Abstract
This paper explores the genre of incantation as it is practiced by the Hup (Makú) people of the northwest Amazon, and considers the challenges it brings to our conceptions of verbal art and its documentation. Hup incantation is fundamentally multifaceted, bringing to bear multiple performative events, voices, and audiences across ritual and social contexts. It is also both highly artistic and maximally enactive, such that its aesthetic and utilitarian features not only coexist, but also co‐engender, each promoting the elaboration of the other. As we argue here, the incantation invites us to reexamine our understanding of poetics, and epitomizes the paradox of commensurability that challenges any documentation of language and culture.
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