THE STRUCTURE OF THIS THESIS

This thesis consists of twelve Chapters organised into five Sections. Section I,

Chapter 1, CONTEXTUALISING THE ‘EMPTY’ SPACE, discusses the last forty

years of the history of the Atalaya area, concentrating on the last decades of State intervention. It sets the context in which the Ashaninka people I lived among

developed their pursuit of kametsa asaiki, showing some of the problems they face

that their ancestors did not have to deal with.

Section II, OF THE TRANSFORMATIVE NATURE OF THE ASHANINKA

HISTORICAL BODY, also deals with the past but in a very different way. Chapter 2

aims to show how my informants rendered their historical experiences coherent to themselves by looking at the events they recalled as the highlights of their past. This past is separated in a series of Tiempos ('Times'), starting with Perani, the mythical beginning, and ending with today’sTiempo de la civilizacion (‘Time of Civilization'). I propose that they understand change through the bodily transformations in these ‘Times’ and so their memory is a memory of bodily change. Chapter 3 follows the transformation to describe the current state of 'being civilised' and the worry on the possibility of volverse como Mestizo ('becoming like a Mestizo'). I suggest that even if there are many similar characteristics between these two states, Ashaninka people want to ‘become civilised' as it gives them the knowledge necessary forkametsa asaiki

today, but strive to not 'become like Mestizos' as it implies a loss of humanity.

Chapter 4 is an account of what they believe is possible to do as ‘civilised’ Ashaninka people and what it means to be an Ashaninka person from that perspective.

Section III, KAMETSA ASAIKI: 'LIVING WELL' LIKE A 'REAL'

ASHANINKA PERSON, describes the three main pillars of kametsa asaiki that my informants said they had inherited from their common ancestors. Chapter 5 describes the importance they place on eating the right type of food, ‘real’ food, for the formation of Ashaninka 'strong bodies'. I show that due to the shortages in the ‘real’ food of the ancestors, young couples have developed new ‘real’ food with the same skill by acquiring, cooking, and eating it together with their children and closely-related people. Chapter 6 describes sharing and emotional restraint. I show the seriousness with which Ashaninka people talk about emotions and the necessity of practising and advising children on the performance of the positive ones and the active avoidance of the negative ones. I also discuss the idea of sharing and how it has changed with food scarcity and purchased goods. I propose that these changes have caused a re-organisation of sharing networks and their notions of kinship. These two Chapters do not only seek to explain how these pillars are taught and learned through example and advice but also how they are put into practice in spite

of the changes from the time when they were practiced by the ancestors.

Section IV, OF ASHANINKA PEOPLE, KITYONCARI KAMAARI, AND

THE DENIAL OF KAMETSA ASAIKI IN THE PERUVIAN INTERNAL WAR,

opens with Chapter 7, an account of the events of the war in the Ene, Tambo, and Atalaya areas from a combination of printed sources and interviews to Ashaninka people. Chapter 8 describes what my informants told me about the war as the denial of kametsa asaiki, and Chapter 9 expands on this by discussing the belief of the

transformation of the people that followed Sendero Luminosointo demons. I propose

that it is important to understand local meanings of violence in war, such as these transformations, if we want to reach an understanding of the processes of reconciliation in its wake. However, I do not see war as entirely a process of destruction as it has taken Ashaninka people to a process of extreme creativity as they deal with its aftermath.

Section V, OF THE NEW INGREDIENTS FOR THE OLD KAMETSA

ASAIKI RECIPE, shows Ashaninka people’s resilience and creativity by discussing

the new aspects of kametsa asaiki developed to deal with the conundrums presented

by contemporary life in Peruvian Amazonia. Chapter 10 deals with Sanctions and other conflict resolution tools; Chapter 11 deals with new forms of leadership in

Comunidades and federations; and Chapter 12 deals with Inter-cultural health, Education and Money.

CONCLUDING REMARKS:KAMETSA ASAIKIAS RESISTANCE

In their introduction to a recent edited volume, Joanna Overing and Alan Passes state that “it clearly makes an enormous difference to the results of an anthropological

study... when from start to finish attention is focused upon indigenous voices and

points of view, rather than upon grand structures of mind, culture or society” (2000: 2) It is following this advice that I take kametsa asaiki as the key to understand the Ashaninka people I lived among. My understanding of it is based on how they

talked about it and practiced it inside and outside their villages as I lived, travelled, ate and laughed with them.

Kametsa asaiki is fundamental to Ashaninka people’s understanding of the world and to who they are. It is what makes an Ashaninka person, granting them their moral perspective, the moral high ground they believe separates them from others. I wish to show that the fact that they pursuit kametsa asaiki as they believed their ancestors did is clear evidence that they are not actors without agency or acculturated victims of the encroachment of National Society. Kametsa asaiki is, like Ashaninka people, in constant transformation as they deal with forces pressing them to change their lives. I trust that by the end of this thesis it will become obvious to the

reader that kametsa asaiki has become a political act of resistance against the

colonising attempts of the Peruvian State and National Society. Kametsa asaiki is a

complete denial of the State’s attempts to create a direct relation of dependence and servitude from individuals, in favour of the great value Ashaninka people place on kinship and independence. It is an example of indigenous Amazonian peoples’ resilience and creativity as they challenge domination and colonisation in their active endeavour to preserve their desired way of life. Ashaninka people are products of history but not victims of it. In a very Marxist sense they make their own history out of circumstances that were not of their own choosing.

I realise that by talking of a concept as being shared by all the members of an indigenous society I risk falling into the essentialist trap. Different Ashaninka people had different ideas of kametsa asaikiand the places where they chose to live (town as

opposed to Comunidades, Comunidades closer to urban areas as opposed to more

secluded ones) are statements of this difference.63 _{However, there are two things to}

take into account. Firstly, as social analysts we tend to essentialise the people we lived among and write about, but they are as likely to essentialise their own groups

63 I must note that my fieldwork took place entirely inComunidadesso I cannot comment much about the life of Ashaninka people in urban centres or in secluded areas.

when they talk to us and between themselves about their practices. Secondly, I do not see different views of kametsa asaikias being ambiguous but instead as testament of Ashaninka people's social elasticity, a plurality of visions of the same goal. For the purpose of this thesis I take what appears to be the main trend ofkametsa asaikiideas among those in the Bajo Urubamba complemented with that of the Tambo. Thus, I am not trying to sell Ashaninka people as a monolithic collective or ‘Nation’ as some of their politicians do.64 _{Indeed, even if Ashaninka society in the macro-level could}

be considered as a ‘society against the state’ (Clastres 1987), the interactions of its members in the micro-level are not so as they relate differently to it based on experience and different opportunities.

The differences between their lives in different contexts are obvious for an outsider and for themselves, even if they do see commonalities among their groups

based on a shared morality guided by kametsa asaiki as the tool for the creation of

'real' human kinspeople. Thus, I seek an understanding of the social relations

Ashaninka people are involved in from the perception of kametsa asaiki. Mine is an

account of the creativity of daily life as they transform their social practices and incorporate that of outsiders in order to live the way of life they desire at a time when the things necessary for its ‘traditional’ version are not readily available.

I miss those misty early mornings in which I sat outside Joel's house, smoking a cigarette and writing on my notebook as I waited for breakfast. My neighbours would come up and share a cigarette, asking why I was on my own and if I wanted to come over for breakfast to their houses. Children would sometimes ask if I was sick or if I was missing my family; why else would I be on my own? I had to present the ‘I am studying’ excuse to be left to be when I was concentrated on my notes or had to hide under my mosquito net for that. But being on your own or staying under

64 I understand why they use the concept of ‘Nation’ instead of etnia (‘ethnic group’). As Ramos (1998:185) states: “As a politically insipid term, ethnic has been relegated to the realm of culture. And as a rule culture is regarded as politically innocuous. Instead, the expression… [Nation] has the force of a political tool… [the] only semantic vehicle that aptly conveys the quest for legitimate social and cultural specificity.” Some leaders expand it to an ‘Arawakan Nation’, including Yanesha people in it.

your mosquito net for too long is a sign of sickness-sadness, jealous thoughts or laziness. I was invited on every moment to participate in sociability, to eat, drink, talk, work, joke, laugh, protest, and worry together. That is how Ashaninka people create a community of similar65_{moral beings; that is how they strive to 'live well'.}

Let’s now move on to understanding the historical context in which the Ashaninka people I lived among pursuekametsa asaiki.

65 I take this from Overing’s (1996 ) assertion that in indigenous Amazonia “being of a kind’ means the most intimate, convivial kinship.”