The Diversity of Being an Indian

Abstract

After exploring Manchineri sociocosmology, the passages to adulthood, shamanism, mobility between urban and rural areas, young people as spokespersons, and the current views of relationality in the previous chapters, it has become clear that a highly diverse range of human and nonhuman actors are viewed as a source of transformative power. Young people have an active role themselves in constituting their relations to these actors and thus in constructing hteir agency. Likewise for Amazonian indigenous peoples the natural environment has been related to various types of animal, plant, and tree beings and other spirits. In particular the differences represented by non-Indians in Amazonian sociocosmology deserve more attention, because today indigenous groups increasingly act with different humans. This chapter begins with an analysis of young native people’s relations to the humans of their age group: I shall discuss youth culture and the sense in which this has been indigenized. Then I shall describe the new image of Indians to which the young generation has been contributing greatly, since young people wish to be indigenous anywhere and in their own way. This helps us better understand what counts as “identity” and “agency” for young Indians and how young Amazonian indigenous people negotiate and deal with the new social, cultural, and political situations in the global world.