharing with me their insights on microbes.
During this time, I presented a paper on shamanic microscopy (largely
the Second Part) at the Spaces of Attunement Symposium; the comments of
the participants as well as those from various anonymous reviewers were
very helpful, and a version of this paper was accepted for publication at
the Journal Anthropology of Consciousness.
During the past two years, Somerville College at the University of
Oxford has nurtured me, providing an environment to grow and develop
my ideas. I want to thank all its staff and students for their friendship,
support, and perceptive conversations, in particular its former Principal
Alice Prochaska, Maan Barua, David Bowe, Siddarth Arora, Alfred
Gathorn-Hardy, and Philip Kreager. I also want to thank the staff and
students of the Department of Anthropology, specially the members of
the Institute of Science Innovation and Society, who welcomed me: Javier
Lezaun for his tutorship, Steve Rayner, Jerome Ravetz, Christopher
Goldsworthy, Louise Bezuidenhout, Sara de Wit, Rob Bellamy, Sophie,
Hainess and Lisa Dilling for their insightful readings of manuscripts of
this text. I have also enjoyed seminars, courses, and conversations with
Elisabeth Hsu, Kate Fayers-Kerr, Maryam Aslany, Laura Rival, Ramón
Sarró, Stanley Ulijaszek, Lola Martinez, Paola Esposito, and Elizabeth
Ewart. I also want to thank Elizabeth for inviting me to the ISCA semi-
Acknowledgements
xiii
nars to present another version of the paper on shamanic microscopy,

where I received very valuable feedback. I also want to thank Erica
Charters and the other members of the Centre for the History of Science,
Medicine, and Technology for inviting me to present a paper on
Amerindian treponemal mythologies, and providing most insightful
comments. I also had the chance to present this paper at the panel ‘living
well together’ of the 2016 EASA Conference in Milan. I am very grateful
to Jamie Lorimer, Beth Greenhough, Javier Lezaun, and Cressida Jervis-
Read for organizing the Oxford Interdisciplinary Microbiome Project,
providing venues to enrich and share novel developments on microbes.
I am most grateful for many enduring friendships: bewitching per-
spectives shared with Beatriz Ángel, the support through parenthood of
Santiago Jara, the musical fabulations through mountains and forests,
with Camilo Giraldo, and with Juanita Delgado for her perceptive being
and enchanting songs. I also want to thank Juan Camilo Niño, Elisa Bale,
Santiago Paredes, Franzi Carranza, Marta Herrera, and all the members
of Taller Umbra as well as Marianne Cardale, and the participants of the
Coloquio Chibcha for their constructive criticism of the text.
As a deeper research project develops from the book, I want to thank
the hospitality and openness of Fabio and Nelson Yabur, as well as
Abadio Green of the Gunadule communities of Ibgigundiwala and
Maggilagundiwala, the interest, care and fascinating stories of the benk-
hun Alejandro Moya of the Wounaan community at el Papayo, and of
William Mozombite, Ingano taita resident in Leticia.
This research would not have been possible without the financial spon-
sorship provided for my studies by the studentships of the College of Arts
and Social Sciences of the University of Aberdeen and the Overseas
Research Scheme Scotland. I am most grateful to Victoria Maltby for the
Junior Research Fellowship from Somerville College of the University of
Oxford, which has allowed me to bring these ideas to the fore.
I also want to thank Antonia Waldorf and many other anonymous
reviewers who have contributed with their doubts, suggestions, and
references.
Last but not least, a thousand thanks to the reader—I hope you enjoy
this trip.
xiv Acknowledgements
Notes
1. For biologists, a naturalist is a researcher who after many years in the field
has come to understand the characteristics of an ecological system, the
organisms that make up its community, their behaviour, physiology,
developmental, and genetic histories. It is the sort of thing you want to be
when you grow very, very old. So, when I read how naturalism is being
portrayed in anthropology (Viveiros de Castro 1998; Descola 2013), I
cannot but feel profoundly annoyed by what seems like a strawman made
with Christian hay and humanist clothes. However, that naturalism is a
metonym, which names the whole, that is, that despair bundle of Western
ontologies, by what today is one of its most prominent strands.
2. Herrera Angel 2016.
3. Giraldo Herrera 2009.
Contents
1 Colonized Selves, Decolonizing Ontologies 1

1.1 Decolonizing Ontologies 1
1.2 The Ontological Turn and Its Challenges 3
1.3 Commensurability, Translation, and Deep
Decolonization: Reclaiming Knowledge 9
1.4 Description of the Book 10
Bibliography 14
Part I Amerindian Shamanism 17
2 (Mis)Understanding Shamanism and Animism 19

2.1 Entrenched Notions of Shamanism and Animism 19
2.2 Reframing Animism 22
2.3 Amerindian Perspectivism 24
2.4 Soulless Animism and Body-Full Spirits 28
Bibliography 31
xv
xvi Contents
3 First Contacts with Amerindian Shamans and Their

‘Spirits’ 35
3.1 The Hispano-American Encounter, from the Middle
Ages to the Renaissance 36
3.2 The French Encounter with Shamanism that Preceeded
the Enlightenment 42
3.3 Analysis: The Spirits of the Encounter 53
Bibliography 61
4 Syncretic Ontologies of the Microbial-Shamanic Beings 65

4.1 Shamanic Beings 66
4.2 Commensurable Aspects of Microbes with Shamanic
Beings 69
4.3 Social Science and Its Recalcitrance to Microbiology 76
Bibliography 87
Part II Shamanic Microscopy, Perceiving Cellular “Souls” and

Microbial “Spirits” 99
5 Shamanic Epistemologies 103
Bibliography 108
6 Neuropsychological Naturalistic Explanations of Shamanic

Visions 111
Bibliography 115
7 The Cavern of the Eye: Seeing Through the Retina 119

7.1 Early Physiological Research on Entoptic Vision 122
7.2 Neurophysiology of Eidetic Phosphenes 124
7.3 Pharmacology of Hallucinations and Phosphenes 126
7.4 Renewed Interest for Entoptics 128
Bibliography 130
Contents
xvii
8 Entoptic Microscopy 135
8.1 Characteristic Features of Entoptic Images 135
8.2 What Might Be Visible to Shamans Through Entoptic
Microscopy139
8.3 Seeing Things Together 141
Bibliography 143
Part III Biocultural Ethnohistory of the Zemes of

Treponematoses 145
9 French Malaise in the Taino Myths of Origin 151

9.1 Where the Taino Came From 152
9.2 Where the Sun and the Moon Came From 153
9.3 How the Sea Was Made: The Caracaracol and “Yaya”
Master of Manioc and the Sea” 155
9.4 Guayanara, Yaya, and Caracaracol, Treponematoses
and Their Treatments 158
Bibliography 163
10 The Spotted Sun and the Blemished Moon, Nahuatl Views

on Treponematoses 167
Bibliography 176
11 The West, Syphilis, and the Other Treponematoses 179

11.1 Sixteenth Century, Syphilis, and the Theory
of Contagion181
11.2 Seventeenth- to Twentieth-Century Syphiloids,
the Ontological Theory of Disease186
11.3 Twentieth Century, the Entangled Debates
of Treponema pallidum189
11.4 Current Understandings of Treponema pallidum191
Bibliography 199
xviii Contents
12 Threading Worlds Together 205

12.1 Oúpoyem: Interpenetrating Material Subjectivities
Constituting Bodies 205
12.2 Buhities and Boyaicou: Hosts of Zemes, Zemes
Themselves207
12.3 The Zemes of the Sun and the Moon, Syphilis,
and Other Treponematoses 208
12.4 Missionary Spirituous Translations 211
12.5 Entoptic Microscopy 214
12.6 Translating Zemes into the Seminae, into Germs,
into Microbes215
12.7 Decolonizing Thought, Reclaiming Microbiology 220
12.8 Remaining Incommensurabilities 222
Bibliography 225
Bibliography 227
Index 257
List of Figures
Fig. 2.1 Perceptual and ecological relations of Amerindian

perspectivism 26
Fig. 5.1 Navegación interna (2009), oil on canvas (0.94 × 1.02 M.) by
Carlos Jacanamijoy (Reproduced with the kind permission of
the author) 107
Fig. 7.1 Structure and organization of the retina (a) Diagram of the
eye; (b) Drawing of a micro-section of the primate retina,
after a photograph in Adams and Horton (2003);
(c) Diagram of the kinds of cells that compose the tissue 121
Fig. 7.2 Drawings of various entoptic phenomena (Purkyne 1819)
reproduced with the kind permission of the Max Planck
Institute for the History of Science. Figs. 1–4 refractive
interference patterns under bright illumination; Figs. 21, 26
blood cells; Figs. 23 and 24 ‘Purkyne’s tree’ the VESSELS of
his eye vascular network. 124
Fig. 8.1 Geometry of shadow projection and formation, a two-
dimensional silhouette of the different illuminated regions.
The boxes portray the shadow projected at corresponding
distances137
Fig. 8.2 Analytic drawing of Jacanamijoys’s internal navigation
(2009). (a) Drawing, (b) elements extracted 138
Fig. 9.1 Symmetries between the Taino and the Callinago myths of the
Sun and the Moon 159
xix
xx List of Figures
Fig. 9.2 Map of the distribution of paleopathological evidence of

pre-contact treponematoses in the Americas and myths of the
Sun and the Moon 160
Fig. 10.1 Nanahuatl the syphilitic Sun drawn from The Book of Night
and Wind (Codex Yoalli Ehēcatl/Borgia, 45) and its facsimile
(1825–1831, 43) 168
Fig. 10.2 Xochiquetzal, Nanahuatzin, and Chalchiuhtlicue (goddess of
the waters) (Codex Yoalli Ehēcatl/Borgia, 23) and its facsmile
(1825–1831, 19) 171
Fig. 12.1 Ontological translations and purifications of knowledge,
brought by the Encounter 219
1
Colonized Selves, Decolonizing
Ontologies
1.1 D
ecolonizing Ontologies
We can define ontology as the knowledge or understanding of being or
reality. I prefer these terms over discourse, science, study, and many other
alternatives, because in general these alternatives imply formalized
approaches to reality. Understanding is a more inclusive, down-to-earth,
dynamic notion, which captures the implications of ontology, its capacity
to make worlds. Understanding and being are imbricated. Understanding
a reality, we articulate what is known about it, what we perceive, and
what we infer from those perceptions into something coherent, which we
can act upon. On the other hand, quite literally understanding funda-
ments being, and becomes the basis for reality.
Like the God of Christians, reality, science, and ontology used to be
employed solely in the singular and capitalized. While Christianity was
thought to convey the ‘true knowledge’ of the ‘one true God’, so Science
(singular and capitalized) was thought to be the rational, incremental
process of acquiring knowledge: the understanding of the ‘true’ and ‘uni-
versal’ nature of Reality (again singular and capitalized)—a process origi-
nating in Europe, enabling the progress of the West and, implicitly or
explicitly, justifying its colonization of the rest of the world.
1
2 C. E. Giraldo Herrera
Anthropology, as part of this enterprise, would recognize isolated

achievements of non-Westerners, such as the botanical knowledge of
some Amerindian shamans. Nevertheless, these were frequently down-
played as local or situated forms of knowledge and contrasted with the
‘universal’ character of Western Science. Moreover, the understandings of
reality of shamans were frequently dismissed, because they included enti-
ties such as ‘souls’ and ‘spirits’, which modernity had banished from
Nature or Reality. To make matters worse, shamans attributed these enti-
ties to non-humans, even to inert or inanimate things like rocks. As
remarked by Descola (1996), these entities and their characteristics still
remain ever-perplexing.
Over the past 50 years, anthropology has been conducting a profound
critique of its position, its relation to its subjects of study, and its relations
to power. Through this reflexive process, anthropology has come to rec-
ognize its own role in colonial and neo-colonial processes and to question
its methods, and scientific pretentions, as well as the scientific enterprise
and the process of development as such.
Post-colonial intellectuals have revealed that colonialism involves the
authoritative deployment of artistic, literary, academic, and scientific dis-
courses, including anthropological discourses of the Other, as forms of
epistemic violence, undermining how non-Western peoples perceive and
understand themselves and reality. This colonization of thought under-
lays the control, suppression, and exploitation of non-Westerners even
after they become politically emancipated.1 Real emancipation requires a
decolonization of thought, a re-evaluation of non-Western forms of art,
of telling stories, of thinking, and understanding the world.2
On the other hand, applying to natural scientists the methods anthro-
pology developed to understand ethnoscience, science and technology
studies (STS) have observed that the claims of natural scientists are sub-
stantiated, and they derive their strength from highly situated practices,
articulating human and non-human actors through arduous processes of
negotiated translation. These practices are possible under specific histori-
cal contingencies; they are embedded in social dynamics, such as the poli-
tics of the academy, and diverse conjunctures with finance, industry, and
religion.3 Moreover, when different disciplines address ‘the same reality’,
they define and articulate it differently, often reaching dissimilar
Colonized Selves, Decolonizing Ontologies 3
c onclusions.4 Science stands for a plurality of different practices, views,

and voices, which are frequently in disagreement. Thus, the universality,
and even the unity, of Science has been an idealistic aim rather than an
actual achievement.
Examining the history of science in colonial and neocolonial settings,
postcolonial historians of science have demonstrated how Western scien-
tific models and projects of development are frequently founded on eth-
nocentric assumptions, which cannot be generalized to conditions far
removed from the working parameters in which the models were devel-
oped, leading to scientific stagnation and disastrous developmental fail-
ures. Like any other system of knowledge, Western sciences have a limited
grip on reality. Furthermore, distant allegiances frequently draw the
interests of scientists and developers, aligning them with those of the
Western metropolis, to the detriment of the ‘peripheries,’ and of knowl-
edge itself. The recognition of these inadequacies and limitations resulted
in the call for cognitive justice, for the recognition that there is a plurality
of sciences, that other forms of knowledge may lay better claims to under-
standing the true nature of reality,5 thereby opening another path for the
decolonization of thought. Western sciences cannot be the yardstick to
judge the validity of non-Western ontologies, that is, the way non-Western
realities are understood and constituted.
1.2 The Ontological Turn and Its Challenges

In the past years, these insights have led anthropology into the ontologi-
cal turn—the realization that our interlocutors not only have different
cultures but also often dwell in radically different realities. Consequently,
there are multiple ontologies, which might not be commensurable.
Radical difference and incommensurability foster the study of ontologi-
cal claims on their own terms, seeking to approach diverse realities and
their understandings without privileging one (the Western) over the oth-
ers. This bolder version of the classical relativistic principle of anthropol-
ogy (which encourages us to understand social practices and behaviours
within their cultural context) extends relativism onto reality itself. This
should be regarded as a point of departure for an anthropology seeking to
understand: what is being, what is the world, and how do we and our
interlocutors know it?
As Holbraad6 points out, the ontological turn places the onus of proof
on the anthropologist, who has to ‘reconceptualise a whole set of notions’
to address whatever our interlocutors are dealing with. He indicates that we
ought to give precedence to their understanding of reality over our interpre-
tations of how they understand reality. If our concepts raise paradoxes, it is
these concepts that we must re-evaluate. He suggests we should re-evaluate
what things are (e.g., What is a stone? for it to have a soul or a spirit).
Following the epistemic principle of the ontological turn, Vilaça (2005)
and Holbraad et al. (2014) have supposed that to decolonize thought, it
would be sufficient to uphold current shamanic and scientific ontologies
as equivalent. They assume that by simply acknowledging their incom-
mensurabilities, ontologies that have become subaltern can be explained
and defended in their own terms. Thus, they argue that a decolonization
of thought should focus on non-biological conceptions of the body and
the environment. Following this path, anthropology has enthusiastically
assumed that non-Western realities, like those of shamanism, are necessar-
ily incommensurable with those portrayed by natural sciences.
However, as is noted by Descola, biological and ethnobiological clas-
sifications and understandings most frequently coincide in their details.7
Furthermore, as is suggested by Latour in his comments to Eduardo
Kohn’s How Forests Think, by itself, an extended relativistic principle in
anthropological epistemology does not necessarily empower non-Western
realities or their understandings:
… how could an ethnographer, or, for that matter, a Runa scholar, equipped
with such a philosophical anthropology find ways to make his or her onto-
logical claims understood in negotiating what a forest is made of, when faced
with forestry engineers, loggers, tourists, NGOs, or state administrators?
That is where the so-called ontological turn finds its moment of truth. Not on
the epistemological scene but on the bittersweet attempts at negotiating alterna-
tive ways to occupy a territory, being thrown in the world, designating who
is friend and who is enemy.8 (Emphasis is mine)
Western and non-Western peoples increasingly coexist in the same

places, partially sharing common realities. Even if these realities are
a rticulated into distinct worlds and ontologies, they overlap and become
subjects of dispute. Shamans and biomedical practitioners treating
Amerindian or other communities share the realities of health and disease
in these populations. Because of these common grounds, they often end
up competing or interfering with one another, potentially to the detri-
ment of their patients.
In those disputes, a powerful side might seek to settle the issue unilater-
ally. However, such resolutions are often resisted, or contested.9 Authority
and influence, also depend on the degree of specific understanding of the
incumbent realities, and the capacity to make this knowledge operational.
For example, the knowledge about particular diseases, the ability to treat
them, the availability of therapeutic means or apparatuses, and the capacity
to communicate knowledgeability and mobilize patients may ultimately
grant authority to either shamans or biomedical doctors. Authority also
depends on the capacity to translate operational understandings to a lan-
guage acknowledged by the counterpart. Although shamans have made
multiple contributions to Western pharmaceutics, the metaphysical or
supernatural terms in which their knowledge is translated lead biomedical
practitioners to continue to dismiss their practices as fake and superstitious.
I will argue that although questioning the reality of the stone is bold,
the stone should not be the main source of concern for the ontological
turn. After all, Amerindian shamans, anthropologists, and natural scien-
tists can normally perceive rocks and acknowledge them as real, and
therefore at least as partially commensurable. What is really troubling is:
what is a soul or a spirit, for it to be in a stone? Because, strictly speaking,
the Christian religious notions of souls and spirits are incommensurable
with naturalist understandings of both stones and humans.
Moreover, as Davi Kopenawa, a Yanomami shaman, points out, it is
anthropologists who translate the Yanomami xapiri as spirits,10 and, as
has been recognized since Lévy-Bruhl and is still quite evident,11 the
translation is not very good. The Christian religious notions of souls and
spirits are incommensurable with naturalist understandings of stones and
humans, but also with shamanic notions of ‘spirits’ and ‘souls’. What is
problematic is the continuous translation of Amerindian notions through
Christian religious terms, the subsequent reduction of Amerindian
realities onto the realm of the supernatural, and of their ontologies onto
Christian metaphysics, to such a degree that shamanism is reduced into

the ‘belief in the existence and manipulation of spirits’, and ultimately it
is assumed to be a matter of faith not of knowledge. What is troubling are
the explanations built upon these translations and delivered by the
anthropology of shamanism, not the explicative capacities of shamanism
itself. This translation is a classic example of epistemic violence.
Anthropology needs to address critically its theological missionary roots,
how Christian categories affect its understanding of reality, and its rela-
tions with the knowledge of its interlocutors.12
Anchored in theological language, anthropology has found itself to
address the corporeal and organismic characteristics of beings like xapiri.
How could these beings have their abode in human and non-human
bodies, in objects and in artefacts? Anthropology has also faced difficul-
ties in understanding and acknowledging their pathogenicity; how could
these beings cause diseases? Specially, how could they cause infectious–
contagious diseases? But also, how could they affect pregnancy, birth, or
development? Furthermore, so far, anthropology has lacked the appropri-
ate conceptual framework to consider seriously the causal relations sha-
manism establishes between the management of wildlife and that of
health.
Praet (2009), who also notes the dilemma of translation, offers ‘mon-
sters’ as an alternative to spirits, gods, deities, and other similar terms. He
provides an insightful etymology of the term. Nevertheless, this transla-
tion aggravates the problem. If the existence of spirits and gods is a matter
of faith, monsters are generally not believed in. On the other hand, this
translation also fails to account for the crucial characteristics of these
beings, mentioned above.
Perhaps we should leave notions like the Yanomami xapiri untrans-
lated. But do they ever remain untranslated? Evidently not. Christian
terms and their universalist interpretations continue to creep into eth-
nographies and theoretical debates. On the other hand, if we could trans-
late them, why should these notions remain untranslated while jaguars
and trees are not.
However, these notions might have been translated already. As is
pointed out by Raj (2013), the call for cognitive justice, the recognition
of the situated character of science, and I would add the ontological turn
have assumed that different ontologies or forms of knowledge have devel-

oped in isolation and somehow remained hermetically refractory, neglect-
ing that a crucial locus for the development of knowledge is its
circulation—not its simple diffusion or its faithful transmission, but the
negotiated process of its multiple reinventions.
Since at least the sixteenth-century, Amerindian, African and European
cultures have undergone intensive processes of hybridization or syncre-
tism.13 At various times, Amerindian knowledge may have been influenced
by Western explorers, missionaries, and scientists, or by the policies devised
after their work.14 However, these scientists and explorers were immersed
in non-Western societies and were more likely to be influenced by their
idiosyncrasies and ontologies.15 They drew data, inspiration, and theories
from extra-European sources, which frequently remained unacknowl-
edged.16 Anthropology and history are only beginning to explore how syn-
cretism has constituted the West, to examine the global histories of
science.17 Although this research is a promising start, most of the work
exploring syncretism between the New and the Old Worlds has concen-
trated on the Baroque or Enlightenment.18 The temporal bias of the litera-
ture limits the possibility of assessing the true effects of the Encounter in
the constitution of the West. Moreover, these late dates promote the deceit-
ful impression that Europeans always ascribed to naturalism, and gave pre-
cedence to scientific thought over other forms of understanding the world.
Anthropology, history of science, and STS have largely neglected that
natural history and natural philosophy were not the dominant discourses
in Europe before the Encounter. Through the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance, natural philosophy was at best a handmaid for theology. The
early European ambassadors of knowledge were missionary friars, who
believed in the sacredness of religious icons, and credited faith above
empirical or objective knowledge. This calls into question depictions of
the encounter of West–non-West that assume a naturalist or objectivist
stance on behalf of the Europeans.19 Nevertheless, those same missionar-
ies carefully collected Amerindian natural knowledge. In this way, mis-
sionaries and colonial officials participated in processes of purification
and translation,20 whereby Amerindian knowledge was decontextualized,
differentiated into moral and natural histories, adapted, repurposed, and
appropriated.
In this light, the decolonization of thought proposed by advocates of

the ontological turn seems unsatisfactory because it assumes that natural
sciences are indeed monolithic. It neglects the appropriation and influ-
ence of non-Western knowledge in the constitution of Western sciences
and, what might be worse, subsumes Amerindian ontologies to those of
European theology and humanism. I contend that decolonizing thought
should also involve reclaiming it, recognizing how natural sciences are
also rooted beyond the West and how they can also allow us to explore
and to acknowledge the weight of non-Western ontologies, affording for
closer-fitting translations, and stronger alliances with entities that have
biopolitical leverage in the global scene.
This book argues that Amerindian shamanism might be better under-
stood through notions that arose in the West only after Contact, such as
the theory of contagion. The descriptions of shamanic beings match
closely and may be commensurable with currently developing under-
standings of microbes. While the relations shamans propose fall nearer to
the purview of ecology and medicine, microbiology might facilitate a
better translation21 than the one the anthropology of shamanism has pro-
vided so far.
Anthropology has often regarded microbes with the same critical disbe-
lief awarded to the ‘spirits’ described to ethnographers by animist hunters
and shamans. Thus, when microbiologists raise concerns about the cata-
strophic consequences of our war on germs, or the rise of emerging dis-
eases, these critical issues seem far removed from the reach and the interest
of anthropology. Only recently, have researchers in STS begun to develop
an understanding of how microbes and microbiologists mutually consti-
tute one another and crucial dimensions of our everyday reality.22
Nonetheless, STS and anthropology have largely based their insights
on the assumption that instruments forcibly mediate human perception
of microbes.23 Continuing the traditional views of the history of science,
microbiology is generally assumed to be a science without precedents and
a reality incommensurable with those from the past and with non-West-
ern medical traditions, such as shamanism. The estrangement of these
worlds forecloses the possibility of understanding how these health and
environment management traditions have contributed to the constitu-
tion of contemporary microbes and of microbiology.
1.3 ommensurability, Translation, and Deep

C
Decolonization: Reclaiming Knowledge
My overall intention is to develop a better translation, a translation that
transcends Western popular knowledge of natural sciences and, as Holbraad
proposes, acknowledges the degree of expertise involved in specialized
trades like those of shamanic practitioners. Such translation should relate
each others concepts but also they should articulate relations with beings in
the world, establishing alliances that empower non-Western ontologies.
The validity and weight of a translation depend on the commensurability
of the terms involved. This commensurability should be demonstrated to
the counterpart (i.e. shamans and microbiologists). The demonstration of
commensurability must provide evidence that there are equivalent episte-
mologies, granting access to the same realities. That is, the different under-
standings of reality are derived from experiences that can substantiate similar
insights, or that there are modes of reasoning that can grant access to the
same conclusions. To ascertain whether microbiology is a suitable fit for
shamanism, we should demonstrate that microbes can be found in the cir-
cumstances where shamans locate shamanic beings and that they have simi-
lar characteristics. In the same way, to determine whether some shamanic
beings might correspond to microbes or to a construction involving
microbes, a crucial step is to examine how shamans may come to experience
the microbial world or infer its existence and workings.
Translation can be an important aspect empowering non-Western
ontologies. However, to proceed a step further in the decolonization of
thought, we must reverse the process of purification to which non-
Western ontologies have been subject, and which contributed to the
emergence and growth of Western science. We should examine the gene-
alogies of the ideas and practices of the fields of knowledge under com-
parison. Then, we should trace and question the genealogies of their
Western counterparts, to examine whether they were in contact, whether
their histories retain traces of syncretism, and whether their histories can
illuminate our understanding of the history of non-Western ontologies.
This allows us to recognize continuities and transformations in their
modes of thought, to note the correlations in their development, but
most importantly it expands their realm of meaning and serendipitously
connects them with other realms of knowledge.
In a way, I am employing Latour’s methods to question the historiog-

raphy he proposes, indicating a deeper history of microbes that tran-
scends the narratives of the history of Western science. I am inverting the
double movement of purification and translation, re-constituting factish
from fetish and facts.24
1.4 Description of the Book

To explore the avenues through which shamanism and microbiology
might develop a productive conversation, this book develops a biocul-
tural ethnohistory of shamanism and microbiology, through three parts.
The First Part analyzes shamanism, exploring sixteenth- and seventeenth-
century records of zemeism, shamanic knowledge, and practices from the
circum-Caribbean area, showing the parallels of these understandings
with the current understandings developed by microbiology. The Second
Part examines means of perceptual access to the microbial world that are
available to shamans and are consistent with their descriptions and depic-
tions of entities like masters of game. The Third Part traces 16th and
17th records of Amerindian medical knowledge and a widespread
Amerindian myth related to syphilis and other treponemal diseases, the
syphilis pandemic of the sixteenth century, and the reception and adapta-
tion of Amerindian knowledge by European medicine.
The First Part explores how Amerindian shamanism was framed, what
it was, and alternative translations. First, Chapter 2 examines how anthro-
pology understood, and misunderstood, shamanism and Amerindian
ontologies through a conceptual framework derived from Christian mis-
sionary activities, specifically through the classical category of animism.
Then, this chapter examines how, in the last 50 years, some anthropolo-
gists have reframed our understanding of animic thought. It explores the
further extension of animic thought involved in Amerindian perspectiv-
ism and discusses and makes some amendments to this theoretical frame-
work. Chapter 3 develops an ethnohistory of the shamanism of the Taíno
and Callinago peoples of the Caribbean in their early contacts with
Europeans. It examines European records of Amerindian understandings
of the body, the environment, and the zemes or çemijn and other entities
through which missionaries sought to translate their notions of gods,

devils, or spirits. This chapter analyzes these ontologies in their own
terms, as well as the practices and remedies employed by buhities or boyái-
cou, the Caribbean shamans, whom these authors described primarily as
physicians, often noting their medical accomplishments, while simulta-
neously classifying them as magicians, charlatans, and adorers of the
devil. Having provided an analysis of early Amerindian shamanism on its
own terms, Chapter 4 explores the possibility of translating these notions
through contemporary notions of microbiology. The chapter starts trac-
ing possible continuities of Amerindian ontologies, comparing the eth-
nohistorical ontologies with those described by more recent ethnographies.
It then examines the parallels between Amerindian shamanism and
microbiology, demonstrating how microbiology is beginning to describe
the world in ways that correspond to Amerindian shamanism. Finally, it
addresses the objections to what could be seen as medical materialism
and to the historical contingency of microbes.
Having shown how the recent developments of microbiology corre-
spond to Amerindian shamanic ontologies, the Second Part explores the
epistemology of Amerindian shamanism. Departing from the seventeenth-
century records of an Amerindian inclination towards empiricism, we
examine what means shamans have at their disposal for perceiving the
microbial world, and show that their depictions of shamanic beings cor-
respond to those perceptual means. The microbial world has been con-
stantly before our eyes and under our noses. Microbes are perceivable on
our skin and guts, tightly associated with our emotions, but can also be
visible to the naked eye. We explore how microscopic entities are visible
as they flow through our retinas, how their images can intermingle with
those of our macro-reality, of our dreams and fantasies. Shamanic
practices involve sophisticated techniques that optimize these forms of
perception of the microbial world. First, Chapter 5 explores shamanic
epistemologies, addressing the ways in which shamanic beings are not
only conceptualized but perceived. Chapter 6 questions neuropsycho-
logical interpretations which undermine these experiences, explaining
them exclusively as neurogenic hallucinations. In Chapter 7, we explore
an alternative interpretation of shamanic vision: as a form of microscopy
afforded by the structure of the retina of humans and other mammals.
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X
Xacagua.—Así llaman Oviedo y Santa Clara al río Jacagua de
Puerto Rico, que desemboca al S. de la isla. También hay una
serranía de este nombre.
Xagua.—Véase Jagua. Río de Santo Domingo, que corre por el
Cibao. Lugar y río de Cuba.
Xamayca.—Véase Jamayca.
Xagiiey.—Las Casas (t. v. p. 259) dice hablando de la isla Mona:
“Por esta parte que decimos ser de peñas, no hay río alguno, y no
carecen de agua, que beben excelente: estas están en aljibes obrados
por la misma naturaleza, que en lengua de indios se llaman
xagiieyes.” Oviedo aplicó el nombre á las charcas de agua.
Xaragua.—Lago y territorio de Haytí.
Xauxáu.—Así llama Oviedo (libr. VII, cap. II) al casabe delgado y
blanco, para diferenciar estas tortas de las gruesas comunes.
Xanique.—Según Las Casas, río de Haytí.
Xaxabís.—Véase Papagayo.
Xaomatí.—La isla Long island, que Colón llamó Isabela.
Xamaná.—Véase Samaná.
Xexén. Véase Jején.
Y
Y.—Una yerba de Haytí, según Las Casas.
Yaba.—Arbol. (Andira inermis).
Yabacoa.—Río de Santo Domingo, tributario del Ozama.
Yabaque.—Isla cerca de Salvatierra de la Sabána, en Haytí, según
Oviedo.
Yabisí.—Arbol.
Yabucoa.—Pueblo de Puerto Rico.
Yabuna.—Planta silvestre.
Yabón.—Río de Santo Domingo, tributario del Yuna.
Yacahiiey.—Cacique de Cuba. Dice Velázquez (1514): “Y de todo lo
susodicho fué capitán un indio de la isla Española, criado intérprete
del cacique Yacahiiey, que se decía Caguax, el cual ya es muerto”.
Yagua.—La vagina de cada penca de la palma real. Es una especie
de cuero vegetal, de cinco pies de largo y un poco más de dos de
ancho, á veces; fuerte, impermeable y hebrosa. Cada mes lunar se
produce una yagua en la palma. Se utiliza para el techo y hasta como
seto en los bohíos de los campesinos de Puerto Rico. Las yaguas de la
palma de sierra son más pequeñas y más resistentes.
Yaguasa.—Especie de pato silvestre. Gomara anota yaguana.
Yaguana.—La ranchería del cacique Bojekio en Jaragua, Haytí.
Allí fundaron los españoles una villa con el nombre de Vera Paz.
Yaguanabo.—Río de Santo Domingo, en la parte occidental.
Yaguabo.—Puerto de Jamayca, visitado por Colón. Oviedo, libr.
XVIII, cap. I.
Yagiieca.—La región boriqueña de Añasco y Mayaguez, donde era
régulo el cacique Urayoán. Suponemos, que su ranchería ó
yucayeque tenía el mismo nombre.
Yaguatí.—Río de Santo Domingo, tributario del Nizao.
Yahiieca.—Barrio de Ponce, en Puerto Rico.
Yabaque.—La isla Acklin.
Yahutia.—La yautía. Planta que da un tubérculo comestible. Por
error escriben dautía. El copista de Las Casas anota yahubía,
poniendo una b por una t. Es yajutía; pero en el uso ha perdido la
aspiración y decimos hoy yautía.
Yaití.—Arbol. (Excœcaria lucida).
Yahurebo.—Cacique caribeño de Bieque, hermano de Casimax.
Este murió en un asalto que dieron los Caribes á San Juan; y aquel
en un ataque que dieron los españoles á Vieques.
Yamagua.—Río de Cuba.
Yamagiiey.—Arbol.
Yamasá.—Lugar de Santo Domingo.
Yamocá.—Dos.
Yamocún.—Tres.
Yanique.—Río del territorio de Maguana, en Santo Domingo. Las
Casas escribe Xanique.
Yagruma.—Arbol. (Cecropia peltata). Las Casas anota yabruma.
Los mexicanos le llamaban ciatotapatl. Los indios de Panamá
guaruma. Y los del Perú Yarumba. Herrera se equivoca
confundiéndolo con el bambú. Pedro Mártir escribe yaruma.
Yana.—Arbol. (Conocarpus erecta).
Yaque.—Ríos de los territorios Jaragua y Maguana. Lo hay del
norte y del sur. Nombre de una de las montañas más altas de Santo
Domingo, donde nacen los dos ríos citados. Las Casas escribe Yaqui.
Yaquímo.—Lugar y puerto del cacicazgo de Jaragua.
Yara.—Lugar, sitio. En los vocablos indo-antillanos queda
reducido á ya, por polisintetismo.
Yarabí.—Lugar ó sitio reducido, pequeño.
Yarey.—Una variedad de palmera.
Yarí.—Palabra que se encuentra en la frase indo-antillana de una
india de Santo Domingo, (conservada la frase por Las Casas),
indicando el hallazgo de una pepita de oro. Osama, guajerí,
guarinkén caona yarí: oye, señor, ven á ver un sitio de mucho oro.
Este yarí, es yara-ri, buen sitio. La idea del oro está íntegra en el
vocablo caona.
Yarima.—Lugar de limpieza. El ano. Pedro Mártir, Dec. III, libr.
VII, cap. III.
Yaruma.—Véase yagruma.
Yauco.—Pueblo de Puerto Rico.
Yautía.—Véase yahutía.
Yayagua.—Una variedad de piña.
Yayama.—La piña.
Yaya.—Arbol. Así llamaban los indo-antillanos á las bubas. Según
el padre R. Breton (1666) también los caribes insulares le llamaban
así. Es el pénfigo de la enfermedad constitucional la sífilis; viene á
ser una determinación epidérmica de la dolencia. Oviedo, y los que le
siguen, cometen el error, de atribuir el origen de esta plaga á Haytí.
La había en Europa, antes del descubrimiento de las Indias
Occidentales. Dos mil años antes de J. C. los Chinos la tenían. Los
africanos también. El origen es prehistórico; y la terrible
enfermedad, que ha herido á los tres troncos principales del género
humano, se pierde en la noche de los tiempos. En cada raza ha tenido
predilecciones morfológicas.
Yayales.—Barrio de Ponce, en Puerto Rico.
Yerén.—Véase Lerén.
Yocahu Vagua Maorocotí.—Dice Las Casas, t. v. pág. 434: “La
gente desta isla Española tenía cierta fe é conocimiento de un
verdadero é solo Dios... é lo nombraban Yocahu Vagua Maorocotí:
no sé lo que por este nombre quisieron significar.” El traductor
italiano de fray Román Pane enredó la frase indo-antillana más que
el obispo de Chiapa, y anotó: Jocabunagus maorocón (pág. 281, t. 1º,
Hist. del Alm. Cristóbal Colón por su hijo Fernando, Madrid, 1892).
Bachiller y Morales (Ob. cit. p. 167) consigna: Yocauna-Gua-
Maonocon. Nuestra interpretación es Yucajú Bagua Maorocotí. Y la
traducimos: Blanca yuca, grande y poderosa como el mar y la
montaña. En el artículo sobre la religión de los boriqueños
explicamos el polisintetismo de esta frase indígena.
Yocahuguama.—Según Las Casas, nombre de un zemí de Santo
Domingo.
Yú.—Radical indo-antillana. Blanco.
Yuca.—El tubérculo de la yucubía, de la cual los indo-antillanos y
los indios de Tierra Firme hacían su pan. Dice Las Casas: “Esta
labranza (el cultivar la tierra) en el lenguaje de los indios desta ysla
se llamaba conuco, la penúltima luenga, é la raíz yuca, luenga la
primera sílaba, é la planta yucubía.” En el tupí y en el guaraní, los
dos dialectos de la lengua hablada por los indios del Brasil, yuká
significa matar. Indudablemente este verbo procede de las
propiedades altamente mortíferas del jugo de la yuca brava.
(Jatropha manihot.)
Yucayo.—El indio natural de las islas Yucayas, que hoy, por
corrupción del vocablo, se llaman Lucayas. Pedro Mártir (Déc. 7ª,
libr. I, cap. I) dice: “A todas las llaman con el mismo nombre Yucaías
y á sus naturales yucayos.
Yucubía.—La planta que da la yuca.
Yucaba.—Véase batata.
Yuboa.—Río de Santo Domingo.
Yuisa.—La cacica boriqueña Luisa. Una vez bautizada trastrocaron
aquel nombre indio en este español, que se le asemeja. Su aduar
radicaba en las cercanías del actual río Loiza. Su ranchería ó
yucayeque se llamaba Jaymanío, que los cronistas anotan
Haymanio. Fué encomendada la cacica Yuisa por Juan Cerón, en
1509, á trabajar con sus naborís, en las granjerías de S. A., que
comprendían las riberas del río Toa.
Yuna.—Dice Las Casas: “hay otro río más adelante, yendo hacia
Santo Domingo, que se llama Yuna, así los indios lo llamaban.”
Yucayu.—En el mapa de Juan de la Cosa hay una isla con este
nombre. Hoy es Pequeña Abaco.
Yumaí.—La isla Cat island, que Colón llamó Fernandina.
Yucayeke.—Pueblo. Las Casas escribe iucaieque.
Yuní.—Río de Utuado en Puerto Rico. Escriben por error Yune.
Ynabón.—Río de Ponce, en Puerto Rico.
Yunque.—La cúspide de la montaña Luquillo, en Puerto Rico; el
punto más alto de la sierra, envuelto siempre en nieblas blancas. Así
como para esplicar el vocablo Luquillo, han apelado algunos
escritores á un indio loco, para sacar el diminutivo español loquillo,
así á esta cúspide le han buscado semejanza con un yunque de
herrero. Oida la palabra indígena por vez primera, el español
poblador procuraba acomodarla á un vocablo castellano; y esta voz
era la que tenía que perdurar, porque el conquistador se impone
siempre en todo lo que puede. Yunque es corrupción de Yuké, tierra
blanca. Como Luquillo es Yukiyu. Una de las montañas más altas de
Haytí la llamaban los indios Yaké, que hoy escriben Yaque. Los
españoles encontraron también la palabra indígena yuké en Cuba, en
Sagua-Baracoa, aplicada á un monte, y la trastrocaron desde luego
por la castellana Yunque, como en Puerto Rico.
1. Barbados está á 78 millas de San Vicente. Tiene 66 millas cuadradas. Está
casi toda circuida de arrecifes de coral, que avanzan hacia el mar cerca de tres
millas. Su montaña más alta Mount Hillaby se levanta 1,104 pies sobre el nivel del
mar. Predominan en Barbadas los terrenos de formación coralina hasta constituir
las seis-séptimas partes de la isla.—J. L. Ohlson.
2. Un canal estrecho llamado La Rivière Salée con una anchura de 100 á 400
pies, separa á Tierra Baja, isla volcánica de la calcárea Grande Tierra, que ocupa la
parte oriental. Baja Tierra, que ocupa el lado occidental, tiene una extensión de
94,631 hectáreas con el volcán. La Sonfrière que está á 1,870 pies sobre el nivel del
mar. La extensión de Grande Tierra es de 65,631 hectáreas.
3. Ch. Sainte Claire de Deville. E. Rochefort.
4. A. de Lapperent. Traité de geologie. Paris. 1885.
5. M. Maury. Phisical Geography of the sea. New York. 1856.
6. Snider. La Creation et ses mysteres dévoilés. Paris. 1870.
7. Valdés y Aguirre. Apuntes para la historia de Cuba primitiva. Paris. 1859.
8. M. Rodríguez Ferrer. Congreso internacional de Americanistas. Madrid.
1881.
9. F. de Botella y de Hornos. La Atlántida. Congreso de Americanistas de
Madrid. 1881.
10. Girard de Rialle. Atlantes. G. de Mortillet. Atlántide. París. 1881.
11. Humbold. Cosmos. Tomo 1.
12. Se designa el segundo período histórico de la tierra bajo el nombre de
devoniano, porque el terreno que corresponde á este período apareció muy
netamente y con gran extensión en Devonshire, Inglaterra. L. Figuier. La terre
avant le déluge. París. 1863.
13. Cia. Observaciones geológicas de una gran parte de la isla de Cuba. Madrid.
1854.
14. Martin Duncan, Barret y Woodvart.
15. Suess. Antlitz der Erde.
16. Suess. Op. cit.
17. L. Figuier. La terre avant le déluge. París. 1863.
18. Cuvier. Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles. París. 1836.
19. Cia. Observaciones geológicas de una gran parte de la isla de Cuba.
Madrid. 1854.
20. Fernández de Castro. De la existencia de grandes mamíferos fósiles de la
isla de Cuba. Habana. 1864. “Considero á Cuba formando parte del Continente, ya
fuera que estuviese unida por una lengua de tierra completamente seca, ya por una
restinga que permitió el paso de animales que no viven en el agua salada, ni tienen
costumbre de hacer nadando travesías marítimas.” Congreso Internacional de
Americanistas. Madrid. 1882.
21. Pomel. Anales de la Real Academia de la Habana.
22. M. Rodríguez Ferrer. Naturaleza y civilización de la grandiosa isla de Cuba.
Madrid. 1876.
23. Llamado terciario más moderno, ó período sub-apenino, por D’Orbigny y
Lyell; y exclusivamente cuaternario ó pos-terciario, por Dana.
24. A. de Lapparent. Op. cit.
25. Alph. Milne-Edwards. Compt rend. XCII. núm. 8.
26. Al. Agassiz. Trans-America. Academy. XI. 1883.
27. E. Reclus. La terre.
28. Humbold. Ensayo político sobre la isla de Cuba. París. 1840.
29. Sir Robert H. Schomburgk. Reseña de los principales puertos y puntos de
anclaje de la República Dominicana. Santo Domingo. 1881.
30. Entre los 17° 50′ y 18° 30′ de latitud N. y 65° 30′ y 67° 15′ de longitud O.
del meridiano de Greenwich.
31. J. B. Elie de Beaumont. Notice sur les systèmes de montagnes. París. 1852.
Esta ley ha tenido sus contradictores.
32. El Yunque, pico más alto de la sierra de Luquillo está á 3,609 pies de altura
sobre el nivel del mar, y puede verse á 68 millas de distancia.
Don Julio L. Vizcarrondo (Viaje á la isla de Puerto Rico, el año de 1797, por
Ledru y Baudin. Traducción. P. R. 1863, pág. 81.) en una nota da al Yunque 1334
pies de elevación sobre el nivel del mar. Y Pastrana (Catecismo de Geografía de la
isla de Puerto Rico, P. R., 1852. pág. 14) anota 1334 varas castellanas. Military
Notes on Puerto Rico (Washington Government printing office, 1898, página 12)
consigna 1,290 yardas.
33. A primera vista parece que la isla de Puerto Rico tiene muchas cordilleras;
pero no debe confundirse el eje central de rocas eruptivas primitivas con las
montañas calizas del período sedimentoso, que casi todas ellas van á estribarse en
la quilla que va de E. á O.
34. Las primeras muestras de oro que obtuvo Juan Ponce de León, en 1508,
fueron del rio Manatuabón (hoy Maunabo) y del Sibuco. De 1508 á 1536
produjeron los placeres auríferos de Puerto Rico cerca de cuatro millones de pesos.
De esa fecha en adelante, no hay datos positivos de esta explotación minera.
35. Moreau de Jonnes. Historia física de las Antillas. París. 1822.
36. A. Stahl. Los indios borinqueños. Puerto Rico. 1889.
37. Lacepède. Histoire naturelle. París. 1860.
38. Del latín glossa, lengua; y petra, piedra: lengua de piedra.
39. Del latín odontes, dientes; y petra, piedra: dientes de piedra.
40. Del griego ichthy, pez: y el latín odontes, dientes: dientes de pez.
41. Del latín lamia, pescado cetáceo (Plinio), y odontes, dientes: dientes de
lamia. La lamia era un mónstruo fabuloso con rostro de mujer hermosa y cuerpo
de dragón. Hoy se aplica el vocablo lamia al tiburón.
42. Victor Duruy. Historia de los griegos. Barcelona. 1890.
43. Victor Duruy. Historia de los romanos. Barcelona. 1890.
44. César. Los comentarios. Trad. de Goya. Madrid. 1882.
45. Lafuente. Historia gen. de España. Barcelona. 1888.
46. Tácito. Costumbres de los germanos. Trad. de Coloma. Madrid. 1881.
47. Thomsen. Ledetrand til Nordisk Oldkyndighed. Traducida al inglés en
1848.
48. Gabriel de Mortillet. Le Prehistorique. París. 1881.
49. Memoria descriptiva de la primera Exposición pública de la industria,
agricultura y bellas artes de la isla de Puerto Rico, redactada por el Secretario de la
Real Junta de Comercio, don Andrés Viña. Puerto Rico. 1854.
50. Otis T. Mason. Smithsonian Report for 1876. Washington. 1877.
51. A. Stahl. Los indios borinqueños. Puerto Rico. 1889.
52. Eduardo Neumann. Benefactores y Hombres notables de Puerto Rico. T.
2º. Ponce. 1899. Pág. XXX.
53. José Nazario Cancel. Guayanilla y la historia de Puerto Rico. Ponce. 1893.
54. C. Coll y Toste. Rep. Hist. de Puerto Rico. San Juan. 1896. pág. 29.
55. Cartas. CLVI. Fuentes históricas sobre Colón y América. Pedro Mártir de
Angleria, por el Dr. D. Joaquin Torres Asensio. Madrid, 1892. T. 1º pág. 35.
56. Relación del oro, é joyas, é otras cosas, que el señor Almirante ha recibo,
después que el receptor Sebastián de Olaño partió de esta Isla (La Española) para
Castilla. De 10 de Marzo de 1495. Documentos inéditos del Archivo de Indias.
57. Archivo de Indias. Documentos inéditos, etc.
58. S. Brau. Puerto Rico y su Historia, pág. 132.
59. El Dr. Stahl hace de Urayoán y Broyoán dos caciques diferentes cuando es
uno solo. Areziba cuando es Arasibo. Supone un cacique Mayagoex que no ha
existido. Y á la cacica Luisa la llama Loaiza. Estos son pequeños errores. Lo
fundamental es que reconoce que el pueblo boriqueño, en el período colombino,
estaba ya asentado, lo cual es cierto. Ob. cit.
60. Cayetano Coll y Toste. Colón en Puerto Rico. Disquisiciones histórico-
filológicas. Puerto Rico. 1894, pág. 140.
61. Javier A. Guridi. Geografía físico-histórica, antigua y moderna de la isla de
Santo Domingo. Santo Domingo. 1871, pág. 45. Declarada de texto escolar en la
República Dominicana.
62. Dr. Agustín Stahl. Los indios borinqueños, P. R. 1889, pág. 41 y 45.
63. Raymond Breton. Dictionnaire caraibe-francais. Auxerre. 1665. Pág. 229.
64. Rochefort. Hist. nat. et moral des Antilles. Rotterdam. 1655. Pág. 349.
65. Pedro Mártir. Década 1ª lib. 2º cap. III. Trad. de Asensio. Madrid 1892.
66. Carta dirigida al Cabildo de Sevilla. La hemos publicado íntegra, con
anotaciones, en nuestro libro Colón en Puerto Rico. Véase pág. 49.
67. El doctor Chanca, ó el copista de su célebre Carta al Cabildo de Sevilla,
anota muy mal algunos nombres indígenas. No es Turuqueira sino Sibuqueira y no
es Cayre sino Cavrí. Como también consigna Buriquén por Boriquén.
68. Ulloa. Noticias Americanas. Entr. XVII. Madrid. 1792 pág. 253.
69. Quatrefages. Unité de l’especie humaine. París. 1861. Crania ethnica. París.
1882.
70. Linneo. Systema naturæ. ed. 10. 1758.
71. Gmelin. Systema nat. ed. 13. Homo. 1766.
72. Buffón. Hist. natural. París. 1794. Prichard. Researches into the physical
history of Mankind.
73. Pownal. New. Collect. of voyages.
74. Kant. In the different Races of Men. London. 1775.
75. Hunter. Essays and Observations in natural history, etc. London. 1861.
76. Blumenbach. De generis humani varietate nativa. 1775.
77. Cuvier. Règne animal, ed. 2ª t. 1º, pág. 84. París. 1829.
78. Moquin-Tandon. Zoologie. París. 1874.
79. Dumeril. Zoologie analytique. París. 1805.
80. Malte-Brun. Géographie, etc. París. 1803–7.
81. Bory de Saint-Vicent. L’Homme. Essai zoologique sur le genre humaine.
París, 1821.
82. D’Orbigny. L’homme americaine del’Amerique meridional consideré sous
ses rapporte physiologiques et morales. Paris. 1838–39.
83. La palabra guariní significa guerra, y el vocablo guariní-ara, guerrero,
según el misionero padre Antonio Ruiz [1639] en su Tesoro de la lengua guaraní.
Según D’Orbigny, el vocablo caribe es corrupción de galibi. Nosotros creemos, que
la silaba ca, de la palabra caribe, ha sustituido á la sílaba gua; y la dicción lí á rí.
Como los vocablos siempre están en fermento, sobre todo en las lenguas bárbaras,
antes de su fijación, tenemos de guaraní—guariní—guaribí—caribí—caribe. Y en
las Antillas menores gualibi—galibi.
84. Brasseur de Bourbourg. Histoire des nations civilises de Mexique et de la
Amerique central, durant les siecles anteriennes á Cristophe Colomb. Paris. 1857.
85. Brasseur de Bourbourg. Popol Vuh. Le livre sacré et les mythes de
l’antiquité americaine, avec les livres héroiques et historiques des Quichés.
Ouvrage original des indigenes de Guatemala, accompagné de notes philologiques
et d’un comentaire sur la mythologie et les migrations des peuples anciens de
l’Amerique. etc. París. 1861.
86. Retzius. Antropométrica. 1842.
87. Virchow. Antropologie Amerika’s. 1877.
88. Topinard. Anthropologie. Leipzig. 1887.
89. Broca. Races humaines. París. 1878.
90. Humbold. Voyage, etc. París. 1799–1804.
91. Morton. Inquiry into the Distintive characteristic of the aboriginal Races of
America.
92. Morton. Crania americana. Philad. 1839.
93. Nott. Types of Mankind. Indigenous races of the earth, etc. Philad. 1868.
94. Virchow. Clasificación antropológica de los pueblos salvajes antiguos y
modernos de América. 1888.
95. Dally. Races indigenes de l’Amerique.
96. Deniker. Bull. Soc. d’Anthrop. de París. 1889.
97. Brinton. Races and Peoples. New York, 1899. p. 99. He aquí la división de
este autor 1ª rama: Septentrional: troncos, ártico [esquimales], atlántico [tinez,
algonquinos, iroqueses] y pacífico [chinsoks, kolosh]. 2ª rama: Central: troncos,
mexicano [nahuas, tarascos], ismiano [maya, chapanecs]. 3ª rama: Meridional:
troncos, atlántico [caribes, aruacas, tupís], pacífico [chibchas, quichuas]. Ya en este
estudio surge la separación de Caribes y Aruacas que viene en apoyo de nuestra
opinión.
98. Zaborowski. Amerique Ethnographie. París, 1881.
99. Lacerda y Peixoto. Botocudos. Etnología.
100. Martius. Beitraege zur Ethnographie und Sprachenkunde Amerikas,
zumal Brasiliens. Leipzig, 1866. Este autor divide á los Guaranís en ocho grupos:
1º los Gés ó Craus dispersos del río Pardo y del Gontas hasta el Jurua y el
Marañón; 2º los Goyotacas, muy exparcidos; 3º los Crens y los Puris; 4º los
Parichis, sobre la meseta que separa las aguas del Tapajoz, el Madeira y el
Paraguay; 5º los Guaycurus, que bajando al sur del gran Chaco se ligan al grupo
pampeyano; 6º los Gucks sobre el Amazonas y Cayena; 7º los Aruacas de las
Guayanas; y 8º los Caribes. Este autor llamó á los indo-antillanos Taini, (Tainos)
en cuya idea le ha seguido Bachiller y Morales en su Cuba primitiva. No le vemos
fundamento científico á ésto. Los indo-antillanos eran Aruacas y perdida la
memoria de su origen deben llamarse siboneyes, haytianos, jamaiquinos y
boriqueños, por que en el trascurso del tiempo habían adquirido personalidad
propia.
101. Ameghino opina, que el hombre pasó de América al Asia. L’homme
préhistorique dans La Plata. Rev. d’Anthropologie. 1879. pág. 210. La teoría de
una inmigración asiática por el estrecho de Behring y las invasiones amarillas por
el Pacífico, tienen en su contra, no haberse encontrado en América rastros de sus
artes, animales domésticos, plantas más usuales, usos, costumbres ó religión.
Opinamos, que el contacto con los mogoles debió haber sido en una época muy
lejana, indudablemente en el período paleolítico, en que estos pueblos no
cultivaban el arroz y otros cereales, ni tenían gallináceas, ni ningún animal
domesticado. El hombre de la edad de la piedra tallada [el paleolítico] debió haber
vivido de un modo igual en toda la tierra.
102. Quatrefages. Ob. cit. y Dict. encycl. des sciences med. París. 1875.
103. Arazandi y Hoyos Sainz. Lecciones de Antropología. Madrid. 1893. t. 1º
pág. 103.
104. Girard de Rialle. Caraibes. Paris. 1881.
105. Lewis H. Morgan [Smithsoniam Contributions to knowledge. Vol. XVII.
Washington 1871] en su Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human
Family, sostiene la unidad de origen de la familia india y propone llamarla la
Familia Guanoguaniana [Family Ganowanian]. Esta unidad está probada por el
tipo étnico y el polisintetismo en los idiomas indios.
106. Oviedo. Hist. gen. y nat. de Indias. Lib. XXIV. cap. III.
107. En el lenguaje indo-antillano el vocablo yaya era el nombre dado por los
haytianos al pénfigo sifilítico, que hoy se denomina vulgarmente buba. Este
vocablo buba es de orígen castellano. Hoy, en Puerto Rico, Cuba y Santo Domingo
se conserva la palabra yaya en un árbol. Los indígenas llamaban iguana á una
variedad de lagarto; y todavía conservamos la voz aplicada al reptil. Oviedo y
Herrera escriben higuana. Las Casas, Vargas Muchuca y Enciso anotan Iguana.
Fernando Colón registra Jiguana. Hoy ha perdido la aspiración de la primera
sílaba, ó la han trastocado algunos en s y pronuncian siguana.
108. Oviedo. Op. cit.
109. Fernando Colón. Historia del Almirante D. Cristóbal Colón.—t. II, pág.
53. Edición matritense. 1892.
110. Este espejillo de oro bajo era el guanín, uno de los distintivos de jefe.
111. Oviedo. Ob. cit. Libro XXIV. cap. VII.
112. Archivo de Indias. Documentos inéditos.
113. Ojeda puso á Curazao el nombre de Gigantes: pero no perduró.
114. Archivo de Indias. Doc. inéd.
115. Archivo de Indias. Doc. inéd.
116. Castellanos. Hist. y relación de las cosas acaecidas en Santa Marta, etc.
Ed. Rivadeneyra. T. IV. Pág. 258. Oviedo. Ob. cit. t. 2º pág. 132. Restrepo.
Aborígenes de Colombia. 1892.
117. Sabido es que el color de esta corteza es rojo amarillento. El indígena
boriqueño y los demás indo-antillanos, procedentes de tribus Aruacas
continentales, habían perdido mucho, con la influencia intertropical de la zona
antillana, del fondo rojo fundamental del tronco étnico americano, viniendo á
quedar de la color de los canarios, como asevera el Almirante, por dos veces, en su
Diario de navegación. “De buenas carnes y de color aceituno como los Canaris”
afirma el hijo del gran Ligur en su Hist. de Cristóbal Colón, t. 1º pág. 105. Edición
matritense de 1892.
118. Se refiere al color de los naturales de las islas Canarias.
119. Los antropólogos dividen la forma del cráneo humano en dolicocéfalo
[largo] mesaticéfalo [medio] y braquicéfalo [corto].
120. El índice de la cara se divide en cameprosópico [larga], mesosema
[media] y leptoprosópico [corta].
121. El prognatismo es una inclinación particular de la mandíbula superior,
que la hace sobresalir. La quijada es antropológicamente ortognática [vertical],
mesognática [media] ó prognática [sobresaliente].
122. Los ojos se dividen antropológicamente en megasemes [grandes y
redondos], mesosemes [medianos] y microsemes [pequeños].
123. La nariz se clasifica antropológicamente en leptorrina [estrecha],
mesorrina [media] y platirrina [ancha].
124. Las Casas dice: “Es cosa de maravilla ver la diligencia é industria que
tienen los indios para entallar las cabezas. Las atan y aprietan con vendas de
algodón, de tal modo, que las empinan de un palmo grande, quedando hechura y
forma de un mortero de barro.—Ob. cit. t. V. pág. 393.
125. La concesión era de dos arrobas de peso, pero los Encomenderos
abusaban con frecuencia, cargando al indio con mayor cantidad. La mortandad de
indígenas en el laboreo de las minas fué más por falta de mantenimiento y
cuidados, que por el exceso de trabajo corporal: sobre todo, en aquellas
Encomiendas que sus dueños estaban en la Corte y los indios entregados á
administradores y capataces ambiciosos y de elástica conciencia.
126. El Dr. Chanca, en su carta al Cabildo de Sevilla, relatando el segundo viaje
del Almirante, dice: “Estas gentes (los Caribes) saltean en las otras islas é traen las
mujeres, que pueden haber, en especial mozas é hermosas, las quales tienen para
su servicio, é para tener por mancebas; é traen tantas que en cinquenta casas no
parescieron ellos é de las cautivas se vinieron más de veynte mozas... En la nao
había diez mujeres de las que se habían tomado en las islas de Caribes; eran las
más de ellas de Boriquén.”
127. Las Casas. Ob. cit. t. v. pág. 394.
129. Las Casas. Ob. cit. t. v. pág. 428 y 429.
130. Fray Iñigo Abbad. Hist. de Puerto Rico, anot. por Acosta. P. R. 1886. pág.
41.
131. Las Casas.—Ob. cit. t. v. pág. 418.
133. P. Joseph Gumilla.—Hist. nat. civil y geogr. de las naciones situadas en las
riberas del río Orinoco. Barcelona. 1745.
134. El censo de almas de Boriquén lo hacen subir algunos cronistas á 600 mil
indígenas. Si no es error del copista, que puso 600 en lugar de 60, la cifra la
consideramos altamente subida. Para nosotros el máximo es de 80 á 100 mil
boriqueños. 18 caciques, á mil personas, por ranchería, hacen 18 mil indígenas. A
cada cacique asignamos 5 nitaynos, con sus incipientes aduares de 500 almas, que
hacen unos 45 mil, que unidos á los 18 mil de los caciques hacen un total de 63 mil
boriqueños. Creemos, pues, que la cifra de 60 mil indígenas para el Boriquén es la
más proporcionada y lógica.
135. Las Casas.—Ob. cit. t. V. p. 487.
136. El nombre de este cacique lo escriben mal los cronistas, poniendo
Behechio.
137. Las Casas.—Ob. cit. t. v. pág. 484. Si queremos dar á estos vocablos, como
han hecho algunos escritores, el valor real de los nombres, que distinguen á los
altos personajes de las monarquías europeas, se cae en ridículo.
138. Hoy el río se llama de Guayanilla, habiendo perdido su nombre indígena
de Guaynía. No es de extrañar. El Guaorabo se llama hoy Río de Añasco; el
Abacoa se conoce por Río Grande de Arecibo; el Toa, en las alturas de la Isla se le
llama Río de la Plata; el Baramayá es ahora Portugués; y el Cayrabón es hoy el
Espíritu Santo. El Sibuco es Cibuco, el Mabiya, Mabilla, el Coalibina, Culebrinas,
el Coayu, Yauco, etc.
139. Algunos cronistas caen en el error de anotar que don Cristóbal de
Sotomayor vino á Puerto Rico con el título de Gobernador. El joven secretario del
rey don Felipe, el Hermoso, vino á las Indias con el virrey don Diego Colón y trajo
Cédula real para que se le diera el mejor cacique de Sanct Xoan. Arch. de Indias.
Doc. inéd.
140. El falcón.—Tinnuculus Dominicensis.
141. El uvero de playa.—Cocoloba uvifera.
142. El batey.
143. La barbacoa.
144. Fernando Colón.—Hist. del Almirante don Cristóbal Colón, t. 1º pág. 212.
Edición matritense de 1892.
145. A. Pigafetta. Primer viaje al rededor del mundo. Madrid. 1889.
146. Jones. Antiquities of the Southern Indians.
147. Brett. Tribes indian of Guiana.
148. Martius. Von dem Rechtszustande under den Ureinwohnern Brasiliens.
1832.
149. Zimmer, citado por Duruy. Ob. cit.
150. Duruy. Ob. cit.
151. Herodoto. Libro 1. CXCVI. Trad. del P. Bartolomé Pou. Madrid. 1878.
152. Las Casas. Ob. cit. t. v. p. 495.
155. Bixa orellana.
156. Genipa americana.
158. Stahl.—Ob. cit. p. 182.
159. Las Casas.—Ob. cit. t. v. p. 507.
163. Las Casas. Ob. cit. t. v. pág. 319. Tenemos en Puerto Rico tres arbolitos
que dan semillas purgativas: el tau-túa (jatropha gossypifolia); el tártago
(jatropha curcas); y don Tomás (jatropha multifida). De estas semillas dástricas
sacaba partido el curandero, para purgar sus enfermos, y no del tabaco, como
equivocadamente se registra en algunos cronicones que han inducido á error á
algunos escritores modernos.
164. De donde procede el actual vocablo español enagua.
165. Von Thering. Prehistoria de los Indo-Europeos. Madrid. 1896.
166. Escritura de fray Román [Pane] del orden de San Gerónimo. Fernando
Colón. Hist. del Alm. Don Cristóbal Colón, etc. Madrid. 1892. t. 1º pág. 281.
167. V. Duruy. Ob. cit.
168. Las Casas, ob. cit. t. v. p. 436.
169. Las Casas. Ob. cit. t. v. p. 436 y 438.
170. Dice Gomara en su Hist. de las Indias: Atanse á la frente ídolos chiquitos
quando quieren pelear. J. Walter Fewkes. Precolumbian West Indian Amulets.
American Anthrop. 1903, ha dedicado á estas figurillas un estudio especial
interesante.
171. Sir John Lubbock.—Los orígines de la civilización y la condición primitiva
del hombre. Trad. de Caso. Madrid. 1888. p. 244.
172. Citado por Bachiller y Morales. Cuba primitiva. Habana. 1883, pág. 145.
El ilustrado cubano en la misma obra, pág. 301, le da á la raíz indo-antillana hu el
valor de alto, elevado. Nosotros creemos que hu, ju y yu es una misma radical: es la
vocal u y la aspiración más ó menos manifestada con cualquiera de las tres
consonantes, h, j ó y griega. Según Ch. Wiener en su Viaje al río de las Amazonas
(1870–1882) los indios llamaban yu-rac á lo blanco.
173. Robertson.—Hist. de América, libro IV. En este error le ha seguido el
profesor Canestrini, catedrático de la Universidad de Padua, (Antropología, cap.
VII. La religiosidad) afirmando: “que los cemís, en las Antillas eran espíritus
malos, á quienes acusaban los indios de producir todos los males que afligían á la
especie humana.” Charlevoix, [Hist. de l’ isle espagnole au de St. Domingue. París.
1730], indujo á error á Robertson, confundiendo los zemis con los maboyas. Y
Lubboch (op. cit. p. 191) copió á Robertson también.
174. M. Martius.—Beitrage zur Amerika’s zumal Brasiliens. Leipzig. 1867.
175. P. de Yangues.—Principios y reglas de la lengua Cumanagota general en
varias naciones que habitan la provincia de Cumaná. Burgos. 1683.
176. P. Gily.—Saggio della lengua Tamanaca. Roma. 1780.
177. Pedro Mártir de Anglería registra este importante dato. Ed. Asensio. t. 2º
p. 399.
178. De Brosses.—Sur le culte de Dieux fétiches. París. 1760.
179. Refiere el padre Gumilla en su Orinoco Ilustrado, t. II. pág 6. [Nueva ed.
de Barcelona, 1791] que los indígenas de las riberas del Orinoco, en sus desgracias
ó pesares levantaban los ojos al cielo y exclamaban ¡Acayá! Nosotros vemos, en
esta exclamación al Espíritu benéfico, á Yuka-já ó Yuka-jú. Enlace de la unidad
mitológica de los Aruacas.
180. Lucien Adam.—Grammaire comparèe des dialectes de la famille Caribe.
París. 1893.
181. A los lectores no versados en Filología, les extrañará que en esta
interpretación, únicamente nuestra, de la teogonía indígena, derivemos Yukiyu, de
Yucajú, el dios de Haytí, como Ioloc de los Guayanos de Jurakán, espíritu maligno
indo-antillano. Con un ejemplo nos explicaremos. El dios de los arios [en los indo-
europeos] era Dyaus, la Luz celestial: y de ese vocablo y mito religioso, vino el Zeus
de los griegos, el Deus de los latinos, el Dio de los italianos, el Dieu de los franceses
y el Dios de los españoles. Y del dios Gutha de los teutones, de orígen desconocido,
vino el Guth de los godos, el Gud de los daneses y suecos, el Gott de los germanos,
y el God de los sajones é ingleses. Dyu-pater de los arios, el Cielo-padre, es el
Dyaush-pita de los mismos arios de las riberas del Penjab, el Theos pater, de los
griegos, el Jupiter de los romanos, el Tin de los germanos, y el Padre Celestial de
los cristianos. Max Müller: Origen y desarrollo de la religión. Lección IV. Los
devas.—Estanislao Sanchez Calvo, en su interesante obra Los nombres de los
dioses, Madrid, 1884, pág. 263, dice: “El cielo tiene, por todas partes, el nombre de
Dios.”
183. Las Casas. Ob. cit. t. V. pág. 433.
184. Las Casas, Ob. cit. t. V. pág. 470.
185. A. Stahl. Ob cit. pág. 172. Posteriormente, ha publicado el mismo autor un
artículo titulado: La religión de los indios domínicos y borincanos, sosteniendo la
misma tesis.—Diario El Boletín Mercantil, del 24 de Septiembre de 1905.
186. El señor Brau asegura, en la pág. 9, de su Historia de Puerto Rico, New
York, 1904, que los boriquenses “creían en un poder sobrenatural, omnipotente é
infinito.” Es todo lo contrario, la idea religiosa del indo-antillano, respecto á la
Divinidad, era natural, y no sobrenatural, ligando su dios con la naturaleza, en un
animismo difuso: idea vaga y confusa, como muy acertadamente afirma el padre
Las Casas, perito en teogonías, al decir, que las gentes de aquesta Isla, y todas las
de su circuito, tenían delgado, débil y confuso conocimiento de Dios. Como que el
panteismo, que es una religión más adelantada, liga aún la divinidad con la
naturaleza y las confunde.
187. También cae en error el señor Brau, en su citada Historia, pág. 9, al
afirmar, que los boriqueños adoraran como deidades los luminares celestes, por
seguir á Pedro Mártir de Anglería en sus primeros informes. También Colón, en las
anotaciones de su primer viaje, les negaba equivocadamente secta ó idolatría
alguna.
188. Pedro Mártir de Anglería. 1ª década, lib. IX., cap. IV.
189. Doctor Julio Crévaux. De Cayena á los Andes. Primera parte. Cap. IV.
Trad. Montaner y Simón.—Barcelona, 1884, pág. 128.
190. Creemos con el padre Raymond Breton, que los indígenas tenían, entre
sus amuletos domésticos, dioses y diosas. Dice el ilustre religioso de la orden de
Predicadores: “Le nom de Dieu chez nos Insulaires sauvages est du genre commun:
parce que chaque Boyé á la sien. Et comme les femmes se mesteut de ce mestier,
elles ont aussi les leurs: car les divinités imaginaires de ces gens la suivent leurs
sexes”. P. Raymond Breton. Gram, caraibe. Paris. 1877. pág. 9.
191. Gabriel de Mortillet. Agriculture. París. 1881. En el cantón de Zurich
(Suiza) hay un lugar llamado Robenhausen, rico en depósitos neolíticos. Esta
localidad prehistórica está caracterizada por un pulimento avanzado en los
instrumentos de piedra. El sabio Mortillet ha dado el nombre de época
robenhausiana á una parte del período neolítico.
194. Alvaro Reinoso. Notas acerca del cultivo en camellones. Agricultura de los
indígenas de Cuba y Haytí. París. 1881.
195. Tuvimos un preciosísimo ejemplar de estos guayos, encontrado en
Arecibo; haciendo unas escavaciones en una cantera de barro amarillo, en el lugar
llamado El Tanque. Lo llevó á Madrid don Fernando de Urréjola, y debe estar en
algún museo de aquella ciudad.
196. El padre Gumilla (Op. cit.) está de acuerdo, en este punto, con Las Casas;
por lo que se ve que los indígenas de las Antillas seguían preparando su pan casabí
al igual que sus antepasados los Aruacas de la América Meridional.
197. El europeo explotaba ya el trigo en la edad de la piedra pulimentada.
Para hacer su pan trituraba el grano sobre una piedra, mediante otra piedra,
manejada á mano. Con es a grosera harina hacía galletas, que cocía sobre piedras
fuertemente calentadas. Algunos granos de trigo quedaban á medio triturar, y,
conservando su película, aparecían en la galleta como incrustados.
198. En el período precolombino la islilla Mona estaba muy poblada de indios.
Llamaban los naturales á su islilla Amoná. Utilizaban el agua de xagüeyes ó
depósitos de piedras, hechos por la misma naturaleza. Los sitios de estas charcas,
están hoy muy llenos de cactus; y la islilla no tiene agua potable: falta de que se
quejan todos los viajeros que visitan hoy la despoblada islita.
200. Llamada por algunos cronistas chibcha. Gumilla anota chicha. Ob. cit.
201. Rodolph Von Ihering.—Prehistoria de los indo-europeos.
202. El ilustrado historiador dominicano don José Gabriel García (His. de
Santo Domingo, 1893. pág. 14.) cae en el error de anotar que los haytianos tenían
el coco, el ñame, el mango, el aguacate, la naranja y el limón, cuando estos frutos
fueron traidos á las Antillas después del Descubrimiento. Habrá cocos en el
Continente americano del lado del Pacífico; y aguacate en México y otros puntos
de Sud América; pero no en las Antillas. El ñame se trajo de Africa; y las naranjas y
limones de Andalucía y Canarias. El mangó hace poco tiempo, de las Colonias
inglesas.
205. Ratzel. Las razas humanas. Barcelona. 1889. Ed. Moutaner y Simón, t. 2º
p. 38.
206. Islilla de la bahía Leogane, que hoy se llama Gonaive, corrupción del
vocablo indígena Guanabo.
207. Pedro Mártir de Anglería. Ob. cit. t. I. pág. 248.
209. La palmera real. Oreodoxia regia.
210. Las Casas. Ob. cit. t. v. p 494.
211. No hemos podido obtener en el país ninguna de estas puntas de silex para
flechas.
212. Nos congratulamos de ver quien acepte este estado de relativa
civilización. Mr. J. Walter Fewkes (Porto Rican stone collars and tripointed idols.
Washington 1904), dice: “Before their discovery the aboriginal inhabitants of the
West Indies had developed a culture which was peculiar.... The centers of this
peculiar Antillean culture were Porto Rico and Santo Domingo....” Este estudio de
Mr. Fewkes es interesantísimo y nos ocuparemos de él en nuestra obra
Rectificaciones á la Historia de Puerto Rico.
213. El presbítero don J. M. Nazario, en su libro Guayanilla y la Historia de
Puerto Rico, Ponce, 1893, pág. VIII, opina que los indios de Puerto Rico, á la que
llama Carib, tenían una escritura más perfecta que la de Méjico y el Perú. Error
craso. Dice fray Román Pane en el cap. V. de su célebre Escritura: “los endios no
tienen escritura ni letras”. Véase la pág. 185 de nuestra obra Colún en Puerto Rico,
donde refutamos extensamente, en una nota, este error del ilustrado presbítero
Nazario.
214. Puso Colón Fernandina á la isla que los indios llamaban Yumaí.
215. El erudito cubano don Juan Ignacio de Armas, en su obra La fábula de los
Caribes, Habana, 1884, niega que los naturales de las islas de Barlovento fueran
antropófagos. En esta opinión le sigue el Dr. Stahl, Ob. cit., pág. 55. Todos los
Cronistas están contestes en que lo eran: lo mismo los de auditu, que los de visu.
La mitología y la historia nos presentan la antropofagia en todos los pueblos
primitivos. Saturno, Tántalo, Thieste y Lycaón son antropófagos, así como los
Lestrigones y los Ciclopes. Y Herodoto nos refiere, que fueron canibales los Scitas,
Germanos, Celtas, Fenicios, Tártaros y Etíopes. El hambre es mala consejera. No es
de extrañar que el salvaje aguijoneado por la necesidad de comer pusiera en
práctica el axioma de Hegel, el hombre es el lobo del hombre [Homo hominis
lupus]. Por supuesto, revistiendo la antropofagia con el carácter de festividad
religiosa. Los sacrificios mexicanos y aún el mismo sacrificio de Ifigenia, son el
reflejo y reminiscencia de tiempos antropofágicos muy posteriores. Moralmente
somos antropófagos, ¿qué tiene de extraño que en la atrasada época de la bestia
humana lo fuéramos materialmente?
216. Arch. de Indias. Doc. inéd.
217. Bernal Diaz del Castillo. Verdadera historia de los sucesos de la conquista
de la Nueva España. Ed. Rivadeneyra. Madrid 1853. p. 9.
218. “Le P. Breton rapporte, dans son dictionnaire caraibe-francais, ce dire des
capitaines de la Dominique «que lors de la conquête des eles, le chef caraibe avait
exterminé tous les naturals du pays à la réserve des seules femmes qui ont toujours
gardé quelque chose de leur langue». Lucien Adam. Introducción á la Grammaire
Caraibe, composée par le P. Raymond Breton. París, 1877. pág. XII.
219. E. Uricoechea.—Gramática, vocabulario, catecismo y confesionario de la
lengua Chibcha, según antiguos manuscritos anónimos é inéditos, aumentados y
corregidos. París. 1871.
220. E. Uricoechea.—Vocabulario Paez-Castellano, etc., conforme á lo que
escribió E. del Castillo; cura de Talaga.—París. 1877.
221. L. Bertonio.—Vocabulario de la lengua Aymara. Impreso en la casa de la
Comp. de Jesus. Prov. de Chucuito. 1612.
222. A. Febres.—Arte de la lengua general del reyno de Chile, etc. Lima. 1765.
223. Joseph de Anchieta.—Arte de Grammatica da lingua mais usada na costa
do Brasil. Leipzig. 1874. Novamente dado a luz por J. Platzmann.
224. Luis Figueira.—Gramatica da lingua do Brasil. Leipzig. 1878. Nov. publ.
225. A. Ruiz de Montoya.—Vocabulario y tesoro de la lengua guaraní, ó más
bien tupí. Viena. 1876.
226. Padre Horacio Carochi.—Arte de la lengua Mexicana, etc. México. 1645.—
Alonso de Molina. Vocabulario de la lengua Mexicana y Castellana. México. 1571.
Fray Antonio de los Reyes. Arte en lengua Mixteca. México. 1593. Ignacio Paredes.
[S. J.] Promptuario Mexicano. México. 1759.
227. Juan Ignacio de Armas.—Orígenes del lenguaje criollo.—Habana. 1882.

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Microbes and Other Shamanic Beings

1st Edition César E. Giraldo Herrera

The Book of Minds: How to Understand Ourselves and

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Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives: Eleventh

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César E. Giraldo Herrera

Microbes and Other

ISBN 978-3-319-71317-5 ISBN 978-3-319-71318-2 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017961840

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

Cover illustration: Carlos Jacanamijoy Navegación Interna (2009), oil on canvas

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

This book revaluates familiar myths and understandings of the world

However, my degree monograph was a theoretical exploration of biose-

affordances and dangers of specific environments and the social relations

s­hamanic beings causing syphilis and closely related diseases, their

Quintero, was a good listener who patiently supported me in my endeav-

nars to present another ­version of the paper on shamanic microscopy,

1 Colonized Selves, Decolonizing Ontologies 1

Part I Amerindian Shamanism 17

2 (Mis)Understanding Shamanism and Animism 19

3 First Contacts with Amerindian Shamans and Their

4 Syncretic Ontologies of the Microbial-­Shamanic Beings 65

Part II Shamanic Microscopy, Perceiving Cellular “Souls” and

6 Neuropsychological Naturalistic Explanations of Shamanic

7 The Cavern of the Eye: Seeing Through the Retina 119

Part III Biocultural Ethnohistory of the Zemes of

9 French Malaise in the Taino Myths of Origin 151

10 The Spotted Sun and the Blemished Moon, Nahuatl Views

11 The West, Syphilis, and the Other Treponematoses 179

12 Threading Worlds Together 205

Fig. 2.1 Perceptual and ecological relations of Amerindian

Fig. 9.2 Map of the distribution of paleopathological evidence of

Anthropology, as part of this enterprise, would recognize isolated

c­ onclusions.4 Science stands for a plurality of different practices, views,

1.2 The Ontological Turn and Its Challenges

Western and non-Western peoples increasingly coexist in the same

Christian metaphysics, to such a degree that shamanism is reduced into

have assumed that different ontologies or forms of knowledge have devel-

In this light, the decolonization of thought proposed by advocates of

1.3  ommensurability, Translation, and Deep

In a way, I am employing Latour’s methods to question the historiog-

1.4 Description of the Book

through which missionaries sought to translate their notions of gods,

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shamanic beings causing syphilis and closely related diseases, their

nars to present another version of the paper on shamanic microscopy,

1 Colonized Selves, Decolonizing Ontologies 1

Part I Amerindian Shamanism 17

2 (Mis)Understanding Shamanism and Animism 19

3 First Contacts with Amerindian Shamans and Their

4 Syncretic Ontologies of the Microbial-Shamanic Beings 65

Part II Shamanic Microscopy, Perceiving Cellular “Souls” and

6 Neuropsychological Naturalistic Explanations of Shamanic

7 The Cavern of the Eye: Seeing Through the Retina 119

Part III Biocultural Ethnohistory of the Zemes of

9 French Malaise in the Taino Myths of Origin 151

10 The Spotted Sun and the Blemished Moon, Nahuatl Views

11 The West, Syphilis, and the Other Treponematoses 179

12 Threading Worlds Together 205

c onclusions.4 Science stands for a plurality of different practices, views,

1.2 The Ontological Turn and Its Challenges

1.3 ommensurability, Translation, and Deep

1.4 Description of the Book