Written by Super User. Posted in Papers - English
OF APPARITIONS AND ALIANCES. VIRGINS AND TERRITORIAL HISTORY IN CATAMARCA (ARGENTINA)
DE APARICIONES Y ALIANZAS. VÍRGENES E HISTORIA TERRITORIAL EN CATAMARCA (ARGENTINA)
This article aims to systematize a set of reflections that place virgins as structuring figures of local ways of conceiving and building relations with the surrounding environment. The ways in which virgins, people, and the environment are connected have been subject of important transformations over time. The analysis of these relations can open doors to understanding the history of a territory, conceived of as a complex, deep networks of relationships between actors and heterogeneous elements. Starting from theoretical- methodological premises that focus on network-actors and tracking ideas (Ginzburg 1992 [1982]; Latour 2005), attempts are made to reconstruct a network of relations between virgins and other non-human actors. By focusing on the relationship between virgins, trees, and territorialities and their transformations over time, and presenting a case analysis in the Catamarca Province, Argentina, the study allows to understand the relations between virgins and environment as relations of antagonism in the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, and describe a movement of association and localization in the eighteent century, where virgins become part of a network of local territorial relations, along with previously antithetical entities, and then reappear as “antagonists” or allies of the armies during the independence wars in the nineteenth century.
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Written by Super User. Posted in Papers - English
NOTES ON EMBERA PERSONAL NAMES
NOTAS SOBRE LOS NOMBRES PERSONALES EMBERA
Sandra Turbay and José Joaquín Domicó
This paper aims to contribute to the contemporary debates about personhood in South American indigenous peoples through the study of the meaning and functions of Embera personal names in western Colombia. As in other Amerindian groups, the body is socially fabricated within an animistic and perspectival context. However, the Embera believe that the human body is porous and achieves its full potential by assimilating the souls and qualities of other species during childhood. The Embera proper names reflect the close connection between the human being and their natural environment, and most of them are compound words that identify the person with a variety of living beings, geographical features, objects, and spiritual beings. Furthermore, the link between the name and the main soul of the human being, along with Catholic baptism, body painting, and baths with plant infusions, acts as a defense against the attack of spirits. The Embera names individualize the person, serve as markers of ethnic identity, and teach boys and girls values and qualities of their respective gender.
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