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Technics to spoil others: about shamanic ethics in the frontier of Brazil and Guyana

Abstract

This article presents an ethnographic analysis about shamanism in the pluriethinic context of the occidental Guiana massif. It addresses particularly the aggressive modality of shamanism that is regionally defined as kanaimé attack. The sociocultural universe that characterizes this kind of shamanic action presents elements of a cosmo-ontology that challenges the occidental rationality, configuring relationship modes between people and plants that put specific knowledges and ritual practices at stake. The contemporary reconfigurations of these shamanic practices indicate the open character, the strength and the heterogeneity of this knowledge mode. From the different parts rolled by shamanic specialists, the objective is to bring to light indigenous reflections about the shaman ethic on the production of malice and cure. The argument is that this shamanic universe brings the notion of frontier to the communication plan interspecific, reverberating interrogations about the statute of human.

Keywords:
shamanism; cosmo-ontology; frontier; human-plant

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