Some refl ections on principles of Isthmo-Colombian Amerindian ontologies

Abstract

The search for ontological principles specific for the Isthmo-Colombian region developed slowly during the last decade and started from ethnographic data and anthropological experiences which diverge in specifi c ways from the ideal-typical ontological notions of animism or analogism. Th e paper presents refl ections on a set of ontological principles, which – based on the current state of analysis – allow to characterize a variety of Isthmo-Colombian socio-cosmologies in non-essentialist terms and in delineation to Amazonian animism, which became used as interpretative frame also for contemporary indigenous groups further north. Th us, rather than proposing the existence of a specifi c and rigid Isthmo-Colombian ontology I will try to summarize a number of basic principles along which local socio-cosmologies diff er from the great ontological schemes like animism and analogism. By making some ontological links between the Isthmo- Colombian area and Mesoamerica visible the paper invites to rethink local principles in ontological terms, while avoiding the imposition of theoretically attractive, but only partially fi tting ontological schemata, which may cause selective misreadings and biased interpretations of local ontological principles.