SUBMERGED TERRITORIES IN RIVERS

Mythical narratives in texts and drawings of the Kukama Kukamiria indigenous people (Peru) in Karuara, the people of the river (2016)

Abstract

For the Kukama Kumamiria indigenous people (Peru), a diversity of agents (human and non-human) are part of a relational and affective territory in which connections between agents occur continuously in the 4 worlds (sky, earth, river and land under rivers). Starting from an analysis of the symbolic dimension of the territory (SANTOS-GRANERO, 2006) that are expressed in the myths of this cultural group, the article investigates the textual and drawn stories that are present in the book of the indigenous people themselves: Karuara, the people of the river (2016). The present agencies, the intersubjective affectations between them and the meanings constructed in the territory are analyzed. The study concludes that the territory that appears in the narrated myths recalls the origin events of the Kukama Kukamiria people and the importance of the different places and landscapes of the territory. By recognizing the connections established between humans and non-humans —continuous affectations between these agents in a diversity of underworlds below the rivers, on earth and in the sky—; a guide of behaviors and practices of coexistence that allow a sustainable coexistence and the survival of the territory is established.