he art of forest life: on human-animal

relationships among the Sater-Maw

on the lower Amazon, Brazil
Wolfgang Kaphammer

Introduction

While preparing for this article, I came across a lengthy passa-

ge in the ield diary I wrote during one of my sojourns in a village of
the Sater-Maw1, on the lower Amazon. As has been well known since
Malinowskis days, these diaries serve as an outlet for all kind of frus-
trations, inspiring texts that are better kept under a lid. For the purpose
of this article, I would like to lit the lid a little bit. What had upset me
(once again), one particular morning, was the continuous mistreatment
of dogs in Sater-Maw villages, poor creatures so hopelessly underfed
that they cannot but try, again and again, to rob a few crumbs of food
from their owners tables. he result is a merciless logging, something
children are already trained to do. In my diary entry, I not only vented
my vexation2, but I also came up with some improvised and possibly
rather foolish ontological explanations for the behavior. On the one
hand, I ranted (in the ield diary) about the ontological egoism of the
Sater-Maw crentes, evangelical converts, who only take account of
themselves as humans while disregarding the rest of the Creation. On
the other hand, I argued that mistreating dogs could be some kind of
1 - he Sater-Maw are one of the last indigenous groups living in relative vicinity to
the main Amazon River. Today the Tup-speaking Sater-Maw live in the rea Indgena
Andir-Marau near the cities of Parintins and Maus. Typical horticulturalists, hunters
and ishers of the Amazonian rainforest, the Sater-Maw nevertheless have a prolonged
history of intercultural contact. For a long time they have been included into the preda-
tory and exploitative cycles of regional extractivism, however, according to their own oral
traditions, the Sater-Maw also managed to stand on their own as producers and mer-
chants of guaran. Due to an enormous demographic explosion, ecological and economic
pressure on the forest increased considerably and shortage of decent alimentation has
become a chronic problem. he author has done several periods of ieldwork among the
Sater-Maw since1998.
2 - I grew up in a tiny rural village in Lower Bavaria, where the birth and death of animals
was an everyday occurrence. Although treatment of animals by farmers could be rude, for
us, as children, the commandment not to mistreat animals was part of our upbringing. I
mention this because a certain urban innocence towards rural life seems to me to pervade
much of anthropological work.

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compensatory behavior given the fact that the indigenous population
itself had sufered a long history of discrimination that was tantamou-
nt to an ontological degradation to a pre- or non-human condition by
non-indigenous persons. Whatever psychological hypotheses could be
brought to the fore, what I would like to emphasize is that human-ani-
mal relations in an Amerindian society are complex and nuanced.
As in many Amazonian societies, the Sater-Maw have the ha-
bit of caring lovingly for their pets. Young monkeys, all kind of birds,
even sloths, peccaries or tapirs are kept as what is called in vernacular
language xerimbabos. hese cubs are taken in from the wilderness of
the forest to be kept within the intimate circle of the family household
as if they were some kind of children, but are almost invariably caught
during a hunt where their mothers have been killed, and aterwards
prepared and eaten. he dogs, on the other hand, also live within or
around the household, but while the relationship with pets is one of
unconditional care, between humans and dogs one perceives a kind of
hierarchical relationship. In Sater-Maw everyday language, one can
call a person aware (dog) in function of this persons dependency of
another.3 he straying packs of hounds that wander about the villages
are symbols for uninhibited a-sociality. Dogs also may connote sexual
intemperance. To exercise love magic a person may use a plant called
aware yhop (dog / leaf) to make his (or her) partner amenable. Howe-
ver, if a dog is used by his master for hunting, it has to be treated with a
variety of (mostly) vegetable substances or has to be thrown repeatedly
into cold water in order to make it more active (para tirar o cansao
dele). he crucial point is that the hunter himself undergoes the same
treatments, oten by applying the very same substances to his own body.
Accordingly, the hunting dog can be understood as a kind of ontological
extension of the hunters person. his is not only revealing for the mat-
ter of the treatment of dogs in Sater-Maw society mentioned above,
but also raises the issue of ontological limits between what for Western
persons are beings of diferent categories.
It will be argued that human-animal relationships in an Amazo-
nian society work along categories which are not entirely distinct from
our Western categories, but are rather askew to them: in the Amazon
forest certain (Western) capacities of humanity may be extended to
(what we Westerners call) animality and vice versa. Under certain
circumstances e.g. during hunting human and animal persons

3 - Once I heard the pastor jokingly call the capataz (foreman) the dog (aware) of the
tuxaua (chief).

252 |
may vie about their respective position, or even trying to upshit onto
a superior level altogether and become a master (cf. KOHN, 2013).
his article will discuss what means and strategies human beings have
available in order to be able to steer communication with animals ac-
cording to their interests. Since animal ethics are a pervading theme
within Human Animal Studies (HAS), it will also be argued that it is
less the attribution of personhood also to non-human beings, which
might contribute to sustainable relations with the environment and its
inhabitants (among them the animals), but a more basic attitude that
attributes as a principle connectivity and addressability4 (HALB-
MAYER, 2010) to human and non-human entities of the environment,
thus demanding what will be called a culture of mindfulness. Finally,
it will be argued that the increasing disappearance of game due to po-
pulation growth and subsequent ecological pressure contributes to an
erosion of such a culture of mindfulness.

Negotiated ontologies

In a way, ethnographic accounts on Amerindian peoples of the

Amazon cannot be anything else but Human/Animal Studies (HAS)
given the fact that human and animals share a common origin in Ama-
zonian cosmologies. According to Viveiros de Castros by now famous
analysis of the ontological principles of Amazonian societies, humans
and animals have diferent bodies, but share a common culture (2005).
In contrast to modern Western society, which recognizes many (hu-
man) cultures, but only one (human) nature, Amerindian societies
maintain multi-naturalism alongside their mono-culturalism. Vi-
veiros de Castro increasingly advances these diferential Amerindian
cosmologies as a kind of ideological bomb (LATOUR, 2009) in order
to detonate occidental Cartesian world view, which along with many
others (TAYLOR, 2005, 2010, p.76), he considers as the matrix for our
worldwide ecological crisis (VIVEIROS DE CASTRO, 2013). Such rhe-
torical moves may be useful to show that alternative worldviews are
thinkable at all and that disastrous path dependencies on an exclusive
focus on (quantitative) economic growth in the West can be spotted.
However - to return from high-lying philosophical debates to
(Amazonian) ground - does Amerindian multi-naturalism really mean
ethically driven tolerance or respect between species, thus, ofering
a viable alternative to Western objectiication and instrumentalization
4 - he ability to receive a message and give a correct response to it.

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of the natural environment? A somewhat parallel debate, equally depar-
ting from ethnographic insights into Amerindian cultures of Amazonia,
is the recent debate of animistic modes of human-nature relations, as
advanced above all by French scholar Philippe Descola. his (Neo-)
Animism typically focuses on the extension of crucial elements of per-
sonhood like soul, will, and agency also to non-human beings,
elements that in Western cosmologies - hitherto have been exclusively
attributed to human beings (DESCOLA, 2011, 2014). Inspired by the-
se debates on Amerindian cosmologies and ontologies, some thinkers
have come to construct alternative Western environmental ethics. he-
se scholars refer to ethnographic accounts on e.g. indigenous North-A-
merican hunters, who shy away from indiscriminately killing their prey
due to the respect (HARVEY, 2006a, 2006b; but see below) they ofer
to their non-human fellow creatures. his respectful attitude towards
the non-human environment is key to this animistic mode of human-
nature relations.
Comparative work on diferential cosmologies and ontologies
always presents a risk, albeit creative, of misunderstandings. Ironically,
what these indigenous ontologies extend toward non-human beings is
not so much an overarching concept of personhood, but rather a uni-
versal anthropocentrism in the sense that markers for personhood are
invariably modeled ater human culture and not vice versa. In ethno-
graphic examples of Amerindian perspectivism, oten cited by Vivei-
ros de Castro (2005), from the jaguars point of view, the blood of its
prey, that it is licking, is manioc beer, a premium product of human
culture. Also, the maggots that the vulture is picking from the carrion
are roasted ish, food that is predicated on the possession of cooking
ire, the Promethean conquest of humankind par excellence (cf. LVI
-STRAUSS, 1964). On the other hand, Western philosophers of nature
are trying to deconstruct the ontological barrier between human and
non-human beings, in order to overcome the Cartesian and Baconian
objectiication of animals, and emphasize instead the animalistic
quality of the human being (cf. ABRAM, 2010). As human animals we
would all participate in the web of living beings in our biosphere. Ac-
cording to these thinkers this new-found humility of human beings,
which levels the implicit hierarchies in human animal relations in
favor of itting in into the rhizomatic texture of the biosphere, prepares
the ground for innovative environmental ethics.
However, to animalize oneself is anathema to human (and
actually also non-human) persons in the Amazon, because this would

254 |
mean to be de-subjectiied as a person in order to become the object
of predation by another (human or non-human) person. As has been
said, animals and human beings share a common primordial origin,
but the pertinent origin myths introduce animals as debased humans
(VIVEIROS DE CASTRO, 2005): the transformation of primordial
persons into the animals of today is triggered by misconduct mostly
framed in an ainal conlict, as this narration of the Sater-Maw of the
Lower Amazon shows:

Once, the harpy eagle (Harpia harpyja) wan-

ted to attend a fest with his wife, the giant an-
teater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla). However
she declined saying that she was menstruating.
Harpy eagle let for the fest accompanied by his
sister-in-law, the collared anteater (Tamandua
tetradactyla). But Harpy eagles wife had been
lying. Clandestinely she ran ahead to join the
fest and was already dancing with tapir (Tapi-
rus terrestris), when her husband arrived. Fu-
rious, harpy eagle got drunk and started to ight.
First he took on tapir. He pulled his nose and
threw him outside. He said to him: From now
on you will be food for my descendants! hats
how he took revenge. hen he grabbed his wife,
the giant anteater. He pulled her nose and bent
her hands. He said: You will not be food for
my descendants! But your hair will be good
to sweep paric powder hen he grabbed his
sister-in-law, the collared anteater. She said to
him: I did nothing wrong, my brother-in-law!
He responded: All of you have done wrong!
And he did the same thing with her as with the
giant anteater. hats why these two resemble
each other. But the peccary broke through the
wall on the side. He hit him with a stick, thats
why he has a wound (probably a gland) on
his back. he deer (Matsama nemorivaga) ran
right outside the door. hats why he still has a
lot of meat on his behind. he little woman who
was grating guaran protected herself with the
calabash and swallowed the rest of the guaran
stick. hats why her heart resembles a piece of
guaran. She was transformed into the turtle

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 (Chelonoidis denticulata). At that moment the
trumpeter (Psophia viridis) rose and was hit on
his knees with a stick. hats why his knees are
turned backward. Finally he transformed the
others present into various birds.

he animals receive their inal corporal shape and voice and are
allotted a speciic phagic destiny. he narrative establishes a ield of
alimentary relations between human and non-human agents of the fo-
rest. he myth on the origin of animals also recounts the distribution
of hierarchies within this web of human, non-human, and more-than
-human relationships: who potentially survives on account of her sub-
jectivity as a predator, who potentially loses her subjectivity and will be
objectiied by being preyed upon, and also who is exempt from this web
of mutual predation like the giant anteater, who is subjectiied into
the higher order of a spirit master5, whose assistance will be sought
ater by human shamans longing to become more than human.
It is evident that, from an indigenous perspective, human-ani-
mal relationships are less based on mutual respect born out of a moral
commitment to acknowledging a shared personhood, but rather have
to be negotiated on an interactive ield of power. As Tnia Stolze Limas
analysis of Juruna (Yudja) peccary hunt (1999) shows, the distribution
of perspectives is nothing less than a matter of life and death: to re-
verse and consolidate ones superior position within a hierarchy framed
by a prey-predator relationship means to force ones own perspective
on the other. hrough enforcing his perspective on the peccaries the
Juruna hunter is able to kill them. Hunting is a proper art of life among
Amazonian societies like the Sater-Maw, which creates its own aes-
thetics. In the following I will concentrate on traditional hunting rites as
extra-linguistic means of communication between human, non-human
and more-than-human beings.

5 - he context for narrating this myth was the examination of some shamanistic pa-
raphernalia of the historic Natterer collection from the beginning of the 19th century.
Among them was a little brush made of the hair of the giant anteater. While discussing the
piece my interlocutor felt inspired to tell this myth. It was shamanic practice among the
Sater-Maw to summon spirit masters (mestre or kaiwat) to enter their bodies while
snuing hallucinogenic paric snuf (AUGUSTAT; BATISTA GARCIA; KAPFHAMMER;
DE OLIVEIRA, 2012).

256 |
Seductive Skills

To be able to enforce ones own perspective is predicated on the

possibility of communication in order to establish the necessary efec-
tive and afective links (ZENT, 2013) between human and non-human
beings. he categorical attribution of personhood to animals in Ame-
rindian ontologies allows linguistic and extra-linguistic communication
(DESCOLA, 1998, p.26). Communication occurs in a variety of modes
and strategies, which attempt to ritually overcome the post-mythical
solipsism of beings (op.cit.) and to drag both partners involved onto
a common ground, where communication is possible again. Backdrop
to these ritual measures is the [] clear ecological consciousness of
interaction (ZENT, 2005, p.50) of Amerindian peoples. he primeval
link of botanical, zoological, and human spheres as expressed in my-
thological narratives (op.cit.), is ritually restored in order to re-establish
communication and to tap the generative power of primordial times to
enhance agency today (SULLIVAN, 1988). Now, the emergent regula-
rities according to which these connectivities organize themselves in
order to become eicient, has been called forms by Eduardo Kohn
(2013), speciic conigurations which constrain the possibilities of ac-
tion. hus, according to Kohn, there is the practical problem of getting
inside form and doing something with it, because the wealth of the fo-
rest games and extractive commodities accumulates in a patterned
way [T]o access it requires inding ways to enter the logic of these
patterns (KOHN, 2013, p.21, 166, emphasis mine).
Sater-Maw hunters instead show an interest in the minutest
details of their sylvan environment, a kind of hyper-sensitive percepti-
veness, a lively and spontaneous intelligence and self-assurance, which
bears on the fact of having skillfully balanced the relationships between
human and non-human domains. his environmental hyper-aware-
ness (ZENT, 2005, 2013) is the precondition for the hunter to be fortu-
nate and not panema (yt imiati6). One of the more immediate skills of
Sater-Maw hunters to get inside the form is their astonishing ability
to imitate the voice of their game in order to attract certain species of
birds or other animals. Hunters, for instance, are able to make use of
the gregarious form of living of toucans. If a hunter becomes aware of
a bevy of toucans, he grasps the leaf of a certain plant and rubs its stem
against the blade of his machete to produce a sound which resembles
the toucans call. Soon the birds will lock to the place whence the sound
6 - yt imiati (not / game / to catch)

| 257
came to meet their putative relative (parente) there. Another rationale
to disguise the hunters predatory intentions is to feign sexual advances
(cf. REICHEL-DOLMATOFF, 1976; DESCOLA, 2011).
One of these dissimulative tactics is actually derived from for-
mer shamanistic actions and lives on as a colloquialism among con-
temporary Sater-Maw. Until at least the irst half of the 20th century
Sater-Maw shamans used to snuf the hallucinogenic powder paric
(ape, [Anadenanthera peregrina]) to insert themselves into the idioma-
tic register required for communication with non-human beings. here
is linguistic evidence that already the very action i.e. to pestle paric
seeds in a mortar summoned up the supernatural partners of the reli-
gious specialists, or rather: allowed them to enter into the realm of the
spirit masters in order to be able to communicate with them as subjects.
It is said that when a hunter heard the whistle of a sloth he knocked with
a pestle on the bottom of a mortar, as if preparing paric (ton, ton, ton),
the sloth felt compelled to answer this call and so the hunter was able
to spot it and kill it. he phrase toheapetok (he / paric-snuf / pou-
nded) in everyday language means to seduce or try someone and
alludes to the shamanic action of snuing the hallucinogenic paric, i.e.
to act upon someone without intervening physically, to do something
magically. It is interesting that sloths seem only to give voice while
procuring a mating partner, so the sound-efect of the pestle amounts
to some kind of seducement. he sexual, or in sociological terms
ainal mode of relationship between a hunter and his game animals is
a common phenomenon in Amazonian cosmologies (see DESCOLA,
2011, p.502f. for examples). Appropriate to the hidden intentions of
the hunter toheapetok, in everyday language, came to mean to de-
ceive or to cheat somebody7.
Part of the hunters skills to get inside forest forms is their de-
tailed phenological knowledge. In the example mentioned, the hunter
is fully aware of the fact that sloths, if at all, give voice at the end of the
rainy season thus marking a decisive seasonal change within Amazo-
nian ecologies and cosmologies. In the pertinent mythical account, the
sloth is transformed from the bones of a child eaten by the termites
(tapecuim or kiwa). In the myth, the sloth can be heard singing: Lets
lower the waters, the one, which is soiled by vomit8!
7 - My interlocutor referred to the mythical account on the origin of manioc, where a
cannibalistic jaguar, prone to devour all of his would-be sons-in-law, invites the hero Hate
ywakup to come inside his house to snuf paric together. he shrewd hero declines, be-
cause he already knew of the jaguars intentions. On the role of joking and cheating
within the animistic mode cf. WILLERSLEV (2013).
8 - his alludes to the myth of the origin of water. In primordial times, water was scarce
258 |
 From the entrails of the killed boy emerge among other plants
diferent species of peach-palms (pupunha, [Bactris gasipaes]), whose
fruit serve as alimentation for humans as well as animals. At the transi-
tion from rainy to dry season there is an abundance of fruits (uixi [En-
dopleura uchi]; piqui [Caryocar sp.], abiu [Pouteria caimito], tucum,
inaj etc.) causing multi-species aggregations according to a seasonal
pattern of movement. he hunter tries to beneit from these ephemeral
forms (KOHN, 2013, p.166).

Body Dressings

So far, the Sater-Maw hunters attempts to run across game

animals outlined above are largely based on what has been called
Traditional Environmental Knowledge (TEK, detailed knowledge of
what in Western science would be called ethology, phenology, botany,
meteorology etc.). However, besides the fact that the term TEK always
implies cosmological and spiritual parameters (cf. BERKES, 1999), it is
the ontological twist that matters here: in order to establish contact with
animals the hunter has to shit his ontological status a little bit closer to
that of his game animals, albeit without literally falling prey to these
transgressive movements.9 he hunter has to make use of a kind of
trans-species pidgin (KOHN, 2013) while imitating the voice of his
game and has to get inside the patterns of movement and sociality of
the animals. hese dangerous transgressive movements require rigorous
bodily control, a habitual stance which is produced during the waumat,
the male initiation ritual. he waumat, or in vernacular Portuguese,
dana da tucandeira, aims directly at the young mens body, as they have
to endure the extremely painful stings of the tucandeira ants (watyama,
[Paraponera clavata]). he ants are caught in the mesh of a variety of
woven gloves (luvas or sari pe), which themselves show a strong
venatic symbolism. One type of sari pe is called uriti py ran, footprint of
the tinamou (Crypturellus sp.). he woven design imitates the footprint
of this much valued forest bird. Another type of glove casts an even more
extended symbolic web: it is called yty sai (deer / ardent), the name of a
beetle which is said to be the irst to sit down on a fresh carcass of a deer.
hese beetles are collected by the hunters to be used as hunting charms
(mohg or pussanga in vernacular Portuguese; see below). Initiates
and exclusive property of stingy shamans. hey drank the water and then vomited it. his
contamination alludes to the pathogenic quality of water during the rainy season.
9 - Cf. once again Stolze Limas analysis (1999) on the peccary hunt among the Juruna
-Yudja: one wrong move and the hunter will be killed by the pigs whose perspective is that
of warriors against their enemies.
| 259
who use this kind of glove undergo the ant ordeal six times10 (or so),
before they send somebody out to kill a deer. Once the round of ordeals
is completed the newly minted initiate himself is obliged to go out and
hunt a deer. If he is successful, everybody is content; if he is not, he has
to be stung again.
he point of the matter is that the waumat ceremony moors the
insight of precarious, conlictive, and dangerous relations with the en-
vironment and its human and non-human inhabitants in a most im-
mediate and efective way. he stings of the tucandeira ants literally
penetrate the skin, the bodily limit with the outer environment. he
poison (satek) injected by the insects not only causes almost unbearable
pain, but probably entails a whole cascade of psycho-physical reactions,
which drastically redress the mind-set of the candidates. Contact with
the savage ant-beings amounts to what Zent called interpenetration
of essences among the hunting and gathering Jot of Venezuela, ritual
applications, to gain certain powers in order to be able to establish
contact with sentient beings and to guarantee connectivity with sen-
sory beings and their environments, primarily to enhance hunting
ability and success (ZENT, 2005, 2013, p.9). When we have stuck in
our hands (meter a mo)11 twenty times, we ind a lot of game. We never
miss the game, we shoot the game with arrows: deer, pigs, now we know
how to do it.
It is not surprising that a lot of Sater-Maw hunting charms
(mohg, pusangas or caxilas) work along the principle of interpenetra-
tion. As the following example shows, these kinds of ritual applications
create their own speciic aesthetic of man-nature relations.

- hyri: the tiririca-shrub (prob. Cyperus rotundus) is a

plant growing all over secondary growth (capoeira) and
is infamous for its razor-sharp leaves cutting mercilessly
the skin of the imprudent passer-by. In order to assure the
marksmanship of the future hunter, mothers prepare a
mixture of tiririca-leaves and tucup (mani hy, pressed-out
manioc juice12) and rub it into the skin of their little sons
10 - he candidates are obliged to undergo the ant ordeal up to 20 times in order to com-
plete a single festive cycle of the waumat.
11 - Meter a mo, colloquial for sticking in the hands into the gloves full with ants.
12 - To prepare this ablution the toxic sap pressed out by a tipit, which otherwise is pou-
red away, is used. Tucup for alimentation is processed into a kind of condiment lavored
with salt and pepper (muse).

260 |
 arms, saying: I wish, he will never fail with his arrows!

Part of the ontological compound of a hunter is, of course, his

hunting dog, which is treated in similar ways as the hunter himself. In
vernacular Portuguese these ablutions are called to bathe the dog (dar
banho ao cachorro).

- wahire: lines of wahire ants can be seen on the forest

loor, each individual carrying maniwara ants. he hunter
takes one from the front, the middle, and the rear, roasts
and pulverizes them. Mixed with water this ablution is
infused into the dogs snout. his application enhances
the dogs ability and will to hunt the collared peccary
(caitit, [Pecari tajacu]), because it is then inside the
form of running in rows, which ants and pigs share, plus
the predative capacities of the wahire ants.

Both the grand waumat ritual as well as the quotidian hunting

rites predicate on the insight that transformative processes are never
irrevocably concluded, once they had been released in primordial time.
he hunter attempts to beneit from the transgressive potential whi-
le taking care to control these processes. While getting inside forms
(KOHN, 2013) of his non-human counterparts, he does everything to
maintain his subjectivity enforcing his perspective as the predator wi-
thin the relationship. All the stinging and scratching of the skin, while
transgressing ontological limits, must always result in empowerment.
hats why it is absolutely necessary that the waumat candidate, ater
having injected the powerful substances of the tucandeira ants, must
take an emetic in order to purge himself and maintain his physical in-
tegrity: hey [the elders] infused us a very strong poison (satek), the
liquid of the ants. hats why the person had to take an emetic (watu-
weymyke), in order to get rid of the blood (ahu) in our belly. hose,
who didnt the take the emetic, lost their health.13
13 - here is a striking resemblance to warrior rites elsewhere in Amazonia (cf. FAUSTO,
1999), where the killer has to undergo ritual prescriptions, because he is full of the blood
of his victim. his is in a way corroborated by the myth on the origin of the waumat, where
the hero Harpy (hywi wato, [Harpia harpyja]) refrains from taking part in the public
ceremonies of the irst tucandeira fest, because he had killed the murderers of his father,
the turtles. During the fest, the birds paint themselves with the blood of the turtles, today
represented by the red feathers of the scarlet macaw (Ara macao), which adorn the ant
gloves. Once again, one notices the parallelism between hunting and warfare (cf. Stolze
Lima, 1999).

| 261
 Neglecting the procedure of purging ones body may also have
psychological consequences: the person becomes deluded (kenmue),
loosing himself in dream images of sexual encounters with the siren
-like Snake Woman Uniamorei, ultimately even becoming pregnant
with tucandeira children. Now, Uniamoirei is one of those Amazo-
nian supernatural igures, which are considered as masters of their
respective domain.

Mothers and Masters

In Sater-Maw communities, it is not all too rare to hear true

stories that go like this:

he other day, a little girl that accompanied

her mother and a few other women on the path
to the manioc garden suddenly disappeared.
Horriied, the women searched for the child
for hours, until they inally found her on the
edge of the path. Recognizing her mother the
little one fainted. Later the girl told that she
was not able to answer the calls of her mother,
because a man had kept her mouth shut with
his hand. While she had been held captive, the
man had shown her his beautiful animal herds
(a criao bonita dele). his man, who had kid-
napped the child, had been Curupira.14

hese somewhat uncanny stories gain a special note because the

childlike imagination invariably hints at something beautiful and /
or plentiful, imaginations, which are always invoked within the con-
text of super-natural owners of game-animals (ZERRIES, 1954; KOHN,
2007; FAUSTO, 2008). Topologically and cosmologically, this place of
plenitude is in the center and at the beginning of time. his place of
origin is called nusoken among the Sater-Maw, where all the creative
potentialities for things and beings are kept:

In nusoken, theres a hole in the rock, they say

there are stones (nu), many stones, and its
like a city. hey say the stones have designs all
over, designs of game animals, there are designs
14 - his story has been told to me while I was in a community in 2012 as an event that
had happened the week before my arrival.

262 |
 of pigs, tapirs, of deer and jaguars, of people,
everything [] hey say there is a great din, the
din of white-lipped peccaries (Tayassu pecari)
that never stops. Its like when we encounter
one of those great herds of peccaries, this cla-
mor when they run through the forest. hey
say, when the hunter shoots his arrows, there
is the foreman (peara). When they are about to
kill his pigs, he screams: Yeiiii, lets get out of
here, people!

he leader of the peccary pack is, of course, the Curupira or

asei15 Kuru, a kind of pan-Amazonian super-natural igure, who is the
master of animals commanding over abundant herds of game ani-
mals. In many cases, his domain is represented by colonially inlected
imaginary (cf. KOHN, 2007, 2013): like a well-to-do hacienda, where a
foreman commands over cattle (see KOHN, 2013, p.169 for the vila
Runa) or, as among the Sater-Maw, like a barraco, those warehou-
ses, where the non-indigenous river traders (regates) had kept their
commodities to be bartered for forest products. As with the patro, the
local representative of the widely ramiied and hierarchically organized
aviamento-system, it is crucial for the hunter to be on good terms with
the master of animals. Sometimes, however, at least among the Sate-
r-Maw, this master of animals is a mother of animals (miat ty or
miat hary16).
he operative point is that both super-natural persons require
completely opposed modes of relation, which in turn entails diferen-
tial consequences for environmental ethics of the Sater-Maw. To get
in touch with the game mother, called by her personal name Urihei,
requires shamanistic techniques. he Sater-Maw, known as the origi-
nal cultivators of guaran (Paullinia cupana), have a saying whenever
sap (guaran beverage) is served: Hey, lets call meat (toiro watikay
kay miu)! his saying refers to the duty of the shaman to predict the
arrival of the large herds of white-lipped peccaries by way of ingesting
an especially strong preparation of guaran. In a tale about the legen-
dary shaman (paini) Chicu Pucu, this ceremony is performed within
the context of phenological epiphenomena: the predicted arrival of the
herd occurs during the heavy storms at the end of the rainy season,
birds like pirangas (of the cardinal family) and toucans lock to feast
15 - asei means grandfather, a reverential designation towards any older man.
16 - miat, game, ty, mother, hary, grandmother.

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on ripe palm fruits. he narrative unfolds Chicus shamanic activity as
a journey into the Other World, where he contacts the Game Mother
in order to request peccaries from her. He meets her at a house in the
middle of a campina (yahg) called thunderstorm (ywytunug), inside
he catches sight of animal eigies (iakap17) made of stone, everything
very beautiful. An old woman, who introduces herself as the dona
da campina (yahg kaiwat), orders Chicu to blow tobacco smoke over
a igure of a peccary and the igure transforms into the animal. Chicu
returns home, ater a few days the peccary herd arrives near his hou-
se. Both this narrative and the following account emphasize that the
shaman is hard pressed by his clientele to call for game animals, and,
remarkably, without ofering anything in return.

[] He [the narrators father-in-law, a shaman]

called the white-lipped peccaries two times. He
had brought a beautiful stone from the Rio
Marau. Inside that stone was the mother of the
peccaries (hamaut wato ehary). At that time,
we all went to his house; there the people said:
It would be good to call white-lipped peccaries
this week, because we need a lot of food! We
all came together there. At that time, my uncle
Alpio was learning to become a shaman with
him. He was his mesrio (assistant) at that time.
hen, my father-in-law lighted his cigar and
smoked. And he danced. He danced with a ca-
labash of sapo (guaran beverage) in his hand.
While singing, he also shook his marir (ratt-
le). Ater he had stopped dancing, he said:
A peccary herd will appear for sure! You better
prepare your guns at home. But you should not
kill the peccaries carelessly. If you miss them,
they will only be wounded and will die some-
place else! So be careful! he next day a peccary
herd had indeed appeared at his landing place.

As we can see, agency to get in contact with the super-natural

game mother is delegated by the collective to the ritual specialist, who
on this occasion acts like a generous leader (tuis wato). It is notewor-
thy that neither the game mother nor her stand-in, the shaman, asks for
anything in return for the released game animals. People rather demand
17 - iakap, today this can also mean photograph or ilm.

264 |
their share to be released from Urihei like children, who unconditio-
nally are cared for by their mother (cf. BIRD-DAVID, 1990; DESCO-
LA, 2011; KAPFHAMMER 2012a, b).18
he relationship with asei Kuru or Curupira, on the other hand,
is in stark contrast with the un-ambitious mode of relation with the
game mother: to assure his luck, the hunter may count on Curupiras
help, however, he is obliged to strictly observe a variety of rules and
restrictions in order to avoid the revenge of the master of animals.
Means to communicate with Curupira are again certain hunting char-
ms (mohg), which are considered as the most eicacious, but also as
the most dangerous. he crucial point is that all these applications en-
tail a kind of contractual agreement with Curupira: the hunter can use
them openly, but has to obey certain rules:

- Asei kuru eputu yp19, Curupiras Sword is a slender plant

with a crown of foliage on top. he vegetal material caught
in the foliage is used to rub the nose of the hunters dog,
which bestows him with a capturing quality.

- Manaka hiit (Brunfelsia sp.20) is also used to treat the

hunting dog. Ater having been rubbed with this plant the
dog is said to have a lot of luck in hunting, but only if it is
submitted to the same dietary rules as the hunter himself.
Another way of using manaka is to look for sleeping places
of game animals, collect their hairs and wrap it in manaka
leaves. he hunter carries this bundle with him.

he application of these hunting charms is considered to be

ino, delicate, because Curupira demands the observance of a whole
series of conductive rules (e.g. the hunter has to abstain from certain
parts of the prey; the rules even extend into his social relations: mens-
truating or pregnant women also have to abstain from the meat, other-
wise he cannot be stingy when distributing among his relatives etc.). If
18 - Although it is not entirely clear from my data, the notion of cyclic regeneration may
be an issue here: sometimes bones of animals can be seen stuck into the palm thatch of
houses. he emergence of new life from bones is a recurring motif in Sater-Maw my-
thology.
19 - Eputu yp belonged to the paraphernalia of a shaman: a stick with two or more red
macaw feathers on top.
20 - his plant is used for medicinal purposes throughout South America and contains a
certain bioactivity.

| 265
the hunter violates Curupiras rules, he runs the risk not only to lose his
luck in hunting, but also his physical and mental integrity. He sufers in
consequence of failed relations to the entities of the forest:

One time, there was a man, a really good hunt-

er, who used manaka. But one day he failed to
observe the rules of the manaka. He became
like drugged (kenmue21), like mad. He was run-
ning from here to there, he lost all of his pa-
tience. When another person came near him,
he mistook his words as an insult. He even tried
to kill one!

In contrast to the shamans pleading with the Animal Mother,

the dealings with Curupira require more attentiveness. For one, the
hunter (and killer) of game ceded by Curupira is forced to get inside
a more ambitious framework of relations between human and non-hu-
man domains than the pattern of relationship with the Animal Mother,
which rather corresponds to a simpler parent-child relation (cf. BIRD-
DAVID, 1990; see also DESCOLA, 2011). As one of my interlocutors
put it, the hunter has costs (o caador tem despesas), primarily, as
has been mentioned, because he has to refrain from consuming a consi-
derable part of the meat. his circumstance, I have been told, keeps the
hunter going, because he never gets enough for himself.
his intricate contractual relationship with Curupira, albeit
considered as the most promising in terms of hunting luck, induces
many a hunter to go for alternative hunting charms that work outsi-
de Curupiras domain22. A favored alternative is the hunting charm for
tapirs (wewato pohg), a complex bundle of ingredients that reveals a
deep understanding of ecological interrelations. It consists of a kind
of potato (hawaia), a tick (wewat) and the skull of a bird (kea), all
wrapped in a leaf. he bird is a yellow-headed caracara (Milvago chi-
machima) that scavenges for small ticks which infest the skin of tapirs.
To compile the bundle is a demonstration of a hunters skill in itself:

21 - he altered state of consciousness of shamans ater taking hallucinogenic snuf (ape,

parik) is also called kenmue. Within this context it can also mean studied, wise.
22 - Another reason that has been mentioned to me for avoiding relations with Curupira
is the impossibility to perceive the condition of menstruating women in contemporary
villages, where the custom of secluding menstruating women has long been abolished. A
hunters contact with menstruating women is one of the main causes to arouse the wrath
of asei Kuru.

266 |
 his bird likes to eat the tapirs ticks. If you hear
the call of this bird, you can imitate the call of
the tapir and the bird goes keeeee, the call of the
tapir is f, you kill it and tear its throat sac.
heres a tapir-tick inside. You cut the birds
head wherein you put the tick, and then you can
use it. You can add some tapir hair, also the po-
tato, and you carry it with you in your ammuni-
tion pouch. Every time you get near a tapir, you
whistle and in its ears it is as if the caxila were
singing. When you follow the track the tapir
thinks it is the bird singing. Its not dangerous;
its just that nobody is allowed to see it.

Another charm is the wrapped carcass of the uirapur (Cy-

phorhinus arada, musician wren), a kind of Amazonian nightingale
which is the subject of a variety of legends and fables. Sater-Maw
hunters explain that this Amazonian lucky charm has been adopted
from outside mainly as a substitute for the dangerous manac (fo-
lha de Curupira). he composition of the bundle reminds of the abun-
dant locks of game animals in the Animal Mothers domain23:

We kill this little bird and roast it immediately

in the forest, well hidden, so nobody can see it.
[] hen as in the case of manac you look
for the hairs of peccary, agouti, and everything,
put it together with the bird, wrap it and use it.
But nobody is allowed to take a glimpse of this
little bird. When your wife or your children ind
it, you lose your luck. his caxila doesnt hurt,
but when a person inds it, you lose your luck.
You do not feel anything. You also dont have
to obey any rules, just use it in secrecy.

One notes some curious inversions in the ways how to relate and
communicate with the supernatural owners of game. In the case of the
Animal Mother, the shaman mediates a demand of the collective, while
neither the Animal Mother nor the shaman imposes restrictions on the
consumption of the bands of animals released except minor exhorta-

23 - he birds magic eicacy is ascribed to the fact that wherever it sings, it attracts mul-
ti-species locks of birds. It is considered as a kind of master of birds and is said also to
create human sociality.

| 267
tions24. On the other hand, dealings with asei Kuru always occur indivi-
dualistically, whereupon the hunter is obliged to obey a complex set of
rules, which, mainly through the prescribed distribution of game meat,
creates sociality and can afect his and his kins physical and spiritual
well-being. As has been said, this ambitious mode of relation with
Curupira motivates hunters to resort to alternative hunting charms.
While hunting charms directed towards Curupira can be applied publi-
cally (but are subject to rules), the latter can only be used secretly (but
are not subject to rules). In the concluding paragraph, I will argue that
these modulations of adjusting the hunters capacity to tap the always
already (KOHN, 2013) abundance of game under the owners domain,
may form what Zent (2013) calls the ecogonic nodes, concepts that
trigger a certain ecological stance towards the environment.

Conclusion

In her work on man-nature relationships among the Venezuelan

Jot, in particular within the context of hunting, Zent (2013) groups
tenets of Jot ecogony, i.e. the causal reasons that trigger the beha-
vior with other entities and the forest, around certain key concepts or
nodes. With respect to Sater-Maw relation with game animals, I
would like to single out two of such ecogonic nodes: trust (mohey)
and respect (motipot). Both concepts are deeply steeped in mythological
and cosmological insights, highly integrated with sophisticated envi-
ronmental knowledge, and afected by historical conjunctures.
As we have seen, the ontological compound of a Sater-Maw
hunter (consisting of himself, his kin, dog and equipment) is obliged
to actively manage his ontological boundaries in order to be able to get
inside his non-human counterparts forms and do something with
it (KOHN, 2013, p.21). hese strategies require some risky transgres-
sive seesaw between ontological statuses such as humanity and ani-
mality. he crucial matter hereby is to maintain ones perspective as
subject and successful predator. However, both ecogonic nodes do
not imply an equal amount of engagement (cf. INGOLD, 2000) on the
part of the hunter.
Like other Amazonian people, the Sater-Maw conceive of a
cosmological timescape, where abundance of game, plants or mate-
rial goods is located. Furthermore given the adequate strategy one is

24 - Sater-Maw hunters conirm that, whenever they encounter bands of howler mon-
keys or the periodically appearing huge herds of peccaries, they kill as much as they can.

268 |
able to tap this source of plenitude. his realm, which Kohn has shrew-
dly designated always already (KOHN, 2013, p.180), because it is by
deinition, always inside form, the animals are always abundant there
(op.cit., p.179) and in which the things that have already happened
have never not happened is, of course, the realm of the spirit mas-
ters. hus, as it has always already happened in the rocky paradise
nusoken of the Sater-Maw, where the stony eigies of game animals
are stored as prototypes, the shamans manipulation of a magic stone
evokes this creative potentiality. On a social level, the shamans duty,
while realizing abundance of game, is to communicate with the Animal
Mother Urihei, who acts like a caring mother when unconditionally
liberating avatars of her prototypical wealth of game animals. he
collectives stance towards the Game Mother (miat ty), respectively to-
wards the shaman as the ritual mediator, is one of trust (mohey). As an
ecogonic node this mode of relation between Sater-Maw hunters
and game animals amounts to a rather careless management of forest
resources exactly because of the always already availability of these
resources. It is of great importance to observe how this always already
timescape has been increasingly re-located towards the exterior since
colonial times. In a famous narrative by the Sater-Maw, it is no longer
Urihei, but asei Imperador (Grandfather Emperor), who took with
him all the creative potentialities of nusoken, while the Sater-Maw
were let behind in the forest (KAPFHAMMER, 2012 ; KAPFHAM-
MER; GARNELO, forthcoming). Historically, the Sater-Maw have
been successively obliged to get inside the form of governmental po-
licies from the tutelary regime of the FUNAI to recent systems of cash
transfer, while the Game Mother has fallen out of favor, as one of my
interlocutors put it: Hunting is inished on the Rio Andir. he Sater
do not trust in the forest anymore25.
Curiously, the Game Mother Urihei somehow exists alongside
another spirit master igure, namely asei Kuru or Curupira. Like the
Game Mother, he keeps a wealth of game animals in his custody but,
unlike her, it is much more tricky and ambitious to be on good
enough terms with him so that he lets go part of his livestock. As
has been shown, contractual relationship with Curupira implies ob-
servance of a complex set of rules in order to be able to participate in
his abundance and at the same time not lose ones bodily and mental
integrity as a hunter and social being. One does not invest trust in
Curupira, but respects (motipot) him, like someone respects a leader
25 - No Andir acabou a caa. Sater no tm mais coniana no mato.

| 269
(autoridade). his kind of respect entails the observance of rules by
all members of the hunters compound. In order to be qualiied to
do so, the human person, but also his not-so-human partner, the hun-
ting dog, has to be treated (mosaptag) using an impressive arsenal of
hunting charms, only a very small part of it has been described above.
Respect for Curupira seems to be based on the insight of a mature adult
person that the reproduction of life is predicated on the connectivity
or addressability of non-human entities and on the concern to main-
tain ones integrity during these transgressive movements this kind of
communication requires.
As an ecogonic node, respect (motipot) does not seem to re-
volve around notions of reciprocity (i.e. the care for balanced relations
between human and non-human domains and a corresponding notion
of sustainable ecological relations with environmental resources) or
moral regard for non-human persons as a consequence of their simi-
lar ontological status (i.e. the attribution of will, soul or subjectivity).
he ecogonic node works, because it creates an environment of se-
miotic valence26, one that integrates signiicant and, therefore, eica-
cious vegetable and animal organisms.
he Sater-Maw hunter may live in fear as an Inuit sha-
man once famously explained to Rasmussen that his personhood may
disintegrate in the transgressive processes of dealing with non-human
entities. However, it is this very process that creates a very peculiar aes-
thetics that amounts to what I have called elsewhere mindful commu-
nication in human-nature relations (KAPFHAMMER, 2014). An out-
wardly-oriented mindfulness, a heightened sensitivity for the realities
of nature and human experience, the intimate connectedness of human
and non-human realms, and the fact that successfully managing this

26 - To give an example: along Sater paths through the forest one oten passes by an
absolutely unimposing small leafed plant with a red surface. his plant, called aperu yhop,
is not edible nor of any use whatsoever. However it is signiicant: its red color gives testi-
monial of crucial mythological events, insofar it stems from the blood of the slain guaran
child. he wasps have used this plant to carry the blood of the dead child to his mother
Uniawasapito inform her of the homicide. As every Sater-Maw knows, the irst guaran
shrub had grown out of the eye of the buried child. Guaran is pivotal to Sater-Maw
cosmology (KAPFHAMMER, 2009) and for those, who pass through the forest mindfully,
the sight of this plant can trigger a whole cascade of cosmological notions. hus, an en-
vironment of semiotic valence means an environment that is signiicant or telling; an
environment which sends out a signiicant amount of signs, so that the person interacting
with it inds him- / herself attached in an emotional or afective way (cf. KOHN, 2013;
KAPFHAMMER, 2014). I think this aesthetic recognition is distinct from relations, which
are mediated by, say,ecological usefulness or social relevance.

270 |
inter-being27 is the precondition for ones personal integrity and wel-
l-being, is, what constitutes the art of forest life. Unfortunately, as my
Sater-Maw friend stated above, nowadays game is all but depleted in
the immediate surroundings of the villages. Along with the decline of
hunting the semiotic valence of forest environment continues to eva-
nesce in favor of an increasing material and afective integration into
Western consumerism (KAPFHAMMER; GARNELO forthcoming).
his vast store of traditional environmental knowledge connected with
hunting is nowadays almost unavailable anymore to the younger gene-
ration of Sater-Maw.

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