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Amazonia

"Amazonia" designates the Amazonian world, to be more precise a body of peoples distinguished by a specific culture which anthropologists also call "lowland societies" as opposed to those of the Andine world. Some of the peoples whose objects are shown here live outside the Amazon hydrographic basin. Others do not - or no longer - live in the humid tropical Amazonian forest but in savannah or dry forest ecosystems.

A purification and initiation ritual among the wayana

The Apalaï and the Wayana share an initiation ritual, known as the maraké, which for girls and boys marks the passage from childhood to adulthood. Among ritual songs and dances, the initiates (tëpijem) are subjected to a very peculiar ordeal: an "ant mat" or kunana is placed on their skin. Square for girls and in the shape of an animal for boys (jaguar, squirrel, fish…), these pieces of basketwork are encrusted with ants (Ilak) and wasps (okomë) whose bite and sting are particularly painful. All around the object are decorative coloured feathers. Such ordeals are also inflicted on adults in the aim of invigorating or immunizing them against disease, wounds or arrows.

Bibliograpy

• Wastiau, Boris. 2016. Amazonie. Le chamane et la pensée de la forêt. Paris: Somogy, Genève: MEG, p. 97, MEG AM 619 WAS