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Paper short abstract

This presentation explores how a dynamic form of dualism is used creatively by the Huni Kuin to enact social change and meditate upon matters of selfhood and otherness. To this end, I examine the extraordinary experience of the Ayahuasca ritual and it's recent reformulations.

Paper long abstract

Dualism pervades all aspects of Huni Kuin cosmology and life - from the dual organisation of kinship to the characteristic patterns adorning their art. Yet it is the dynamic nature of dualism that generates life and allows for its reproduction. Huni Kuin social life and art depend upon the simultaneous deployment of opposing principles and their fluidification by means of controlled mixing. The extraordinary experience of the Ayahuasca ritual as practiced by the Huni Kuin is a meditation upon the complex interplay between the rigidity and fluidity of polarities, where dualistic rhythms mediate a cosmopolitical encounter between Huni Kuin, spirits, and increasingly human strangers. The ritual has recently experienced a series of innovations which saw the introduction of instruments such as the guitar, accompanied by dancing and a new style of melodic singing, with the aim of attracting new types of human strangers. Rather than replacing the previous formulation of the ritual with a new one, the Huni Kuin have decided upon the ‘bifurcation approach’ by splitting the ritual in half – with the first half mediated by the old voice-only chanting, and the second by the newly integrated melodic guitar rhythms. The bifurcation of the ritual reveals further oppositions, such as those between the shamanic and the festive, self and other, forest and city, elders and youth. In this presentation I argue that such dynamic dualisms are not only a reflection of the Huni Kuin ethos, but are also creative methods of enacting social change.