This essay explores the potential of the idea of fractality along one of its properties: scaled self-similarity. The notion of fractal personhood is proposed as a way of thinking about the Amerindian person. When speaking of fractal personhood what is meant is the containment of whole persons in parts of persons and the replication of relations between selves and alters at different scales (intra-personal, inter-personal and inter-group). Three Amerindian ethnographies (Araweté, Wari' and Tupinamba) are compared and analysed combining propositions from Melanesian exchange theory and a theory of Amerindian perspectivism in order to elicit the usefulness of "fractal personhood" as an analytical tool.
Amazonia; Perspectivism; Personhood; Fractals; Exchange Theory
