FISICO-ORGANOLEPTICO

For the first part of my fieldwork Bajo Urubamba Ashaninka people called me

Ayompari (‘friend’) or niompari (‘my friend’) after their trading partners of the past.

This term has become the Ashaninka translation foramigo(‘friend’) which is used by people who do not share a kinship relationship and are not in politics when they

would call each other hermano/a (‘sibling’). I was surprised when some old

Ashaninka women called me notomi ('my son’), to which I responded in kind by

calling them ina ('mother'), but these women were few so I wrongly did not pay

much attention into it. Some small children had called me tio ('uncle') before, which had only made their parents laugh.

However, this all changed when I travelled to the Tambo with Miqueas. Most people started to call me using kin terms and suddenly I had aunts, uncles, mothers, brothers, sisters, nephews, and nieces. Some of the men, savvier in the ways of Whites, did call me amigo but I was never called Ayompari, at least not in the same

way Urubamba people did. The only time I was called Ayompari was after someone

asked me where I was from and replied nosaiki Comunidad Nueva Esperanza('I live in

Comunidad Nueva Esperanza') or nopoña urubambaki ('I come from the Urubamba').

People then rightfully called me Ayompari because that is where their grandparents’

and parents’ trading partners used to come from.

Older men, women, and young children dealt with the outsider that spoke Ashaninka language and drank manioc beer like they would with an Ashaninka

person showing up for a visit with someone born in the Comunidad.207 _{Thus, since}

Miqueas called meiye(‘brother’), people fit me into kinship networks relations as his

207 I do not mean that people would accept me or consider me to be an Ashaninka person. I was sometimes referred to as beingcomo nosotros(‘like us’) but I think the similarities stopped there.

brother. As flattering as it was, I found this strange especially as so many in the Bajo Urubamba had warned me to be very careful in the Tambo as some people could think I was aSenderospy because of my beard. I think that the Ashaninka people that

have been in close contact withMestizosociety through work or in the Armed Forces

do not call an outsider using kin terms because they do not feel they would be able to respect the relationship that the kin term implies from an Ashaninka perspective. This is a set of values that people learn throughout their lives by living with other

Ashaninka people, that is, the rules to kametsa asaiki. It is also plausible that

Ashaninka people do not believe Whites would see this kinship link in a positive light and would even be offended by it due to the uneven power relation between

them. These men may call meamigo because it is what they would expect from non-

Ashaninka people in Satipo with whom they seek positive and equal relations.

Similarly, many Bajo Urubamba men called me Don Juan when I first arrived and

would only give me their surname when I asked for their name because that is how they expected to relate to WhitePatrones.208

Through my close relationship to Miqueas, I fitted into the kinship position in which he did. After some time and an obvious show to respect these links, I felt people did invite me into their circle of responsibilities that the relationship implies. For example, people asked me for things but I knew I would get something similar, or at least of a similar perceived value, back.209 _{I had food being redistributed into}

my household because I gave out cartridge shells, nylon, or fishhooks, and my young godsons also put apart a small part of the fish they caught for me. But kinship relations are not only about giving and receiving but about the way a person acts

208 I actively tried to stop this by telling people I was not aPatrónwhich only took them to call me

gringo, then Juan which then became Juanito ('little Juan'). Some people called me using kin terms and I was comfortable to do the same, especially when I could fit them in kinship relations with other people. These long chains of kinspeople make it simple to see why Ashaninka means ‘we the people’ andnoshaninkajei('my many Ashaninka') means 'family'.

209 I now understand that the desire of wanting to have a positive relationship with me was as important as the practical use of the object. Thus, it is more about the context in which the goods are acquired and, especially, where they come from (See Hugh-Jones 1992). This evidences a current valuation of theAyompariideas of the social value of the objects being exchanged.

towards someone they are related to.

People in Anapati, where there is electricity from a hydroelectric engine, congregate almost every night to watch DVDs more for the fun of getting together and laughing than for actually following the plot. The volume is set low and whilst at first I thought this was because they had a much better hearing than I do, which they do, I later realised they do it because following the film is not as important as having fun from the short snippets you do get to see as you share the experience

with the group drinking manioc beer, sharing cigarettes and joking and laughing.

One night we watched a Bruce Lee film that included a scene in which he is saved by another character they all referred to as his cousin because he had helped him throughout the film. Towards the end his ‘cousin’ was badly beaten trying to defend him and seemed to be dying. I said, “His cousin is so good, look how he defends him!” Maribel, my cousin, turned around and replied: “Cousin, have you ever met a cousin that was bad to his cousin?” That is, an Ashaninka cousin that knows about

kametsa asaikiand its responsibilities.

The Peruvian Internal War presented Ashaninka people with the grave problem of fighting between kin in a scale that had not been experienced since the ‘Time of the Ancestors’. The war became a negation of all that means to be an Ashaninka person as it was impossible to 'live well'. The next Section will discuss the Peruvian Internal War as the Ashaninka people I lived among in the Bajo Urubamba and Tambo, and those I visited in the Ucayali and Ene rivers, told me they experienced it.

CRACKING OPEN A TURTLE TO COOK IT FOR A