https://doi.org/10.25058/20112742.n31.07
Celeste Medrano
Orcid ID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1475-9806
Universidad de Buenos Aires / Conicet, Argentina
celestazo@hotmail.com
Abstract:
In this paper, we will take as a starting point an early mythical encounter scene between human-animals and women with jagged vaginas, along with ethnographic data gathered by ourselves to analyze some links relating (animal and human, particularly) beings in Qom world —an indigenous society in Argentine Chaco. At the same time, we will analyze the way in which these links display categorial scales. It was the mythical relationship between human-animals and women with jagged vaginas what drove the need for taxonomies. Firstly, such relationships came into existence, and the classifying labels followed, which make it possible to identify humans, non-humans, and animals. Despite our hypothesis that it is necessary to arrange relations between indigenous people and fauna, in order to segregate collectives —relational taxonomies—making up indigenous’ sociality, we aim to argue that these taxonomic labels do not segregate groups of beings, but rather manage their ties becoming.
Keywords: animality, relational taxonomy, Qom people, Gran Chaco.
