Paper short abstract:

This paper looks at the ecology of relations in indigenous Amazonia in the context of changing rainy and dry seasons. It presents a case on nonhuman and human interactions and how they reflect recent socio-political and economic changes as a source of environmental transformations among the Apurinã.

Paper long abstract:

This paper looks at processes of sociality with nonhuman subjectivities in the context of climate changes in the Amazon region. The changing length of rainy and dry seasons in Southwestern Amazonia have reshaped subsistence, movements, and productive activities of the Arawakan-speaking Apurinã in the Purus River, Brazil. Drawing on ethnography, this paper presents a case on the altering web of socio-cosmological exchange relations, in which the nonhuman actors such as animals, plants, and trees have contributed to Apurinã lives over many generations. Apurinã oral histories recount that certain non-human entities are shamanic ancestors who have transformed into animals. They are one of the actors in the ecology of relations, alongside the so-called master or chief spirits who also play a crucial role in social and economic production. This paper focuses on a narration of the recent death, and subsequent replacement, of a game master spirit, which has affected the ancestor spirits as well as the Apurinã. Contemporary narratives of the game master reflect changing social relations between humans and nonhumans, pointing especially to the socio-political and economic changes as a major source of environmental transformations.