Revista Española de Antropología Americana
Revista Española de Antropología Americana (ISSN 0556-6533, ISSN-e 1988-2718) is an annual journal that was founded in 1952 by Professor Manuel Ballesteros Gaibrois. It brings together Archaeology, Ethnohistory and Ethnology topics in Spanish, Portuguese, French and English. It aims to cover the entire American geographic-cultural field, including both Ibero-America and North America.
In order to support the global exchange of knowledge, the journal Revista Española de Antropología Americana is allowing unrestricted access to its content as from its publication in this electronic edition, and as such it is an open-access journal. The originals published in this journal are the property of the Complutense University of Madrid and any reproduction thereof in full or in part must cite the source. All content is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 use and distribution licence (CC BY 4.0). This circumstance must be expressly stated in these terms where necessary. You can view the summary and the complete legal text of the licence.
Thinking the person through weaving: a proposal for interpretation based on the example of Jalq'a weavings (Bolivia)
This text aims to present an interpretative proposal to explore in what ways the person can be considered to be identified, presented and constituted, in social and ontological terms, through weavings in the Andes. Using traditional Jalq'a clothing (Bolivian Andes) and its particular style of woven decoration as an example, I propose three approaches to contribute to this discussion: presenting traditional clothing as an ethnic distinctive, paying attention to the relationships that are generated around the practice of weaving, and considering the use of weavings as clothes wrappings that envelop the body to form a person as runa.
Copyright (c) 2022 Revista Española de Antropología Americana
From Muu Giagua (Cataclysm) to Neg Guaide (Climate Change); Thinking Human Agency in the Destruction and Regeneration of the World from Gunayala (Panama)
Recently, the image of the island of Gardi Sugdub -in the comarca of Gunayala (Panama)-, has appeared recurrently in the hegemonic media to illustrate climate change, a phenomenon perceived heterogeneously by the inhabitants of the comarca. While for some, the scientific evidence is convincing, for others climate change is an illusion of the waga (non-indigenous) world. The vanishing of the island, like other cataclysms that have happened in the past, such as the tsunami of 1882, is due to imbalances caused by human misbehaviour, the lack of correct interpretation of certain indicators, or the disregard of knowledge passed down from generation to generation. The aim of this article is to address the perception of the population of the western sector of Gunayala on climate change (neg guaide) and its connection with the cataclysmic episodes of their cosmovision, especially those caused by floods (muu giagua). For this purpose, this paper analyses the process of settlement on the islands, the cataclysms in the Babigar narratives (treaties, collective memory) and the perception of the shamans about the ruptures at the present time.
Copyright (c) 2025 Revista Española de Antropología Americana
Preventive Mobilities, Relational Territoriality: Strategies for Collective Crises in Western Ecuador
The Tsachila Society of Western Ecuador remembers in its mythical corpus and in its historical past great social and environmental crises that have been resolved thanks to collective strategies, compatible with cultural patterns and a form of relational territoriality. Far from direct confrontation, relocation and mobility as formulas to resolve crises have allowed this group to overcome colonial attacks, pandemics, climate catastrophes and more daily social conflicts. However, the most recent global crises seem to coincide with changes that lead to a new, forced relationship with the land and less autonomy to resolve them. Based on data obtained from ethnographic fieldwork that extends from the nineties to the present, the text addresses the mythical past and the most recent history and analyzes the collective strategies to face the global challenges of historical and contemporary Tsachila society.
The World that Gets Damaged. Human Transgressions, Cataclysmic Punishments and the Partial De-Creation of the World among the Yukpa
The absence of marked end-of-the-world scenarios and cyclical cataclysms is embedded in the Yukpa conception of a world in process. Owaya tamorhiya, the world under construction, is characterized by processes of differentiation and alteration, whose shaping of spatio-temporal, ontological and social differences, as well as the introduction of agriculture, have given rise to the present world. Owaya akayi, the world that is damaged, on the other hand, refers to the partial dissolution of these differences, a slight return to owaya tamorhiya and, therefore, to a partial de-creation of the world. The causes of these world damages are human transgressions and cataclysmic punishments, imposed by deified creator figures and personified natural phenomena. The Yukpa's linking of classical cataclysmic motifs with Christian moralization and global climate debates is illustrated by three prominent global harms: eclipses, deluges, and crop failures.
Kogi Ecology and the Becoming of the World: Systemic Balance, Deterioration and Renovation
The Kogi indigenous people of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia, pertaining to the Chibcha family, preserve a sophisticated ecology that knows and follows clear cosmological principles to maintain a complex and organized system of life. Drawing on those principles, Kogi leaders have developed a political discourse and mobilization to safeguard their territory and tradition from increasing environmental threats and social pressures. Based on my ethnographic work, the aim of this article is to examine Kogi ecology within the framework of the becoming of the world and the transformations of living conditions and humanity. As a novel exercise on this indigenous group, I focus on the possible cataclysmic scope of Kogi approaches to present-day socio-environmental deterioration. In this way, I situate the Kogi in the theme of the Anthropocene and the ecological crisis in the social sciences, especially with respect to the Isthmo-Colombian Area. I thus seek to foster reflection on the relevance that indigenous ontologies might have for our approach to the Anthropocene, if we are willing to include aspects as wide as possible universal upheavals.
“Becoming Alijuna”: The Wayuu People Facing Climate Change and Territorial Plundering
In the four centuries following the first contacts with Europeans, the Wayuu managed to maintain a remarkable socio-political and cultural semi-autonomy by incorporating and adapting elements from outside their original socio-cosmological and cosmo-political principles. This situation has deteriorated in recent decades due to increasing pressure from various forces from the non-indigenous world and their interaction with demographic dynamics and climate change. In the article, I examine how the Wayuu people experience these profound transformations as a ‘becoming alijuna’, i.e. non-indigenous, that affects not only human persons, but the whole of their cosmic environment. ‘Becoming alijuna’ is seen as a process closely related to following less and less the sükuaitpa wayuu, an expression that can be translated as “that which has proceeded together with the Wayuu”. In the article, I propose an analysis of this concept and of its importance for understanding the principles of socio-cosmology and cosmo-politics associated with the ‘Wayuu way of being, doing and living’. I highlight how the sükuaitpa wayuu can be understood as the process and product of a constant attempt to maintain and/or re-establish balance in the relations between the Wayuu and the other forces that populate their cosmic environment through an activity of ‘readjustment’ of situations of cosmo-political conflict. In this sense, ‘becoming alijuna’ is experienced as a deep crisis of this capacity. This is evident when one examines the Wayuu interpretation of climate change, particularly regarding the rainfall patterns in their territory.
Revelations of an Event. Water Catastrophes, ‘Diffuse Co-Responsibility’ and Socio-Cosmological Variations among the Pumé, Venezuela
The aim of this text is to study the ‘analytical work’ carried out by the Pumé indigenous communities (Llanos de Apure, Venezuela) on a great ecological catastrophe that devastated a part of the Venezuelan coast in December 1999, known as the Tragedy of Vargas. I present how, between 2000 and 2006, several ways of analysing this ‘irruptive event’ were opened up until its definitive elusion by the myth of the deluge, which became the most probable present-past-future, acquiring the value of an amplifying event of an emerging political proposal. All this work of symbolisation is based on Pumé ideas about becoming and relationships in terms of co-responsibility and operates on the basis of the creation of new spaces of symbolisation, including the emergence of female shamanism.
The Hunger of the Bunachi: Climate Change and Extractivist Development from the Iku Onto-Epistemology
Based on conversations with Arhuaco leaders and employing an ontological analysis, this article explores the balance of the Indigenous universe, and climate change and development as a threat to the continuity of life—an acceleration toward the state of chaos and darkness from which the universe originates. According to the leaders interviewed, the development of the bunachi, non-indigenous, is sustained by the darkness of ignorance regarding the order that regulates what is and is not food. The insatiable hunger of the bunachi, their impulse to appropriate and consume everything without considering the reciprocity between opposing pairs that sustain life, strengthens negative energy and generates a’kinkumana—the consequences of failing to respect the law of origin, manifested as disease and misfortune.
In the Hands of Humanity: Creation, Conservation and Degradation of the World among the Chibcha
One of greatest contributions of anthropology has been to reveal alternative ways of conceiving and inhabiting the world, which differ from those currently dominant, thereby exposing the contingent and exceptional nature of the latter. As part of this endeavor, this paper explores the ideas and practices of the Chibchan peoples of the Isthmo-Colombian area regarding the centrality of human beings and the processes of humanization and dehumanization through which they render the world a livable place. At the heart of the discussion are notions of creation, conservation and destruction derived from their mythological thought and cosmo-ecological practices. This exercise on comparative ethnology promises to enrich our knowledge of the Chibchan peoples and the Isthmo-Colombian region, while also laying the groundwork for new critical perspectives on modern anthropocentrism associated with the present-day planetary crisis.
For a New Dawn. Notes on the End of the World among the I’kʉ People of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (Colombia)
In this article, I explore the notion of cataclysm among the Indigenous groups of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, with a particular focus on my experience with the I’kʉ people. I examine how origin narratives and ritual practices express a constant concern about the end of the world, associated with cataclysms such as the great flood or the sun’s imbalance. I illustrate that, within the Sierra´s cosmos, each ending seems to be also the beginning of a new cycle. Here, ritual practices aim to restore an ever-fragile equilibrium through dynamics of reciprocity and commensality that strengthen bonds of familiarization among beings and prevent chaos.
Pensando el cambio cosmo-ecológico en las sociedades istmo-colombianas: cataclismos, regeneración y fin del mundo
Luz de agua. Una teoría de la electricidad entre los nahuas
This is a brief ethnographic text in which, using field materials collected by the author in two Nahua regions of Mexico, the conception that this group has of electricity is explored.
Epidermal changes and existential transitions. The development of the human body within the framework of plant life among the Nahuas, Mexico.
Within Mesoamerican studies and academic interests on Nahua peoples in particular, the human body has been studied in an attempt to identify its organic components and psychic anatomy; but, in addition, the life cycle of said body has been framed in a social construction through various stages. Considering that the human body contains different parts and that these are socially modeled in various episodes, the preparation of the tamale –through the application of various culinary techniques– will be used as a speculative instrument to establish the possible analogy it has with the human body. In this regard, two questions arise: what are the implications raised by the analogy between the modeling of a tamale with the human body? and what is the importance of the shell/skin during the human life cycle analogous to the vegetable? This essay aims to answer these questions based on an ethnography among the Nahua communities of the municipality of Pahuatlán, Puebla (Mexico).
Andean Ceremonies and an Unconventional Heuristic: Memory Processes, Calendars and Inka Rituals
At the Inka site El Shincal on the top of one of the ceremonial hills, two stone alignments were identified that were linked to two solar events with calendrical implications in the administrative ceremonial cycle. One marked the winter solstice, the date of Inti Raymi, and the other two dates related to the passage of the sun through the zenith of Cusco. This presentation shows the heuristic path through which the dates were discovered, a process crossed by ethnographic, archaeological and bibliographic experiences. In addition to describing the calendrical discovery, the story is constantly interpellated by the concepts of cultural memory and commemorative ceremonies, since it attempts to build an explanatory framework to build bridges between Andean ritual practices of the past and the present.
Human Bodies and Bodies of Water. An Indigenous Kukama Theory on Aquatic Territory in Peruvian Amazonia
In this essay, I analyze the relationship with the aquatic environment developed by the Kukama people (Tupi-Guarani) in the floodplains of the Loreto region, in Peru. The kukama engage with a variety of beings whose action causes profound transformations in the world they inhabit. I also examine the struggle of the Kukama people against the Amazon Waterway, a large-scale river infrastructure project, and the exchanges held between the Kukama organizations and the Peruvian State. The interaction between indigenous thought and governmental discourse results in a set of equivocations. The State manages these through a “translation” toward technical and legal language that replaces the corporeal relationships, situating translation in a “cultural” dimension that is defined in terms of subjectivity and symbolism. This process allows us to observe how indigenous thought overflows the intercultural models developed by contemporary nation-states.
The Descent of the Sun into the Underworld. Iconographic Analysis of the Murals of Patio 3 of the Palacio del Sol, Teotihuacan
Through the iconographic analysis of the murals of Patio 3 located in the Palace of the Sun, the Butterfly Bird God is presented associated with a solar disk that I point out here as a characteristic attribute of this deity. In the scenes of these murals, the same theme is represented in different ways: the descent of the Butterfly Bird God to the underworld, which constitutes a specific moment in the myth of this god, narrating his death and rebirth in that underground world. Likewise, in the murals of Patio 3, the representatives of the underworld are also captured, through the images of the reticulated jaguar and the only mortal characters - the Sacrificers of the Rain God -, while they receive the descending solar disk. As a result of the analysis, the descent of the god is represented in four different variations, which are divided into two groups: on the one hand, there are murals that refer to the action of the descent itself, and on the other hand, scenes are observed that probably represent the final point of the process, understood as the moment in which the sun lies in the underworld.
¿Hacia un nuevo proyecto de nación? Patrimonio, desarrollismo y fronteras en la 4T. Everardo Garduño y Giovanna Gasparello, coords. 2022. México: Bajo tierra Ediciones. 409 pp. ISBN: 6079984903, 9786079984908.
Yopihuehuetl, the Sound Instrument that unleashed the Mexica War
This article examines the yopihuehuetl, a small membranophone made of gold and linked to Xipe Totec, which was used by warrior elites of central Mexico, during the Late Postclássic (1200-1521). It reflects on its physical characteristics, and its functions and temporality of its use are analyzed. In addition, a peculiar relationship, so far not mentioned, is exposed between hitting a drum, hitting enemies in combat and beating gold to obtain thin sheets.
Deconstruction of Man-Nature Relations in Peru: Transformations of Social Upheavals into Harmony-Dialogue From the Ontological Singularity of the Aymara Indigenous People
The episodes of social upheaval against the Peruvian government and congress recorded between 2022-2023, with violent clashes between citizens and police-military forces, are unprecedented. Reasons for political crisis or structural social problems are insufficient to justify these events. The most turbulent moments have been led by the Aymara indigenous people, raising respect for their territories, nature and indigenous condition. The article, through a deep linguistic and content analysis, highlights that for the Aymara indigenous ontology the man-nature relationship is inalienable, integrating into intersubjective coexistence as beings with a sense of existence, whose core is constituted by balance, relationality and full harmony between humans and non-humans. Ignoring this unique perspective of life and thought can provoke unpredictable reactions. The novelty lies in reconciling antagonistic ontologies, reexamining the conceptual-theoretical structures between the social and natural, constructing new legal and cognitive foundations and restoring the denied Being of both man and nature: from an object susceptible to extraction to a subject with rights.
Re-thinking polygyny: mobility, immobility and multiple relations among the Ngäbe of Panamá.
The purpose of this article is to analyze the relationship between polygyny and popu-lation movements. Polygynous relationships have historically been practiced among the Ngäbe of Panama, and although they have declined in recent decades, they are still common today. Based on their dynamics of im/mobility to Costa Rica and the role played by women, this study analyzes how mobility influences the existence and prevalence of polygynous relationships among these indigenous peoples and how, polygyny in turn favors their way of life, articulating mobility and im-mobility. The information was gathered during ethnographic fieldwork in the Comarca Ngäbe-Bu-glé indigenous territory of Panama and in the coffee plantations of southern Costa Rica, where Ngäbe men and women from Panama travel each year to work temporarily in the coffee harvest. The material presented shows the reciprocal relationship between polygyny and the temporary mobility of the Ngäbe to Costa Rica, and highlights the need to re-think polygyny within a broader framework that takes into account the specific context of each society, as well as the perspective of women and the whole domestic unit.
Chants of Wirikuta: The Path of the Ancestors and Extractive Capitalism at the Place where the Sun Was Born
The entry of mining and agricultural companies seeking resources in the Altiplano-Wirikuta region, located in the state of San Luis Potosí (Mexico), and the resulting ecosocial conflict with the local inhabitants and the Wixarika people highlight a significant challenge in the negotiations among the various actors involved. This situation presents us with “views” that construct the territory from different cultural frameworks, which traditional political practices are not equipped to address. The aim of this work is to reflect on the status of the territory’s reality as processes of power mobilization, in order to give meaning to this intention through anthropological reflection on negotiation practices in crisis contexts triggered by the incursion of the extractivist production model in the Altiplano-Wirikuta.
Sports and Sensory Well-being: An Example from a P’urépecha Community
The social life of P'urhépecha communities is replete with references to sports. Based on ethnographic research conducted in San Francisco Ichán, located within the Cañada de los Once Pueblos (Michoacán), it can be proposed that the engagement in sporting activities has led to the formation of a novel concept of well-being, which in turn has given rise to a reinvigorated sense of community. In order to interpret these findings, two questions must be addressed. Firstly, what are the experiences and sensations that the P'urhépecha feel when they play? Secondly, can sports be considered a distinct way of expressing P'urhépecha identity through emotion?
Mesoamerican Rituals and the Solar Cycle. New Perspectives on the Veintena Festivals, Élodie Dupey García y Elena Mazzetto, eds. 2021. Nueva York, Berlin, Bruselas, Viena, Oxford, Varsovia: Peter Lang. 334 pp. ISBN 978-1-4331-7544-2.
The Indigenous and Afro-Mexican Women's Houses in Northern Mexico in the Face of the Fourth Transformation and the Global Pandemic
In this article, we reflect on the strategies, responses and limits faced by CAMIA (Casas de las Mujeres Indígenas y Afromexicanas del norte de México) in their struggle against gender violence and the defense of their rights, in the context of the Fourth Transformation and the global pandemic. I make visible that the indigenous women of this organization construct their gender agendas by situating their demands in their own cultural grammars, contemplating that their struggle against the violence that affects them (which increased with the pandemic) cannot be separated from the collective rights of the communities to which they belong. The CAMIA vernacularize gender rights discourses as an important tool for extracting greater concessions from the Mexican State, opening up debates on gender orders, access to justice and policies on equity and equality. This resemantization and dispute for the defense of their rights shows the advances of the current Mexican political situation, but at the same time, the strong tensions and disagreements between indigenous women's organizations and the central government.
Copyright (c) 2024 Revista Española de Antropología Americana
Parity and Political Violence against Women based on Gender: tolerated simulation-usurpation allowed in Chiapas
This article presents how the constitutional principle of gender parity was implemented in the state of Chiapas during the 2015, 2018 and 2021 and municipal elections. Analysing the behaviors of Political Parties, candidates and institutions, the study explains how Political Violence against Women based on Gender (VPG) arises and is reproduced. It highlights the relevance of the omissive attitude and consent of high-ranking state government institutions officials, toward behaviors that violates the political-electoral rights of women. This has resulted in a particular type of VPG, that I have termed “tolerated simulation-allowed usurpation”.
Tren Maya Megaproject: Racism, Militarization and State of Exception against Indigenous People
The “Tren Maya” megaproject is an insignia development of the current federal administration in Mexico, led by Andrés Manuel López Obrador. In my opinion, this project has several characteristics that make it emblematic of the ideological framework, practice and public policies of this government, which is self-proclaimed as the Cuarta Transformación (Fourth Transformation). In this paper I discuss these characteristics that include some direct impacts on the rights of the local Indigenous people, and even on the human rights of those people who live in the surrounding lands affected by this train. Other aspects discussed are: 1) the instrumental use of the cultural diversity, particularly the representative elements of the Indigenous cultures; 2) the militaristic ideology utilizing this cultural diversity, and more, the militarization of the whole project, and 3) the hidden declaration of the state of exception in order to avoid the oversight of this megaproject.
Multiculturalism and Technological (In)stability. The (Dis)encounters between Mennonites, Rarámuri and Mexicans
There are diverse and contrasting theoretical positions regarding multiculturalism. In general terms, these perspectives seek to transcend the contradictions around cultural diversity without violating the universal right of the citizens that make up national States. In this paper, we present a representative case of Mexican multiculturalism: the city of Cauhtémoc, in Chihuahua, Mexico, recognized by the presence of the Mennonites, the Mexicans, and the Rarámuri. It is not about retelling the history of this cultural configuration but rather giving an account of technology as a mediator of cultural interrelations. Despite the diverse approaches to multiculturalism, the presence of "others" with agency has not been highlighted in intercultural descriptions.
Anthroposapience of Life: Aspects of Environmental Rationality in the Face of the Planetary Civilizational Crisis
The socio-environmental crisis that threatens the planet has opened a new inquiry in the fields of anthropology and political ecology about the criticality of the state of the world in the face of the ecological collapse of the planet. Anthropology must question humankind's possible knowledge about the conditions for life and its own human condition in order to take responsibility for the destiny of life on Earth. Nowadays, the crucial question to answer is how to follow the path towards a sustainable world before the collapse of life produced by the rationality of enlightenment of reason, by the scientific way of knowing of reality and the capitalist mode of production of the world. But, also about the ways of understanding the unconscious drives that mobilize the practices of appropriation and transformation of nature: to learn to inhabit the planet under the conditions for life. This opens a new inquiry about the traditional imaginaries of life of the peoples of the earth, who have the sensibility of being part of nature and building their worlds within the immanence of life. The philosophical category of environmental rationality intends to rescue the sense of reason in the way to contest the theoretical and instrumental rationality of capitalism, to deconstruct the techno-economic rationality that destroys life, in order to reorient human sciences to think the historical transition toward the sustainability of life.
Counterpower Institutions in Northwestern Mexico
In this article we will present some examples of counterpower institutions between so-called indigenous groups in Northwestern Mexico. We return to the term “counterpower” from the work of anthropologist David Graeber, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology (2011 [2004]), which refers not only to institutions opposed to the State and capital, but also to those institutions that seek to guarantee that there are no conditions for the production of centralized power and the accumulation of capital. It is on the latter that we will focus in this paper.