Ungrateful predators: capture and the creation of Cofán violence

Abstract

In this article, I explore the history, logic, and practice of capture among the Cofán people of Amazonian Ecuador. Rather than acting as the subjects of capture, Cofán people have primarily been its objects. Centuries of pre‐Conquest, colonial, and postcolonial violence have exposed Cofán communities to repeated seizures by indigenous and non‐indigenous aggressors. Although capture by enemy others is a feared prospect that typically brings disaster, it also serves as the Cofán nation's central means of acquiring violent powers, which are essential to its defence. By investigating the uncertainties of capture as a productive process, I question dominant representations of native Amazonians as wilful participants in a cosmos of generalized predation, and I issue a plea for openness when considering the diversity of the region's peoples.

State Legibility and Mind Legibility in the Original Political Society

“…As Rodgers (2002: 121) puts it: "The shaman is a multiple being, a micropopulation of shamanic agencies sheltering within a body: hence neither are his 'intentions' exclusively 'his' , nor can he ever be certain of his own intentions" (as cited in Fausto 2008: 14). This has made some authors conclude that shamanic activity is experienced as an unpredictable form of 'unwilled' , if transformative, predation gifted from others (Cepek 2015).…”

Animal Transference and Transformation Among Wounaan

“…). Other scholars recognize relationships of dependence by voluntary submission, such as among the Huaorani (Rival ), Sanema (Penfield ), and Urarina (Walker ), or by being, like Cofán, ungrateful predators whose predatory agency is beyond Cofán initiative and control (Cepek ). While illustrating asymmetrical aspects of care among the Urarina, Walker (:209) has noted that moral conceptions of what is good and valuable relate to how “the self is made through accompaniment and cannot be reduced to a stable or unitary point of view.” Londoño Sulkin () finds an “Amazonian package” of resemblances among lowland South American indigenous peoples: that human bodies are socially fabricated, within the context of a perspectival cosmos, and that relations with dangerous outside others are indispensable to this process.…”

“…Predation and commensality have been described as distinct, "yet dynamically articulated forms of producing people and sociality" (Fausto 2007:500)-a notion furthered by attention to unequal relationships of mastery (control and/or protection), ownership, and nurture (cultivation and care of the quality of humanity) in Amazonia (Brightman et al 2016). Other scholars recognize relationships of dependence by voluntary submission, such as among the Huaorani (Rival 1999), Sanema (Penfield 2017), and Urarina (Walker 2013), or by being, like Cofán, ungrateful predators whose predatory agency is beyond Cofán initiative and control (Cepek 2015). While illustrating asymmetrical aspects of care among the Urarina, Walker (2013:209) has noted that moral conceptions of what is good and valuable relate to how "the self is made through accompaniment and cannot be reduced to a stable or unitary point of view."…”

Dodged debts and the submissive predator: perspectives on Amazonian relations of dependence

“…So, rather than engaging in familiarization for the purposes of social reproduction, the Huaorani actively avoid others at all costs through extensive mobility and the exploitation of the ‘natural abundance’ of the forest. Nonetheless, it is notable that the characterization of predators remains that of aggressive adversaries who are ‘continuously snatching the creativity, vitality, and life force of huaorani people’ (: 77), explaining why prey continually flee (see also Cepek ).…”