Anaconda-becoming: Huni Kuin image-songs, an Amerindian relational aesthetics

In Huni Kuin ayahuasca shamanism, ritual image-songs reveal how embodied perception and synesthesia transform bodily sensations into vision, rhythm, and sound. The experience involves becoming-other: knowing by seeing through another's eyes, being covered with their skin or ornaments, and singing with their voice. This other-becoming, understood in a Deleuzian sense, situates lived experience between self and other. The phrase "you are what you eat" carries implications for health and for acquiring the agentive and perceptive capabilities of other beings. The ritual technique of "almost becoming" involves alternatingly producing and undoing temporary transformations through song.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract After depicting the contemporary scene of Huni Kuin ayahuasca shamanism and artistic agency, I analyze a selection of image-songs from this ritual. The songs unveil the workings of embodied perception and synesthesia, that is, the transductions of bodily sensations and perceptions in vision, rhythm, song and sound. The experience entails a process of other-becoming where to know means to see through the eyes of Other; to be covered with the skin/ornaments of those beings one has consumed and to sing through their voice. This other-becoming is a becoming in a deleuzian sense, which means that the lived experience is situated in-between the space of self and other. In this context the expression “you are what you eat” has specific implications for one’s health and for the acquisition of agentive and perceptive capabilities of other beings. The ritual technique of almost becoming consists of alternatingly producing and undoing temporary transformations through song.