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Co-ecology of Jotï, Primates, and Other People: A Multispecies Ethnography in the Venezuelan Guayana

2020; Springer Nature; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-3-030-27504-4_8

2365-7553

Stanford Zent, Egleé L. Zent,

Animal and Plant Science Education

This paper sketches the classification, natural history knowledge, hunting, use, sociality, mythology, personhood, and eco-cosmology of primates among the Jotï Amerindians of southern Venezuela. Primates and associated animals are important co-residents of the world inhabited by the Jotï Amerindians of Venezuela. The cultural significance of monkeys stands out in a material sense, given their prominence in hunting and diet, and in an immaterial sense as they appear as key figures in Jotï myth and ritual. The Jotï are deeply familiar with six species of primate: Ateles belzebuth, Cebus olivaceus, Chiropotes chiropotes, Alouatta seniculus, Saimiri sciureus, and Aotus trivirgatus. Along with the procyonids, Potos flavus and Bassaricyon gabbii, this group of animals is recognized as a cognitively conspicuous yet formally unnamed taxonomic category. The Jotï possess detailed knowledge of the morphology and natural history – e.g., social behavior, mating, food, and nesting – of each one. Monkeys are economically important as a source of meat, comprising approximately one third of the total weight of animals hunted. They are socially important as pets that share domestic space with people and as models of alterity to which people can compare and reflect upon their own social behaviors. Monkeys are common characters appearing in mythological narratives and the main protagonists in the creation of the current state of the cosmos, including animal species and their foods, and the human dependence on cultivated food plants. The spider monkey (uli jkwayo) is arguably the most salient monkey for the Jotï from economic, social, and cosmological points of view. It is also the species judged to be the closest to humans in terms of its mental, physical, and cultural attributes. The Jotï believe that the spider monkey, protected by his intangible self and spiritual master (jkyo aemo), plays an important role in the regulation of proper interspecies conduct and the maintenance of game populations.