Paper short abstract:

Reflecting about the isolated indians in their territory, the Kawaiwete often debate whether these indians are "people" or "spirits", an indeterminacy they extend to some degree to themselves. How should one describe the differences between humanity and spirituality among this Amazonian people?

Paper long abstract:

Recently, many stories about "isolated" people have travelled throughout the Xingu Indigenous Park, a territory located in Mato Grosso, Brazil and inhabited by 16 indigenous ethnic groups. The Kawaiwete, a tupi-guarani speaking people that lives in the region, are often the authors of such stories, which are frequently accompanied by an intriguing debate: are these isolated indians "people" or "spirits"? Starting with this controversy, I shall argue that one of the most important differences for the Kawaiwete when they conceptualize alterity is that between indians-enemies (tawajat) and spirits (mama'eukwaap), which we could hastily place within the scope of the human/non-human divide. However, this difference is not mutually exclusive, since the Kawaiwete always seem to pose an indeterminacy regarding the ontological condition of the Other. Furthermore, this indeterminacy is also extended to a certain degree to the "real people" (aerete), the Kawaiwete themselves. Firstly, the origin and destiny of the person is spiritual: he/she comes from the sky (ywak), where many spirits live, and returns to it after death. Secondly, the living person is also composed of a "spiritual" part (-'ang) which enables all sorts of communication with the multiple spirits that inhabit the kawaiwete cosmos. Taking shamanic speculations as my point of departure, I offer some initial ethnographic reflections that trouble any simple division between humanity and non-humanity, thus showing how humanity and spirituality mutually constitute each other and cannot be easily distilled in dealing with Kawaiwete thought.