1.0 From the Milk River:Spatial and Temporal processes in Northwest Amazonia. Christine Hugh-Jones. Cambridge University Press. 1979
2.0 Life/death
2.1 Life and death are alternate phases of a grand cycle. The dead are always calling to the living to join them and the living are always calling on the dead to succour them on ritual occasions. The living also install the souls of the dead in new-born children. In spatial terms this alternation ...is represented by a vast circular river flowing over and under the earth. the upper half flows from west to east across the earthÕs surface; itÕs lower reaches are called...Milk River. The lower half is...the Underworld River, where the dead go. PP108
3.0 soul/food
3.1 Anything necessary to life can be said to add soul, but there is also a particular occasion, naming when a discrete soul is transferred to a child...During the gradual growth of the newborn child, body and soul are drawn together. On the one hand, it is food that both adds soul and makes the body grow...On the other, people say that it is shamanism that gives food these powers, and that without it all food would be lethal...in the relationship between shamanism and food, there is a replication of the relationship between semen and motherÕs blood. In both cases, there is an initial life-giving element followed by a nourishing or transporting one. The first is male, since shamns are males, and the second is female, since women are responsible both for milk and then for the preparation of solid foods. Together these two elements give life and soul but, considered separatly, they are related as soul(male) and nourishment (female). Like the act of insemination, which is subject to conscious control in a way that the female role in growing the foetus is not, shamanism represents the exercise of male control over female food-producing powers. PP118
3.2 Most of the potential dangers from foods derive ultimately from the mythical events in which the various animals, plants and items of productive equipment figure. The danger comes not only from the nature of the raw materials but also from the productive processes of catching, illing, cutting, burning, cooking, sieving, etc....When an individual eats something or uses an object, he or she is not simply consuming the finished article, but is also absorbing powers associated with an entire process and all the social and physical relations involved in it...This view...is associated...with a theory of the body which places extreme value on the regulation of exits and entrances. PP119
4.0 Menstruation
4.1 The process of release is described as skin shedding...menstrual growth and decay are ambiguously related in the same way as life and death. While life and growth are positive and death and decay are negative, it is the completion of the negative phase that enables the positive phase to follow. The menstrual cycle is regarded as the source of womenÕs life-force; it makes them live longer than men and recover from illness more readily. PP140
4.2 Initiation/birth/rebirth
4.2.1 ...initiates who have not known the ancestral world are ÔbornÕ into it...the ÔbirthÕ into a male society is actually a ÔbirthÕ into the greater society formed by the continuity of living and dead generations stretching back to the ancestors. This continuity is also extended to the unborn by ensuring that the initiates themselves will be able to father children...once the community of men is joined, a regular periodicity between ancestral and normal life is established. In this way, initiation is like first menstruation, which is also a first event followed by periodicity. PP149
4.2.2 [the administration of red paint, the ancestral body liquid causes the renewal of the individual from the secular world to the ancestral world]...Indians say it is menstrual blood, but it is menstrual blood owned by men for refilling men. It is opposed to the menstrual blood of women because women are unable to retain it -contact with it makes them menstruate and so bleed to death. It is also opposed to female blood because it makes people fierce and warlike -and so it is not merely blood of life, it is blood of Ôlife for us and death for othersÕ. PP150
4.2.3 ...menstruation and all things female are regarded as bad, while He Wi and all things male are good: thus underworld bones are bad and ancestral bones are good; decay of the body is bad and life of the soul is good and so on. This amounts to an assertion that social distinctions are good, but negative, because they create a world in which nothing can happen; everything is too far appart. A lack of social distinctions is bad but it is positive in that anything can happen because everything is too close together. A balanced world is one in which there are social categories which are just the right distance apart for ordered exchange between their members. PP158
4.2.3.1 Involvement/detachment?
4.3 Life/Death
4.3.1 Although the male and female life-cycle have very much the same basic structure (continual growth followed by repeated renewals)...they are really very different, because male ritual experience has a cumulative aspect as well as a repetitive one. This means that men start growing or Ôchanging upwardsÕ in a ritual sense in the second period of their lives...Correspondingly, adult male society is differentiated by age to a much greater extent than female society. PP160
4.4 Space/time concepts
4.4.1 ...the concrete world is derived from the ÔimaginaryÕ ancestral world, but it also provides the way to it. PP235
4.4.2 The spatial structures are like empty shells; as physical entities they are built or otherwise created by human, ancestral or natural forces, but as conceptual entities they are maintained and ordered by the processes that occur within them...The creative character of ongoing activity is recognized in many Indian beliefs: for instance, the house only lives when people are inside it; the sites on the ancestral journey upstream did not exist until the ancestors stopped at them; the rivers did not flow until their veds had been trodden out by ancestors, and so on. PP237
4.4.3 Both ancestors and forest spirits are dangerous, but the former are essential for the well being of society, while the latter are unambiguously threatening. The ancestors represent the pre-social origins of society, and the forest spirits represent the realm outside present-day social control [wildness]: while the ancestors are ÔbeforeÕ in time, the forest spirits are ÔbeyondÕ in space. Indians insist that they live in the middle of the world between these opposed supernatural powers. PP241
4.4.4 [the river]...is the Ôancestral water pathÕ; it is an umbilical cord which connects the souls to the mouth of the Milk River; it is the branching stem of the Kana plant; it is the yajˇ vine. All these images treat the river as a spiritual power supply connecting the longhouse community with the ancestral powers in the east. PP244
4.4.5 ...the special qualities of the metaphorical representations of the river: the twisting Yajˇ vine, the branched Kana stem and the umbilical cord are all conceived as ÔpathsÕ. The special characteristic of a path is that although it may twist and turn, it leads to a given point -in this case to the source of life and growth.PP244
4.5 Sex/gender
4.5.1 ÔMaleÕ and ÔfemaleÕ are equal but opposite natural powers or, alternatively they are contrasted as Ôgood, social creativityÕ and Ôdangerous, natural creativityÕ. PP251
4.5.2 ...male continuity is cumulative and reversible, but in spite of this men can achieve renewal by travelling back and identifying themselves with ancestral times in ritual. This travelling back involves use of metaphors associated with the loss phase of the female cycle: the men, by their own admission, imitate the loss of menstrual blood, and also lose skin and become ÔdeadÕ (by applying black paint)...a reversible female cycle must be imposed upon male continuity to avoid degeneration through loss of contact with ancestral times. PP257
4.6 Space structures
4.6.1 ...the cosmos may be described as if composed of flat layers...The upper cosmos is more finely differentiated than the lower, since it is covered by a series of ÔskinsÕ and paths which curve down to meet the earthÕs perimeter. ..[some skins are:] tree-skin(inhabited by aboreal species), swift skin (inhabited by high flying birds), water skin (rain clouds and thunder), mist-skin (associated with dry weather), moonÕs path, sun and star-paths, sky-skin (inhabited by first beings) and finally the domain of white people who live entirely off tobacco. These are the skins and paths encountered by shamans in their journeys to the sky. PP259
4.6.2 Although it is said that the Primal Sun does not encircle the earth today and that the sun we know is merely his shadow or remnant, it is clear...that this cosmos does still exist in the appropriate context...The shamanÕs officiating at initiation are said to repeat Manioc-Stick AnacondaÕs underground journey...the myth results in the creation of He, the agents of initiation. PP263
4.6.3 These correspondences between the myth and the ritual suggest that the structure of the universe, which is ordinarily inaccessible, is encapsulated in the He, which are created at the end of the myth and placed in the river where they are accessible to ordinary people. the he are described as bones of the primal Sun, and this suggests that they do indeed represent the enduring aspect of the past and distant universe contained by this path. After the creation of he, manioc-Stick Anaconda marries Jaguar Woman and begets Yeba, who makes the first exogamous marriage; thus the creation of He marks the end of the Ôpre-descentÕ era associated with this....layered cosmos. PP263
4.6.4 Again, the Pleiades are apresent-day manifestation of Romi Kumu, only visible at night and during part of the year, whereas Romi Kumu as an ancestral figure is permanently in the sky. The examples could be multipled to show that the present natural weather phenomena and heavenly bodies are representatives of the ancestral ones, which in certain ritual and shamanic contexts -when shamans travel into the sky- become the ancestral ones. PP264
4.7 life/death. Space time
4.7.1 ...life on earth is opposed either to physical death in the underworld or to the primal SunÕs power of death and rebirth (initiation). Physical death and metaphorical death were shown to be intimately related, but also diametrically opposed -the one being associated with the ÔfemaleÕ mortal body and the other being associated with the patrilineal soul. In horizontal space-time systems, the processes associated with these two aspects of human existence were shown to be expressed as reversible, cyclical space -time and cumulative, linear space-time respectively. we have seen that, for the living, male ritual renewal could only be achieved by an imitation of female physical renewal manifest in menstruation and childbirth. men only pretend to do what women really do, but, by couching their activity in terms of female ancestral power and emphasizing the value of conscious shamanic control, they make ritual superior to the real thing. When we turn to the relations within the vertical structure of the universe the case is diffrent: physical death is real in the same way as menstruation, but it is an end and not a renewal. It is unambiguously bad, and ritual reincarnation of souls is the only menas of overcoming it. PP270
4.7.2 The contrast between upstream and downstream is one between active travel, in which human energy is purposefully pitted against the current, and passive travel, in which the natural flow is utilised...The passivity of the femalecycle corresponds to the uncontrollable nature of many natural processes associated with women. Amongst these are menstruation, gestation, childbirth, naturaldecay and death. The active control of upstream travel corresponds to the purposefulmale control of patrilineal continuity through naming, initiation and other shamanic and ritual manipulation of ancestral power. in addition, the active/passive opposition may be seen in the process exchange of women by men for the benefit of patrilineal continuity. The male control of social and ritual processes is achieved by observance of strict rules governing ritual procedure, marriage, diet, sex, fire and a host of other things. in this way social contro is directly related to self-control. It is said that the observance of rules imparts hardness and energy to men both individually and collectively (as descent groups), while default leads to exhaustion, illness and death. The ÔweknessÕ of women is similarly related to their weak will: it is said that they could not control their physical drives sufficicently to emulate the male life-style. PP271-272
4.7.3 In the final analysis, the closed repetitive cycle of life and death of the physical body...is a ÔfalseÕ image of the life cycle; in reality each birth is a unique beginning and each death a unique end. It is only the intangible, socially invented aspects of the individual that can be renewed, and in this sense men, with their control of He, soul-stuff and shamanic ability to cross layers, have the monopoly over immortality. PP274