Social SciencesAnthropologyAnthropological TheoryBiological AnthropologyIndigenous StudiesAnthropology Of FoodHuman-animal InteractionsHuman-animal RelationsHunting StrategiesIndigenous Peoples
In animistic societies that do not distinguish humans from animals, the status of hunting and food consumption is problematic, raising questions about how to differentiate everyday eating from cannibalism. The authors propose a new theoretical formulation for partibility to explain warfare and funerary anthropophagy in Amazonia. Commensality generates kinship by transforming prey into an object devoid of intentionality, a process achieved through indigenous techniques that desubjectivize prey based on a conception of person beyond simple body‑and‑soul dualism. The formulation provides insight into warfare and funerary anthropophagy in Amazonia.
A problem of particular concern in the literature on animistic systems is the status of hunting and food consumption in societies whose ontology is not founded upon a distinction between humans and animals. If animals are people, how can one distinguish between everyday eating and cannibalism? Commensality is a vector for producing kinship among humans, a mechanism which depends on the transformation of the animal prey into an object devoid of intentionality. Indigenous techniques for desubjectivizing prey are based on a specific conception of the person that is not reducible to a simple body‐and‐soul dualism. A new theoretical formulation for this partibility sheds light on warfare and funerary anthropophagy in Amazonia.
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