I ''II

MIMESIS
AND

ALTERITV

A PARTICULAR HISTORY
OF THE SENSES

I
.

MICHAEL TAUSSIG

ROUTLEDGE
NEW YORK . LONDON
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t\ew York, NY 10001

Publish�d in Creat Britain in 1993 by

Ruud"dg� Walter Benlamln "'The Work of Art in the Agl'

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of M('chanical Reproduclion, 1936
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London EC4P 4EE

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 CONTENTS

Acknowledgemenls >X

A Repon 10 the Academy Xlll

1. In Some Way or Another Ont: Can Protect Oneself 1

From Evil Spirits by Portraying Them

2. Physiognomic Aspects of Visual Worlds 19

3. Spacing Out 33

4. The Golden Bough: The Magic of Mimesis 44

5. The Golden Army: The Organization of Mimesis 59

6. With [he Wind of World History in Our Sails 70

7. Spirit of the Mime, Spirit of the Gift 88

8. Mimetic Worlds: Invisible Counterparu 100

9. The Origin of the World 112

10. Ahc=rity 129

I\. The Color of Alterity 144

12. The Search For the White Indian 162

\Oi.
 MIMLSIS ANI'} MTF.RHY
,

176
H. America as Woman: The Magic of Western Gear
193
14. The Tllking Machine
212
15. His M:lstl�r'!> Voice
236
16. ReReerion
250
17. Sympathetic Magic In A Post-Colonial Age

Notr:s 257
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Bibliography 283

Index 2Y1

I like to think of writing itself as a mimetic exchange with the

world-a cast of mind that helps me understand how deeply this
idiosyncratic book on the m imetic faculcy in its rel ation 10 primitivism
is indebted 10 me srudems and faculty of the �p3rtment of Perfor­
mance Studies, the Tisch School of the Am, New York University.
Here I wa s encouraged, as never before, to cnmider the polirical art
and soei;,d power of make-believe, the reality of the really made-up­
the foundation, in other words. of modern sociology, anthrnpology,
and critical self-awareness.
To Susan Buck-Morss, for her stunningly original work on Walter
Benjamin, I am also indebted, not le ast fur her treall ne-Ill of mimesis
in relation to modernity'S primitivism. This pivutal rdation was im­
pres�cd upon me through Gertrude Koch's work on film, as well.
Margaret Cohen made me apprcci::ne the power of Surrc:llism in Benja­
min's Muxism. Ch:lrles Merewether gO( me thinking about the healing
power of mimicry as in wooden figurines usoo by Cun:l bealers off the
coasts of Panam3 and Colombia, and Dorothea and Norman Whitten
pro...iJed the opportunity to publicly air my initial response in a sympo·
sium un shamanism, a response that was sharpened by Anna Blume
inviting me to address her colleagues in an history. Discussions with
Lynda Hill concerniog her forthcoming work on Zora Neale Hurslon
made me understand bener the distancing eUects of copying. Calm
infrastnlCfural SUppOH was provided by Mark Sussman. Lorna PriL:e

viii i,
 MIMESIS ANt> ALTERrrY
once again served meticulously as copy-editor, no less sympathetic [0
[he projen than with its need to be communicable.
To the Cuna themselves, as much as their ethnographers, beginning
with Ruben Perez Kanrule and Erland Nordeos1.:iold. l owe much and
1 hope they will understand my many excesses of imerpr�arion-as if
interpretation could be anything clse. I have never travelled to Panama
or the San Bias islands, present home of the Cuna, and I have borrowed
much from N.M. Chapin's very fine doctoral thesis on Cuna healing
and from Joel Sherzer'S illuminating studies 00 Cuna language. Carlo
Seven responded warmly and caurioned me on the Nia chant. Stephanie
Kane's work on Embera life in the Darien provided with me 3 bridge
to the Pacific coast of Colombia, a wnst I first visited in 1971, and she
also provided 3 stimulating model of writing not mllstrucred around
what Jim Clifford has called "ethnographic authority". Drawing upon
his great fund of knowledge of things ('...entral Arneri<.:an, Charlie Hale
provided mt' with a <.:artoon illustrating early U.S. anli Udes towards
Panama. Pamela Sankar and Paul Rabinow encouraged me to think
about finger prints and mimesis.
My Ira ining (although "training" sounds too formal) in the m agic
of mimesis was through the tutdage of Santiago Mutumbajo)', of
Mocoa, Putumayo, Colombia, beginnin!; in 1975. My understanding
of Afrh:an-Colomhian history and Ihe legacy of African slavery in
nonhern South America, including Panama, came through several
years of working on the history of slave haciendas and on the abolition
of slavery in nonhern Cauea, where 1 lived in Puerto Tejada thanks to
the generosity of many people, especially Marlene Jimenez., Guillermo
llanos, Eusebio Cambindo, Felipe Carbonera, Tomas Zapata, Olivia
MosTacilla, and Jose Domingo Murillo. Julie T:lylor and George Mar­
cus provided the encouragement th:u a post-colonial, culturally sensi­
tive, anthropology of signification is pos."ible, necessary, and necessar­
ily exciting-a project that for me has meant coming to grips with the
diak-ctic of civiliz.31ion-and-savagery insulled in contemporary signi­
fying practices themselves. And in this I have benefited from the tC3OS­
gressive confluence of anxiety and insight in the work, spoken and
wrincn, of Cornell West and Paul Gilroy.
To declare that writing itsdf is a mimc::t ic exchange wilh the world
ACKNQWLEOGMf.NTS
also means thaI it involves the rdatively unexplored but everyday
capacity to imagine, if not becomc� Other. Benjamin sough l :I modd
for this capacity in what he understood to be "ancient" magic:ll prac­
tices, no less than in [he games of children. Here I need to add another
practice, the to and fro of discussion-espcl.;ally wi.th R:lchel Moore
from whom SO many thoughts were thus drawn, it being often impossi­
ble to claim !iingle authorship. "Tbe perception of similarity," wrote
Benjamin in relation [0 the mimetic faculty, "is in every c.l5e bound rn
an instantaneous flash. It slips past, can possibly be regained, but
cannot be held fast, unlike other perceptions. It offers itself as fleetingly
and transirorily as a constellation of slars." J would like to think this
book is JUSt such an offering.
Acknowledgemenls of Illustrations
Erland Nordenskiold and Ruhen Perez, ed. Henry Wassen, An Ethno·
logical and Historical Survey of the CUIlQ Indians (1938); Gerardo
Reichel-Dolm.:uoff, "Amhropomorphic Figurines from Colnmbia,
Their Magic and An," 1961; Alfomo D[a7. Granados in Lconor Her­
rera and Marianne Cardale de Schrimpff, " Mitnlogla euna: Los Kalu"
(1974); R. O. Ma rsh, Whitf! Ittdians of Dariell (1934); National An­
thropological Arl.:hive, Smithsonian I nst iruti on. Wa.�hington; British
Museum; Bibliotheque Na..:ional, Paris; Quinta de Solivar, SagOla;
Ann Parker and Avon Neal, M.oms: Folk Art uf the ClIna hldians
(1977); Frances Hubbard Flaherty, Robert Haherty, The Odysse)' of
a film-Maker: Rubert Flaherty'S Story (1984); L..es Blank and Jam es
Bogan, Burden of Dreams (1984); Museum of Anthropology, Univer­
sity of Cambridge::; Alexander BU<.:hner, Mecllanical Musical Instru'
ments (1978); Francis Gahon, finger Prints (1965); Oli ver Read and
M. L. Welch, From Tin Foit to Stereo: Evu/lltic)t1 of the Ph onograph,
1976; Herbert Cole, 1967,