Paper short abstract:

This paper explores a Makushi myth about the origin of fish poison plants. The story can be taken as an explanation for the origin of fishing plants and as an allegory about the role of diversity in maintaining “the good life”. Here, cultivation is a key notion for generating wellbeing and vitality.

Paper long abstract:

Poiesis: from the ancient Greek ποιεῖν, “to make” – “an activity in which something is brought into being that did not exist before” (particularly, through poetic language).

Ecopoetics: ‘eco-’ from oikos, “house, home, or hearth” – thus, the ways in which poetic forms can help make or cultivate a sense of dwelling in, on, or with the earth.

In this paper, I will explore a particular mythological story (panton) from the indigenous Makushi people of the Rupununi region of Guyana. The story, known as the Swordfish Tree, concerns the origin of fish poison plants (a’ya). It describes how the various fish poison plants used by the Makushi today originated from the decomposing body of a human boy during the mythological beginning times (pia’ton). In one sense, the story can be understood as a cosmogonic explanation for the diversity of plants used in traditional fishing practice. In a more figurative sense, it might be taken as an allegory about the importance of biocultural diversity for cultivating “the good life” amongst human communities. The analysis of the Swordfish Tree myth will lead to a deeper rumination on the role of cultivation – of these culturally-pivotal plants, but also of persons (pemon) (highlighting also where those two categories elide) – in maintaining wellbeing, as well as social, moral, and cosmological order. In the discussion, I will consider vernacular notions of speciation, health, life, and death – all situated in the critical context of the Amazonian Anthropocene.