Plant Agency in the Guianas: Attraction, Assault, and Animacy
Journal of Ethnobiology September 22, 2024 James Andrew Whitaker, Vikram Tamboli, Lewis Daly et al. 8 citations
Among Indigenous peoples in the Guianas, including the Makushi, Pemon, and Karinya, certain plants are regarded as animate, agentive beings—plant persons—that can act independently or in concert with humans. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and archival records, the article describes how these plants exert agency in contexts of subsistence, shamanism, assault sorcery, and romantic attraction, as well as within extractive frontiers such as mining, forestry, and plantation agriculture. The authors argue that these botanical agencies shape relationships between humans and plants, raising questions about how plant persons are positioned across different practices and how they interact with shamans, sorcerers, hunters, gardeners, and miners.