Agências elementares (hekura em Plotkin 1993)

At the edge of my field of vision, tiny figures began to appear. […] By now my senses had been severely altered. My hearing was especially acute; I felt as if I could gear everything in the shabono [maloca Yanomami]. My field of vision had been greatly expanded: it was as if I were looking at the world through a wide-angle lens. At the edge of my field of vision, the little figures began to dance. […] In the distance, I heard a giant crocodile slowly slide off a riverbank into the water in search of a fat fish; in the hills to the east, several male cock-of-the-rock cried Mewh, Mewh to attract females; a huge harpy eagle sailed under the canopy in search of capychin monkeys, while a giant jaguar emitted a series of deep guttural grunts. To the north I heard the far-off waters of the Orinoco flowing toward the rapids that churned the river as it made its ay to the coast. To the south a soft rain gently pelted the canopy covering the mountains that form the border with Brazil. […] Then my attention foused again on the images. The little figures at the edge of my field of vision multiplied in number as they danced faster and faster. I tried to get a better look, but it was like standing backward in front of a mirror and trying to turn around fast enough to see the back of your head: every time you look, the image is gone. I asked the shaman who the little men were. […] “They are the hekura”, he replied, “the spirits of the forest.” (Plotkin 1993:265-6)

PLOTKIN, Mark J. 1993. Tales of a shaman’s apprentice: an ethnobotanist searches for new medicines in the Amazon rain forest. New York: Viking.

Relacionados:

Cultura tecnocientífica (Hottois 1993) Reticulação em Moreno (1934) Como pensam as instituições? (Douglas 1986) Vida eletrônica em McLuhan (1994 [1964]) Ciência para cientistas sociais (Law e Lodge 1984)