Abstract

LIMA, Tânia Stolze. Towards an ethnographic theory of the distinction between nature and culture in the cosmology of the Juruna tribe. Rev. bras. Ci. Soc. [online]. 1999, vol.14, n.40, pp. 43-52. ISSN 0102-6909.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-69091999000200004.

Considering that concepts such as anthropocentrism and animalism are inadequate for dealing with the relationship between humans and animals in the indigenous socio-cosmological systems, this article confronts the anthropological distinction between nature and culture with ethnographic materials taken from a Tupi society, the Juruna. The work attempts to show how the Juruna would disagree with anthropologists and that among them the distinction takes hold in a contra-hierarchical and perspectivist regime.

Keywords : Anthropological theory; Nature and culture; Tupi; Juruna; Animalism.