Eduardo O. Kohn
Weatherhead
Resident Scholar 2001-2002
Natural Engagements and Ecological Aesthetics
Among the vila Runa of Amazonian Ecuador
In the Runa village vila in Amazonian Ecuador, a man who has had his "hunting
soul" stolen by a sorcerer can no longer perceive forest animals as
sentient, soul-possessing beings. Stripped of this ability, he is unable
to communicate with prey and his success as a hunter is seriously threatened.
Eduardo Kohn observes that while this belief reveals much about the specific
world view of the Runa, "It's connected to a fundamental ecological
problem faced by all hunters, which is: How do you get inside the head
of an animal?"
Kohn's dissertation aims to capture how the Quichua-speaking
Runa make sense of the complex Amazonian environment they inhabit and to show
how a careful examination of this process can broaden our understanding of human-nature
relationships in general. Using a variety of techniques such as plant collecting
and poetic analysis as well as participant observation and examination of historical
sources, Kohn explores how Runa ecological models grow out of culturally-specific
aesthetic orientations that stem from everyday interactions with nature. "I
am particularly interested in the relationships between culture and cognition," said
Kohn. "Tracing these can reveal just how intertwined humanistic and scientific
concerns are in dealing with fundamental questions of an existential nature."
Paying close attention to subtleties of the local Quichua
dialect, Kohn noticed the "remarkable poetic dexterity" of the Runa
as they talked spontaneously among themselves about experiences in the forest. "The
Runa use language not merely as a tool to talk about nature," observed Kohn, "but
as a way to access it." By employing iconic language in their performance
of hunting stories, the Runa cultivate a sensation of intimate engagement with
nature that Kohn calls an "aesthetic of the immediate."
Subsequent chapters of the dissertation will examine
how a fascination with perspective serves as an additional aesthetic orientation
that influences understandings of nature, how the Runa use metaphor to chart
ecological relationships, and how they form ideas of nature within historical
and political contexts that extend beyond the confines of the forests they visit.
Affiliation at time of fellowship: Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology,
University of Wisconsin, Madison
