324 Andrey Rosowely itching: community interpreters and Approaches to Litracy, Cambridge Bledsoe, Caroline H. & Robe, ‘of Sierra Leone Ia Bran ‘Cambridge Universiy Pr 1989. Langoage and ‘Multilingual Mater: Clevedon. “Haan and Geoff Williams (eds) Literacy i Society, New York: Longman ‘MacDonald, Duncan B. 1911. Aspects of tslam. New York: Macmillan der, Stephen and Wikslund, Karen R. 1993, Literacy development and ethnicity: an Alaskan ‘example, Ie Brian Steet Cross-cultural Approaches to Literacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Pi Rosovesky, Andrey. 2004, Heavenly Readings a study ofthe place of liturgical literacy within a ‘UK Muslim community and its relationship to other lteraey practices. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of Shefild Rosowsky, Andrey. 2001, Decoding as a cultural practice and its effects onthe reading process GGitmore (Eds) The Acq ‘Advance in Discourse Proce CHAPTER 21 ‘The Shamanic book Diversity, language and writing in an indigenous community in Brazil Mario T. Menezes de Souza University of Sio Paulo, Brazil 1, Introduction “societal multilingualism” (1978) isa plea for diversity, i then and sociocultural tic awareness IfFishman’s concept say not always occur even where indications of socioling may be present in a ion of sociocultural complexity. In this chapter diversity, religions diversity and cultural ception of, and thus the respect wagh an awareness of societal related awareness ofthe diversity ofliteracy and: ‘community, nor ofthe interrelationship between the community's mi {eracy practices, I propose to show that this occurs due to different ‘conceptions of religion, writing and the book and consequently ofthe literacy practice associated with these conceptions “The community in question is that of the shamanic Indians of the western Amazon in northwestern Brazil, cons 96). They have been exposed, ‘over the last twenty respect the indigenous for dominant western cultural values such as the concept of writing and the book, ‘unwittingly threaten the very same community values that these policies purport to defend and protect. Having established and offically recognized the Brazilian nation as multilingual,326 _Lynn Mario. Menezes de Souza Sociolinguist 3s focused primarily on spoken language. However, the physical existence of texts makes their study diferent fom thow,whereand when spoken language s used.) Sock interaction has primrily been of spoken language and off rf ‘would add and emphasize tl teraction can and the Bratian coreuae proposal fr indigenous scons cea stated in the fo. lowing terms: In recent years indigenous teachers, like teachers in many other schools in the ‘country, have been insistently stating the need for curricula nearer to their own of the proposal is made clear in the following terms: In short, it is the objective of this document to aid ina) the devalopment and implementation of schoo! ich tend tothe expetationsand interests jing of educators capable of assuming technicians capable of aiding the educators in, making these tasks viabl Unlike most cusviculae proposals, this particular one does notes specific contents for indigenous schools; what it does instead, indigenous teachers with concepts and knowledge of various are claborate their own curricula in accordance with local communi ences, always presupposing 2 respect for the cultural and ish or propose any attempt to supply to-enable them to needs and prefer specificity and ‘be mechanically used in any context it aims solely at siding an offering support ‘TheShamanic book 337 to teachers in the task of the continuous invention and reinvention of their school practices (14) In the section on Languages (111-153) of the curticular proposal, several pages are the introduction and explanation of various sociolinguistic concepts such ‘and writing, etc. There is even an attempt at transforming the present de facto diglossic continuum between Portuguese and the indigenous languages into an oficial form of bilingualism: guages are complete rich and are flly capable ofall the uses to which they put. The inclusion of an indigenous language in the school curriculum has function of attributing to it the status ofa full anguage and of putting it, at least in the school contest, on par with Portuguese, aright which is guaranteed by the Brazilian Constitution. ‘Moreover, ina previous chapter, cultural pluralism salso discussed. However, whatare not discussed are the con 1g and the book and possible interconnections between these and the cultural and religious values of indigenous communities. Taken, for granted, these concepts appear to be seen by the same sociolinguistcally avare authors ofthe curricular proposal as being “universal”, neutral, unproblematic and >w below, this is not however the case. 1BY a8 opposed to ontology. AS 1995) points out, one’satitude toa culture depends on whether one adopts cultural relativity or cultural diversity. The posture of cultural relativity ‘presupposes that the cultures under analysis are essentially similar at a deep level, but ‘superficially dissimilar ata surface level. The posture of cultural diversity, on the other Gp. ‘western analyst has thus tended, ftom the comparativist, cultural ratvist(eurocen- {tic) stance to take for granted his own ontology and cee shamanism as a mere,leser, mistaken, epistemology. This has led to shamanism being compared to “magic” as ‘opposed to religion, and has resltedin the apparently well-meaning efforts to convert indigenous communities to Christianity asa means of compensating and overcoming their apparent lack of religion and what would seem ike their consequent, misguided, use of shamanie ‘magic.s28_Lyan Mario T. Menezes de Souza ‘The Shamanicbook 329 tributes to “writing” and the "book’, it is therefore considered that these values need to be introduced. 2. Writing, the book, grammars and conversion In the past, the conversion to Christianity necessarily called for the nced for ly did not resist conversion, they consistently reverted back to theit I shamanic practices. ave seen, the relativistic posture which has Tooked on shamanism as 4 (mistaken) deficient way of knowing and not as an ontology, has refused to see we absence of anything resembling a state, a monarchy or an nalized religion, seems to reinforce the view that these cultures are appar- discussion of South American cosmologies, Sullivan (198 unlike Christian cosmology, shamanic cosmologies are based on ‘moment of creation al beings were considered to ave the capacity of metamorphosis, and were able to change into any other being; this capacity however was suspended as the result ofa primordial cataclysm which caused all beings to remain in the forms they had acquired at the moment of the disaster; this, in short, means that there is fan essential interrelatedness between Man and other forms in Nature. This is also ‘considered to be the basis forthe power of the shaman to shape-shift and transform /himself into other beings by accessing the plane of primordial time, before the end radically different view present in western Christian cosmology: “The West sees itself as Promethean par excellence, tolerable by reducing humankind to a part of nature. In contrast, Judaism and its later Christian and Islamic heirs proclaimed the original separation of human- kind and nature, the superiority of humankind, made in the image of God; and the in western cosmology, Man sees himself as having been made inthe likeness of his ereator and is thus superior to and separate from other, soulless and inferior beings chy ofhuman agency aver nature and forms the basis of various western philosophies such as rationalism and humanism. Such a belief in hierarchies is also the basis forthe belief in normativity, understood ition ofa preconceived abstract structure whose function is as much ‘order, as itis to exclude elements not conducive to, or that posea threat to, order. “This belief leads in turn, to the perception thatthe apparent absence ofa similar order of separability and normat jstifies their need for order. that the book enters the scene, with wri cofaccess to the book. If, as Mignolo (1996) suggests, wrting is seen as a pri be seen asa product ofa particular wr dant culture-speciic conceptions: therefore, the book must be seen as culture-bound, as part of @ writing practice and not asa mere ideologically neutel object. Mignolo further suggest that, although writingmaybea univer yebookisextremely culture-bounds hhere Mignolo (1996: 120) conceives of writing as part of the human communicative behavior of exchanging and transmitting signs; in this sense of semiotic interac- tion, writing is defined as “the use of hands and the extension of hands with a sharp instrument, brush, pen, fabric ete”: as semiotic interaction, and not necessarily as the register of speech or sound, writing may thus be pictographic or alphabetic or acquire ‘any other form which may represent ideas, values or events and may not necessarily represent speech or verbal language. ‘As the product ofa particular practice of writing, however, the ‘book’ for Mignolo ‘may have one of two possible meanings: “book as object” or “book as text”. As an. ‘object, “book” may refer to the material surface(s) on which writ sense given above) is done, As “text” the concept of "book" tra ‘of “book as object” and acquires culture-specific value-laden connotations such “Holy Book’, “Source of Knowledge”, “Sacred Word", “Wisdom” etc. Hence, when nas and cultural practice, the book becomes a import attributed to the “book as text” such ‘not true only of religious practices and also applies to other forms ), for example, postulates the western “book’ as the product ofa particular cultural practice; inthe sense of “book as text”,430 Lyn Mario T. Menezes de Souza logical and cultural ‘western book conceived as such coul transformed or adapted. This western: rument of coercion. With asks it possible to conceive ofa political power that exercise of coercion? Is it possible to conceive of normative (hence coercive) experience of belief? 976) shows, western logocentrism is based on the asthesource oflnowledge and held to be a secondary reps Derrida goes on stro (1992) one may ironical founded on the normative meaning and hence “presence”; writingis subseqy and the book; withthe accompanying preference for presence and rejection of difference, a normative, coercive force becomes cultural ‘writing and the book, smars originated in written and Ii guistic knowledge, had as their primary obj e pedagogical function of serving as an instrument for the ate cultures and, as purported descriptions of edly possible to rationally analyze language. As a written description, the abstract rmetalinguistic knowledge manifested in a grammar was considered to be superior because it was decontextualized, rationalized and objectified 1, forms of language that were until then knowledge, and used as Considering that the primary function of gramm: cdge of a language held by a practice however, bby the meta ‘The Shamante book _ 331 fortuous steps of the logic of western igeentre race the sam jing the primacy of oralityand| "The conversion to emphasis on the spread tural logic ofthe concept of the fixity of nor ion of difference and of otherness. the concept of centralization, coercion and normativity which, from the ian culture; as such, one can ly indigenous cultures come to produce and use what book, given that a book is the product of apa then the ybably be non-coercive, non-normat ically undergo cycles of birth, reproduction and decomp. is but one of these several interconnected wi ‘cosmos. in Amazonian shan According to Cast wes ate based on an ontology of interelatedness and openness, n 2s. The socius is ted in a relation with an Other, where the ‘moving outwards from oneself inthis sense, 1s process of being internalized, and the interior is none nota mirror buta dest ‘As we have seen, Amazonian shar ‘on normativity nor on the monadic exclusion of Other cultural order332_Lynn Mario T. Menezes de Souza Where the interior and identity are dialogically involved with an exteriority and with difference; becoming and relation prevail over being and substance, Ts important to note that the absence of normativity does not indicate an absence of systematicity. ‘Systematicity necessarily occurs but is never seen as cally undergoing change, always in ral is thus paradoxically never complete and always in a state of becoming. In Castro's ‘words, for these Amazonian cultures, “the Other isa solution rather than a problem as it was for the European invader” (1992:39). Difference is thus constitutive and essential and not tobe: ted. Linguists such as Beter, Michael and Sherzer (2002:133) have already observed. that “evidentility, or the grammatical marking of the epistemological status and basis, of utterances, has been propased as an areal feature ofthe languages of the Amazon basinand adjacent areas”, and that, given the widespread existence of elaboratesystems ofeevidentialty in the languages of this region, there isa lack o feature, However, even in existing linguistic analyses of this “areal feature” almost no connections are made betwreen this feature and Amazonian ontolog Castro (2000), in is discussion of Amazonian shamanic ontology, shows how the ontology of interrelatedness and inseparabilty gives rise to a perspectival epis- temology in which Nature does not consist ofa facile dichotomy between (human, animate) subjects and (non-human, inanimate) objects; rather, nature is seen to be constituted by a complex network of interelated subjects, in which the difference between one subject and another is a difference of perspective or point of view. This difference in perspective sense, “Whatever possesses soul is @ and whateverhas souls capable ofhavinga point of view. Amerindian sous, be they human or animal, are thus indexical categories, cosmological dectics whose “analysis calls not so much for an animist psychology or substantaist ontology as for ‘theory ofthe sign ora perspctival pragmatics’ Castro goes on to show how every possible point of view is a subject position, and contrary to western epistemologies where the point of view creates the object, in indigenous perspectivism, the point of view creates the subject. As such, in the shamanic cultures ofthis region, modality and truth ther than being seen (as in the West) as pertaining tothe olject and objectivity is seen to pertain tothe subject (remembering always that these subjects are not individual nor isolated, but always interconnected and situated in particular contexts in eelation to eachother). “This ontology of interrclatedness and rlationality and its atendant perspectval epistemology are manifested in the languages ofthe region by the evidentality men- tioned above Evidentilty in the languages of this region is basicaly sensory, and indicates that the truth of speaker's utterance is derived feom his personal sensory experience and ‘therefore from his own perspective in relation to a perceived interlocutor. Camargo (1956), in an analysis of evidential in Kashinawa shows how the sux i signals ‘TheShamanic book 333 petsonal sensory evidentialty, indicating that the truth value of the utterance is based ‘on the speaker's personal perception and perspective; as such, this suffix is used to indicate what in European languages would be unmarked, apparently “objective” ot shared knowledge includes import ‘mation valued and held tobe true by the sersonal sensory perception. Such knowledge is in Kashinawss in spite of not being the _markod by the quotative sufix + Dist wa-kin-dan ainbu-an sapa bikin, (..) tua wa-kin the woman collect lot of cotton and weaves it. sai hidabi dans wa-kin-dan isthe origin of everything the whole world ld changes, changes Camargo 1996, Besides its interrelated holistic ontology, and connected to its perspectival intersubjec- 1esource of knowledge and c isthe anaconda spirit, ‘considered tobe the bearer of kn jon obtained from avision, though framed collect is personal vision, and perspectival and cannot be compared to a non-shamanic rligi of two phases: the first, anifested by a perception ‘of the geometric pal tive, social, frame that encompasses the whole vision and signals the threshold ofthe specific presents ‘geometric patterns during the two phases of the vision, frames and guarantees that thes34_Lyan Mario. Menezes de Souza tion, the vision stresses the fact that any knowledge acqlred is inseparable from and transforms the knower; in other words, knowledge is experience rather than mere abstract content. ‘As the result of an ontology of interrelatedness and openness, where the exterior is dynamically and constantly being internalized, all Kashinawa systems are open and in a constant process of transformation and change. Whereas for western culture “remaining the same’ means ng an essence of self-identity, for shamanic ccutures such as this, the means of ‘remaining the same’ is by becom process personified by the anaconda that changes its skin periodically in order to survive (and rem Relating to the’ non-personal, social perspective. Foll contains new and personally relevant sponding to the sensory evidential marker by ~ki becomes knowledge exactly because ‘opposed to collective) sensory evidence. 4. The Shamanic book vs. the western book ‘Asa result oftheir shamanic ontology and perspectival and evidential epistemology, and their recourse to visions as a source of knowledge, the Kashinawé produce a ‘multimodal form of writing which consists of alphabetic writing (in Portuguese or Kashinawa) accompanied by a visual component consisting of two different forms of drawing: a geometric line drawing normally feaming the text, called kene, and figura- tive drawings organized normaly ina narrative sequence, called damn. The alphabetic text may be interspersed with the da ing, both framed by the kene, or remain parallel to and form a composite whole with the kene-dammi visual text. ‘An examination of the multimodal texts of the Kashinawa reve the concept of ‘writing? goes beyond the merely alphabetical representation of speech, ‘and includes, on paper, the non-alphabetical multimodal representation of the ‘ayahuasca vision, Considering the vision as source of knowledge, and writing as an inscription of knowledge on paper, then multimodal writing on paper forthe Ki “The Shamanic book 335 rnawi constitutes a shamanic concept of the ‘book’. Unlike the normative, abstract, purportedly objective western book which imposes decontextualized information ‘as objective and therefore universally valid, the multimodal shamanic book presents information which is always contextually and perspectivally marked, whose value has to be readin relation to a specific context of intersubjective interaction, and open to other interpretations. “The geometric abstract lines of kene can now be seen to transpose to paper the framing and matking of the truth-value of information acquired from a vision. In 1 content of the message ofthe vision is transposed to paper by means of the tuth-value, all of which result from the perspective of the communicating subj “The resulting process of writing/reading and meaning construction (and of knowledge acquisition), involves an {quotative) and the ‘new’ (dar, personal, that is collectively held, or previously known, as marked by the quotative suffix hint Jimilar to the information marked in speech by the suffix ~ki context ofthe ‘given’ as in the ontology of interrelatedness, the ividval can only occur in the contest of and interrelated withthe social collectivity, Like the personal, the collective, however, is not static and fixed, dogmatic, or normative; asa collective perspective, it seems to presuppose that also once, in its genealogy, sensory and personal In appeared to be perennial myths into dynam neutral or objective history, but a collective, ‘updateable’ one. 5. Conclusion ‘The Keshinawé process of readi can reading be easily conceived as the normative, context-free process of the recup. tion of aleady constructed objective meanings the some incommensurblity exits for the Kashinaws in relation to the western concept of the book as an abstract static language, culture and shamanic ontology, the Kashinawé postulate a ‘multimodal shamanic ‘book’ which manifests their openness to otherness, their rejec-i | sy6_Lynn Mario T. Menezes de Sousa tion of abstract, context-free, perspestvally unmarked knowledge, even when writing in Portuguese. Read as a form of resistance to the models of writing taught in Portuguese and the literacy campaigns to which they are exposed, and the ‘outsiders, (our focus here is on linguists and literacy educat ‘the Kashinaw language and Kashinawé knowledge has to be written to be preserved; besides the concepts of waiting, language and religion, what coercion in its wake); for the shamanic Kashinavra, on the contrary, preserva notin being but in Becoming, in change, in openness to difference. Like the anaconda, ‘one changes to remain the same. Thus, the Kashinawé have not resisted writing pers, irculture, interrelating, transforming indeed present, this awareness appears to focus mainly on spoken language and abstract descriptions of| it and not on its intereltionships with the cultural and religious practices of the community. Consequently, diversity in the conceptions of language, writing snd the book go unperceived, and with this the interconnection between language, shamanic ontology and writing slo go unperceived. ‘As result, if one continues to unwittingly impose one’s western concepts of normativity, the book, writing and religion, indigenous cultures sucha beat risk in the very hands of socolinguistially aware carctakers Notes 1. Itisimportanto distinguish betwen indigenous education and indigenous school; whereas the former has always existed in indigenous communities and has becn carried out by various ‘means, formal and informal, the Iter refers tothe form of education carried out frzally by teachers in schoo! houses, generally modeled on western standards, rencial Crsicular Nacional para as Fscols Indigenas, rasa 1998 ll further citations ofthis document ae translated by mie from the original in Portuguese ‘3 Emphasis as appears in the original ‘TheShamanicbook 37 References sine, Lev Michael and Joo Sherzer 2002. Discourse Forms and Processes in Indigenous Lowland South Americ: sn sreal-ypological perspective. Anmual Review of Anthropology (Castro, Eduardo Viveiros 2000, Comments on N.Bird-David, Current Anthropology vol. 40, no 179-80. Derida, Jacques 1976. Of Grammatology. 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