A acumulação do amargo e suas consequências: uma reflexão sobre o conceito de amargo entre os Pano

Abstract

This thesis investigates the concept of bitterness among groups of the Pano linguistic family of the Amazon, focusing on the Huni Kuĩ group, formerly known as Kaxinawá. The concept of Muká, which in general terms means bitter, is a category that permeates the routine of these groups and is associated with the dimension of shamanism and life cycles. The opposite of this category, Bata, which means sweet, as if salty/pleasant occupies as an opposite correlate its daily life in the dimensions of classification, ontology and myth. Such categories can be concrete visible or invisible substances, which have their respective flavors in the mouth, as well as transcending the question of taste in the oral sphere. Muká and Bata are semantic/gustatory/spiritual codes that have been analyzed by ethnology and addressed by numerous approaches. The proposal of this work is to think about bitterness and its correlation with the so-called psychoactive plants. However, the notion of bitterness as a vegetable among the Pano people has a particular conception, which made it necessary to analyze the ontology of the vegetable, as well as a theory of the senses, since Muká is related to vegetables that produce strong affections in the body, associated with the Yuxĩ spirits. For this reflective undertaking, it was necessary to analyze and evaluate the scenario of Science that studies the relationships of human groups with plants, since its conceptual apparatus conceives them as non-sentient beings, only capable of classification and extraction. Such an apparatus of great value and consistent theoretical production, in many situations demonstrated, did not account for the relational-conceptual complexity that Huni Kuĩ maintains with medicinal herbs in their daily lives. Such a relationship can contribute to anthropology and ethnobotany with the conceptual provocation of the Kaxinawá. Considering then the conceptual apparatus of ethnobotany, the work seeks, together with the native concept, not to think of the human and plant as already given, but rather their process of individuation through Huni Kuĩ shamanism. To this end, understanding the notion of accumulation of Muká, and the vegetality that involves the process of formation of the spiritual specialist Huni Kuĩ, rotated the concept of what a vegetal is. The vegetal apparatuses that are used in these processes of body production are conceptualized as psychoactive plants by this science, in this context they are then problematized by Kaxinawá logic. The plant considered the concrete expression of bitterness, Darë Muká, relates to humans through dreams, modifying the person's body as well as their fate in the world. In this regard, a native sensory ecology in a multi-natural setting is the context where this work develops.