In Indigenous Amazonian life-worlds, plants used for diverse purposes such as protecting, harming, seducing and curing are sometimes considered to be ‘plant persons’, imbued with special kinds of subjectivity. In examining plant animism in Amazonia, we consider case studies of the knowledge and use of toxic, medicinal and charm plants from two distinctive societies – the Makushi people of...
This article uses ethnographic and ethnobotanical methods to examine relationships between animate and agentive plants and human beings among the Makushi, Pemon, Karinya, and other Indigenous and mixed-Indigenous peoples in the Guianas. It considers representations of these plants and related ontologies in the archival record and contrasts these accounts with more recent ethnographic...
This article explores the use of Cyperus articulates in Putumayo, Colombia. This often-overlooked medicinal plant, known here as chondur, is used as a shamanic tool to fight the multiplicity of spiritual agents that can cause illness in western Amazonia. It also has a central role in yagé/ ayahuasca ceremonies, placing it in a unique position for an analytical observation of the dynamics of...