Shamanic Wisdom for the Anthropocene Age

During this Cunhambebe had in front of him a large basket full of human flesh. He was eating from a leg; he held it for me in front of my mouth and asked me if I would like to eat as well. I responded: "An irrational animal would not eat another of its kind, and should a man devour another man?" He then bit it and said, "Jauára ichê. I am a jaguar. It's delicious." I withdrew from him, having seen this.

The modern West scolds the remainder of mankind: we all live under the same biological and physical laws and have the same fundamental biological, social, and psychological makeup. This, you have not understood because you are prisoners of your superficial worldviews, which are but representations of the reality to which we, through science, have privileged access. But science is not our property; it belongs to mankind universally! Here, partake—and with us you will be one.

Much of the Amerindians' practical engagement with the world presupposes that present-day non-human beings have a spiritual, invisible, prosopomorphic side. That supposition is foregrounded in the context of shamanism. By shamanism, I mean the capacity evinced by some individuals to cross ontological boundaries deliberately and adopt the perspective of non-human subjectivities in order to administer the relations between humans and non-humans. Being able to see non-humans as they see themselves (they see themselves as humans), shamans are able to take on the role of active interlocutors in trans-specific dialogues and are capable (unlike lay persons) of returning to tell the tale. If a human who is not a shaman happens to see a non-human (an animal, a dead human soul, a spirit) in human form, he or she runs the risk of being overpowered by the non-human subjectivity, of passing over to its side and being transformed into an animal, a dead human, a spirit. A meeting or exchange of perspectives is, in brief, a dangerous business.