Toward an ethnology of artifacts: cosmological art, mythological concepts

Abstract

The objective of this reflection is to obtain clues for an anthropological study of artifacts in Amazonian indigenous realities, based on a composition between the fields of Anthropology of art and Amerindian ethnology. Seeking to verify the applicability of Western concepts in these specific realities, I try to demonstrate how the notions of art and aesthetics themselves have clear limits to reflect on Amerindian contexts, and must, to do so, be rethought. Investigating the forms of agency and the materiality of social life, the intention is to understand the extent to which objects can be considered “subjects” in interaction networks, condensing their own complexities. Transitioning between functionalist and symbolic interpretations, and also reflecting on the universals of cognition, I understand that the ways of apprehending the world, people and objects can be variants and relative to different contexts. As a form of conclusion, I seek to interpret an ethnographic case from the indigenous Amazon, related to the “flute complex”, where the connections between artistic genesis, cosmology and mythology are demonstrated to be vigorous.