Myth and Material Culture: Matis Blowguns, Palm Trees, and Ancestor Spirits

Abstract

Abstract In his stimulating paper ‘Myth and Material Culture: Some Symbolic Interrelations’, Peter Rivière (1969b) discusses the complementary distribution of blowguns and hair tubes among several Carib and Arawak peoples of southern Guyana and northern Brazil. His aim is ‘to show that other aspects of the respective cultures can be correlated with the absence or presence of the blowgun’ (p. 153), and to try ‘to indicate that the acceptance or rejection of a particular item may reflect and be reflected in a wider set of ideas’ (p. 163). Rivière’s paper also stresses the symbolical link between body ornaments and weapons, especially blowguns and hair tubes, both of which are ‘not simply technical or aesthetic objects but also some sort of energy transformers’ (p. 157).

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