Paper short abstract:

The presentation will dwell on the differences between the Amerindian and the European perception of the environment while the former served as guides to the latter when walking in the Amazon forest.

Paper long abstract:

Since before the arrival of Europeans in the Americas, indigenous systems have never been isolated, but were articulated locally and regionally through communication and trading routes which crisscrossed the entire continent and connected people (Levi-Strauss, 1952). The presentation is based in historical examples given by the European travelers and missionaries that walked through the Amazon forest accompanying indigenous guides along its routes. Supported by archival research it follows any trace of movement - paths, tracks and footprints - leading expeditions to negotiate with independent native groups and the way indigenous people perceive the spatial dimensions of the forest taking into account group dispersions and interethnic contacts. Since colonization, collaboration between indigenous guides, crewmen, hunters and interpreters with layman explorers was crucial for the colonization project to be carried out (Kok, 2009; Roller, 2012). This penetration of the terrestrial and fluvial routes within the forest was orientated by the ancient knowledge and significant mobility indigenous people already had about the environment and circulation in the surroundings. Inspired by Ingold (2000; 2010), I propose that walking was, and still is, an integral part of the lives of indigenous people in Amazonia leading to encounters and exchanges across vast distances with the neighboring groups. Amerindians walked ahead and the explorer followed (Burnett, 2002). For the Europeans however, these paths did not had the same connotation, being used only for its significance as infrastructure projects such as transportation routes or as ways to get in contact, explore and conquer indigenous territory and their natural resources.