Plants, artefacts and people: feminine creative modes among Eastern Tukano groups, Northwest Amazon

Abstract

This project aims to explore the specificities of feminine creative modes among Eastern Tukano peoples, focusing on the analysis of concepts and practices related to the creation of people, plants and artefacts by Tukanoan women, dwellers of the Tiquié river,tributary of the Uaupés, upper Rio Negro, Amazonas. I seek to answer questions such as: what are the differences between female and male bodies? How these specificities are built and performed around the differentiation by types of thoughts (tuoñase), knowledge (masise/merise) and labours (darase); which are the networks of relationships established and the actions taken by women in creating people, growing plants and making artefacts; what knowledge, objects, plants and substances circulate between women (same-sex) and between women and men (cross-sex) throughout these creative processes; what are the relations between reproduction and stylistic innovation that such processes engender. I enquire to which extend one can speak of a feminine mode of creativity that permeates women's daily activities, that is related to a specific feminine form of participation in processes of creating good/beautiful (añu) people and groups and joyful (ekati) communities and that reverberate in a gendered cosmological model of creation of the world/humanity.