O bom patrão e o inimigo voraz: predação e comércio na cosmologia Paumari

Abstract

This ethnographic essay is an analysis of the Paumari relational sociology. It proceeds from the observation that any relationship established between the Paumari and other beings is quickly defined in commercial terms. However, this 'commercialization of relationships' extends far beyond the everyday, since figures such as the 'boss' and the 'employee' are encountered at various levels of Paumari cosmology. My working hypothesis is that, for the Paumari, commercial relations are the relations par excellence. I attempt to show, therefore, that in a world populated by potentially social beings, the Paumari imagine themselves to occupy (by preference) the position of domestic prey/animal or pet. In turn, this position corresponds in many aspects to the position of guest/employee - a correlation which becomes clearer when examined in relation to the region's history and the three basic dimensions of the Amazonian symbolic economy.

Paumari; Predation; Familiarization; Trade; Bosses