Substances and Persons: on the Culinary Space of the People of the Centre
This paper refers to a cultural ensemble of groups of northwest Amazonia who selfdesignate as the People of the Centre (Witoto, Ocaina, Nonuya, Bora-Mirana, Muinane, Andoque). The production of food and the production of ‘true people’, in People of the Centre’s discourse, are referred to with a same set of terms; and the instruments and technical transformations of cooking (heating, pounding, filtering, combining and separating) are conceived of as bodily processes. The first section presents the main substances that constitute such a culinary space, both ritual and everyday. The second section, addresses the main technical processes that they undergo to transform them into foods. The third section discusses the meaning of the combination of different processed foodstuffs. It addresses these substances, processes and combinations—this alchemy—as the culinary and technical expression of the formation of true persons.
Weaning and the rendering of substances nourishing: food shamanism amongst the Warekena of northwestern Brazil
Abstract The paper explores the nurturing and nourishing practices of a small group of Amerindians, the Xie river dwelling Brazilian Warekena, and focuses on the gradually expanding diet of infants, babies and toddlers. Unlike other instances of food shamanism, the rituals surrounding infant feeding, and in particular during weaning, are topics that have received little attention. This paper provides ethnographic detail of the Warekena’s infant feeding practices and offers an alternative perspective on food shamanism: one that is based on the Warekena’s own insistence on mediating vital processes, through attention-directing practices, such as when eating. In particular, the paper seeks to throw light on food preparation, the ritualised consumption of foods, including the prior bathing of infants and the blessing of new foods introduced in the infant’s diet. Working within animic relationality, the focus here is on the mediation of foodstuffs and of the vital processes of the body itself, so as to promote the cosmological and bodily balance that engenders the good health of infants.
Law as Palimpsest: Conceptualizing Contingency in Judicial Opinions (forthcoming 2009)
Metaphors create conceptualizations, and for decades legal academics have employed metaphors to shape understandings of legal problems. But no metaphor in current use successfully conceptualizes the contingency of judicial opinions and the complexity of the relationship between opinions and precedent. This Article seeks to fill this void by introducing a new metaphor, the palimpsest, into the realm of legal analysis. A palimpsest is a writing surface that can be cleared away for reuse, like a personal blackboard. What distinguishes a palimpsest from other writing surfaces is that its removed contents do not disappear, but remain, obscured yet recoverable: A writing on a palimpsest never goes away. This Article argues that thinking of judicial opinions as being part of a shared, ever-evolving palimpsest underscores the fact that they are ultimately contingent and serves as a reminder of the multiple levels of interconnectedness between them and the cases they cite. Precedents—like the underlayers of a palimpsest—never go away, and they inform and shape the application of opinions in ways far more significant than simply serving as points of reference. A palimpsestic approach to understanding judicial decisionmaking also helps to explain why even the oldest, most reviled cases remain part of our national psyche—like underlayers of a palimpsest, they can never truly disappear, and their continued presence forces us to grapple with their existence. Finally, considering judicial opinions as part of a shared palimpsest reminds us that even the most troubling opinion is ultimately contingent, its application subject to reexamination and revision by future courts and future generations. Just as such an opinion replaces its precedents, it too will one day be replaced, like each of a palimpsest’s layers. 2 Law as Palimpsest [Vol. __:__ Law as Palimpsest: Conceptualizing Contingency in Judicial Opinions