Аspects of Post-Structural Anthropology of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (Postmodernism as a Language of the Description of Amazonian Tribes’ Mythological Reality: the Trickster’s Simulacra in Shamanism)

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to trace the origins of E. V. de Castro’s «poststructural anthropology», and the possibility of its application in Religious Studies in contemporary Russia. For the purpose of the study, the methods of description, historical and comparative analysis and modelling were chosen. The objectives of the study are: 1) to create an analogous 3D model of «the shaman’s universe», according to the factography of E. V. de Castro’s «poststructural anthropology»; 2) to verify its heuristic potential using the material of the belief in the existence of werewolves; 3) to verify whether the postmodern thesaurus, as a language of description, could be adequately applied to the worldview of Amazonian shamans. The author concludes that: a) the immediate origins of «poststructural anthropology» lie in the views of J. Deleuze and F. Guattari, and that the achievements of the British school of social anthropology and Cl. Levi- Strauss’s structuralism served as the general background for E. V. de Castro’s and E. Kohn’s work; b) the conceptual framework of postmodernism is able to serve as an appropriate language of description of the shamanic experience which was clearly demonstrated by Amazonists E. V. de Castro and E. Kohn; c) the shamanic model of the universe (the Chaosmosis) has sufficient heuristic potential to be applied to other phenomena of religion, mytho-ritual, virtual fantasy worlds, fairy tales, and folklore.