Towards an ethnographic theory of the nature/culture distinction in Juruna cosmology

Abstract

In his celebrated comparison between stud- ies of hysteria and totemism, Lévi-Strauss refers to a situation where the thoughts of the scientist account for more than those of the people studied — the latter for this reason becoming “more differ- ent than they are” (Lévi-Strauss, 1974, p. 5). This image comes to mind when I find myself faced with certain characterizations of indigenous Ama- zon cosmologies employing notions such as an- thropocentrism or animism: these remind me di- rectly of the totemic illusion — that is, the idea that it should be possible to deduce the identity be- tween animality and humanity, nature and culture, from ethnographic materials.