Ashéninka amity: a study of

social relations in an
Amazonian society
E van K illick University of Sussex

Starting with Ashéninka people’s avowed preference for living apart, in nuclear family households,
this article analyses Ashéninka social practices within the context of ongoing academic debates over
reciprocity, kinship, and the relative importance of similarity and difference in Amazonian thought. I
argue that instead of attempting to pull others into fixed and narrowly prescribed relationships,
particularly those based on kinship, the Ashéninka prefer for all ties to be based on relations of
friendship that remain voluntary, limited, and flexible. I show how these relationships are
underpinned by a cultural imperative on unilateral giving that is manifested in masateadas, social
gatherings centred on the consumption of manioc beer.

This article is concerned with outlining and understanding Ashéninka sociality.1

Through this ethnographic example it considers wider questions about how different
societies in Amazonia and beyond create and foster social relations. It argues that
previous work that has focused on the creation of kinship has obscured the use of other
cultural institutions in mediating social relations.
The ethnographic literature now attests to the diversity of social and political forma-
tions in Amazonia, a range that stretches from the peaceful Piaroan societies of the
Guyanas (Overing Kaplan 1975), through small band hunter-gatherers, to those societies
that appear to emphasize violence and predation, such as the Huaorani (Rival 2002) or
Araweté (Viveiros de Castro 1992). As the ethnographic literature has grown, so have
attempts to find connections between Amazonian societies. Some have tried to establish
the elementary principles guiding social action and organization, such as affinity
(Viveiros de Castro 1992) or consanguinity (Overing 2003; Overing Kaplan 1975), or the
dominant form taken by exchange (Descola 2005). Others have searched for overriding
values such as alterity (Viveiros de Castro 1995; 2001) or ‘living well’ (Overing & Passes
2000). While such approaches have been useful in pointing out connections between
societies, their danger is that they seek to become all-encompassing when the diversity of
Amazonian societies appears to refute any direct attempt to produce single, Amazonian-
wide principles.2 This article makes no such claims towards uncovering a generally
applicable principle of Amazonian sociality. Rather, it draws on a particular example to

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suggest that while kinship and conviviality are often seen as the primary sources of social
solidarity in Amazonian societies, other cultural institutions can also be valued.
In a recent article, Santos-Granero has addressed similar issues, writing: ‘If native
Amazonian sociality is all about predatory affinity or, alternatively, convivial consan-
guinity, why do native Amazonians constantly strive to establish social relations with
people with whom they are related neither as kin nor as affines?’ (2007: 1). In his work
he shows the manner in which Amazonians transform ‘ambiguous others’ into ‘formal
friends’ and he picks out specific examples of this such as trading relationships, sha-
manic alliances, and mystical associations. My own approach is to apply his ideas more
widely and suggest that the Ashéninka with whom I worked potentially see all rela-
tionships in this ‘friendly’ manner. Near the end of his article, Santos-Granero writes:
‘Formalized personal friendships offer an escape from the burdens of kinship and
affinity, particularly in situations when these become oppressive’ (2007: 15). I want to
suggest that for the Ashéninka this is the case in everyday life.
In making use of the terms ‘friends’ and ‘friendship’, I am aware of the fact that,
despite a number of attempts, a clear definition of friendship remains tantalizingly
absent in the anthropological and sociological literature. Friendship has too often been
sidelined by studies that focus on politics or economics or, most commonly, kinship.
This, in part, relates to the central importance that the study of kinship has held in
anthropology since its inception (see Holy 1996: 144-55) – a dominance that has argu-
ably been retained even in the new kinship studies where recent terms such as ‘relat-
edness’ (Carsten 2000) have encompassed friendship relations and thus continued to
suppress indigenous distinctions (see Killick & Desai in press).
Another problem has been the suggestion that friendship is a purely Western and
‘modern’ notion linked to particular views of persons as individually autonomous (see,
e.g., Carrier 1999). Yet, while it may be the case that the concept of the person as
individual is not present in some areas (Strathern 1988), it seems reasonable to imagine
various different configurations of the relationship between history, personhood, sen-
timent, and friendship and thus that comparable, if not identical, ideas of friendship
may occur in non-Western cultures. Pre-Christian Greeks, for example, talked of
friendship (Sherman 1993: 98) and anthropologists have felt confident enough to note
it in a number of different societies (see, e.g., Brain 1977; Uhl 1991; and contributors to
both Bell & Coleman 1999 and Desai & Killick in press).
Finally, while various attempts have been made to stabilize the category of friendship
using ideas of autonomy, sentiment, lack of ritual, and lack of instrumentality (e.g.
Adams & Allan 1998: 9-10; Paine 1969: 518), a general consensus is still lacking. My own
approach is to side-step the search for a final definition and instead to base my analysis
on the indigenous forms encountered. In this case, the Ashéninka themselves seem to
place import on relationships that are not based on kinship and they regularly refer to
such relationships in terms of the Spanish word amistad (friendship). While, as we shall
see, these relationships may differ from Western ideas of friendship in a number of
respects, they parallel their separation from relations of kinship and, I believe, have
enough similarities to justify both my own, and the Ashéninka’s, linkage (see also
Santos-Granero 2007: 2).

Living apart
The Asháninka group as a whole constitute one of the largest remaining indigenous
Amazonian groups and they are spread over a large geographical area. As such their

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settlements and living styles show a degree of diversity that ranges from apparently
scattered and relatively isolated bands along the Peruvian-Brazilian border, to large,
settled communities in the high jungles of Peru that are well connected to Peruvian
national society. In the Ashéninka communities where I conducted fieldwork, on the
Ucayali River, at the northern-most point of Asháninka territory, while people were
ostensibly grouped together in comunidades nativas (officially registered native com-
munities), the distances between households could be rather long, with around forty
households spread over a total area of 120 square kilometres. In practical terms, this
meant that most houses were at least a twenty-minute walk apart, with some up to an
hour from their nearest neighbours. Localized clusters can be discerned from among
the whole group. The houses of married children are sometimes built in proximity to
that of their parents and generally reflect a preference for uxorilocality. However, it is
noticeable that over time even households interconnected by close kinship ties move
further and further apart.
Thus, while Ashéninka and Asháninka groups show a degree of flexibility in their
living styles, and are infamous historically for forming large agglomerations when faced
with outside threats (see Brown & Fernández 1991), I follow Hvalkof and Veber in their
suggestion that rather than seeing social disintegration and fragmentation as abnor-
mal, such characteristics within the Ashéninka context constitute the norm, while
characteristics such as incorporation and aggregation, in turn, constitute something
possible yet transitory (2005: 226). In the area where I conducted fieldwork, but argu-
ably for the Asháninka as a whole and such closely-related Arawakan neighbours as the
Matsiguenga, the main unit of society must be considered the nuclear family: one
married couple with their unmarried children (cf. Johnson 2003).3
Much of the previous literature on the Asháninka and their closely related neigh-
bours has focused on the intricacies of their kinship systems and nomenclature and the
manner in which even distantly related people are classified into categories of consan-
guinity and affinity, showing that people see themselves as parts of larger networks (see,
e.g., Lenaerts 2004; Renard-Casevitz 1998). Moreover, as I will show below, such house-
holds are not ‘isolated’ either from their neighbours or from the outside. Indeed an
important aspect of life is regular gatherings to consume masato (fermented manioc
beer), while most households are engaged with the timber industry or with other forms
of regional trade. It is not that Ashéninka individuals do not see themselves as con-
nected to others through webs of kinship, trade, and sociality but rather that their
everyday existence is focused around a striking household independence and self-
sufficiency. Above all, the everyday giving, sharing, and exchange of food between
households, so commonly described across lowland South America (cf. Crocker 1985:
81; Gow 1989; Siskind 1973), is notable for its absence. For example, Rival’s observation
that social life amongst the Huaorani of eastern Ecuador is best characterized by the
phrase ‘procure alone and consume together’ (2002: 102) contrasts with the manner in
which the Ashéninka live.
Ashéninka men almost always hunted alone and rarely announced their intention to
go hunting, while their return from any successful hunt was marked by even more
circumspect behaviour. Households tend to be built away from main pathways and
have a number of different paths leading to them, meaning that individuals are able to
come and go from their houses without being observed. Men make good use of this fact
when returning from a successful hunt to conceal any game. When asked directly, they
tend to be evasive, usually ruing their bad luck and going on to lament the general lack

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of game in the area. A number of times I was caught out by this talk, only realizing how
successful a man had been when we later shared large amounts of meat.
Once a man has procured any game, it becomes the responsibility of his wife. She, in
turn, will be careful to conceal it from the sight of others, for example hiding it in a
basket when she takes it to the river to be washed. If there are any people around, she
might even delay her cooking preparations until they have gone. Once the food has
been prepared, she will call her family to come and eat. She will not call others to eat;
nor will she send any of the meat, cooked or raw, to other households, including those
of any married children living close by. If there are any visitors to the house at this
point, then the man will loudly call for them to join him. If the household’s lack of
obvious generosity is notable, then the reaction of visitors is even more remarkable. In
the first place most visitors, particularly those who live closest, will usually have gone by
this point, having given their farewells on seeing the preparations. Those who remain
will now make a show of refusing their host’s invitation, telling him that they have
recently eaten and that they have no desire for food, but thanking him for his offer and
exhorting him to eat well. Only those who do not have their own households close at
hand are likely to take up the invitation.
This manner of food preparation and consumption is illustrative of a number of
wider Ashéninka social characteristics. In the first place, it takes place strictly within the
nuclear family. Both the husband and wife are necessary for the production of food,
with the man being responsible for providing his family with protein while his wife
harvests manioc from her garden and then prepares the meal. In this manner a husband
and wife form the central productive unit of Ashéninka society. Their central obligation
is to provide for their children, while the giving and sharing of food between house-
holds is rare. However, as can be seen in the man’s invitations to visitors, there is still a
strong cultural emphasis on generosity. The reason why this imperative to give does not
lead to the movement of food between households is that there is also a cultural
emphasis on self-reliance and thus on not being dependent on the hospitality of others.
It is this that underlies the refusal of food by non-household members. Thus, while
visitors who have come from far away will eat with the family, men and women from
nearby are more likely to refuse the offer or, indeed, to have departed for their own
house on seeing that food is being prepared. Hence, rather than an emphasis on
reciprocity, which can act to bind individuals and families together, the Ashéninka’s
emphasis on unilateral giving and their avoidance of the need to accept gifts from
others maintain their separation.
Other researchers working with the Ashéninka have noted this generosity. Hvalkof
and Veber, for example, observe that:

Ashéninka social coexistence requires them to fulfil the moral imperative that all those with food
distribute it and share it with the others ... The key to the system is not reciprocity, which implies that
someone offers something in exchange for a future repayment (2005: 217; cf. Santos-Granero &
Barclay 2005: xxix; Weiss 2005: 33).

A comparable distinction between giving and reciprocity is also documented in the

wider ethnographic literature. Bird-David notes how the Nayaka of southern India ‘do
not give resources to each other in a calculated, foresighted fashion, with a view to
receiving something in return, nor do they make claims for debts’ (1990: 191). Gibson,
writing about the the Buid in the Philippine Highlands, notes a similar kind of ‘denial

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of reciprocity’: ‘In sharing, there is an obligation to give, but there is no obligation to

receive from, or repay, a particular individual. The giver does not indebt the recipient,
for the recipient is not individuated from the mass’ (1986: 220). More recently, Uzen-
doski has noted similar ideas among the Napo Runa in Amazonian Ecuador (2005: 113).
It is this form of unilateral giving that, I contend, underlies Ashéninka society.
In contrast to other Amazonian groups where such an obligation to give is coupled
with the routine acceptance of all gifts or of sharing or even demand sharing (cf.
Overing 1992; Rival 2002: 104; Wagley 1977: 61), the Ashéninka can be seen to strive
instead to avoid situations in which such giving or receiving is necessary. In correspon-
dence with this avoidance of situations in which others can make demands on a person,
individuals are also careful not to make demands on others. When people refuse the
food of others, they are not insulting the giver; rather, they are emphasizing their own
self-sufficiency. Indeed, part of the Ashéninka’s desire to avoid giving things is linked to
the idea that to offer things to others is to question their independence and ability to
care for themselves. This interpretation is supported by the Ashéninka’s interactions
with their Shipibo neighbours, who commonly demand things of them. In these cases
my informants readily gave the things asked for. Their later comments to me were not
complaints about the demands themselves, which were usually for the Ashéninka’s
abundant manioc, but rather conveyed a mild disgust that the individual seemed so
unable to look after himself or herself and was willing so shamelessly to rely on others.
It is through the manner in which they are brought up that the importance of
self-sufficiency and of personal independence and autonomy is inculcated in young
children. From the time they are able to walk and move unaided, Ashéninka children
are gradually taught increasing self-reliance. Such children are often left to do small
tasks on their own and are given only minor supervision. As children grow older they
are constantly introduced to new tasks and aspects of life. For example, while the older
daughters in my household started to help in the gardens, planting, weeding, and
harvesting, the 5-year-old daughter, Wilmer, would be left on her own to tend to her
2-year-old sister. When they are encouraged to do a new task, children are given no
formal instruction. Rather, they are left to imitate and experiment for themselves.
Having never been told what to do, even by their own parents, children grow to resent
any instruction from others. In conjunction with this increasing self-reliance comes a
respect for the individuality of others. By the time young couples marry and form their
own households, which usually happens by the age of 16, they have both the capacity
and the confidence to care for themselves and their families with no outside assistance.
Indeed, the desire to display this ability seems to be part of the reason for marrying, for
a single individual is dependent on others in a way that a couple is not (Veber 1997: 126).
Once they have formed a fully self-sufficient unit, the couple can begin their movement
apart from the parental household.
Many of the characteristics I have outlined in the ethnography above, including
independence, an antipathy to rules, regulations, hierarchical structures, and coercive
constraints, and a shortage of ‘anything Western theory might deem as “societal struc-
ture”, or even “social structure” ’, are amongst those that Overing and Passes (2000: 2)
recognize as being common in many Amazonian societies. They further argue that
instead of being preoccupied by what we might characterize as ‘law and order’, what
Amazonian people ‘do talk about at great length is how to live well, happily, in com-
munity with others; they talk about how to go about creating “good/beautiful” people
who can live a tranquil, sociable life together’ (2000: 2, original emphasis). This set of

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‘Amazonian characteristics’ also applies to the Ashéninka, who are keen to discourage
overt displays of anger and violence among themselves and others. In this they can also
be seen to conform to the common Arawakan trait of suppressing ‘endo-warfare’ (Hill
& Santos-Granero 2002: 17).
The Ashéninka also often talk about the need to ‘live well’ and how that is to be
achieved. But it is in this final idea – of how to ‘live well’ – that the Ashéninka differ
most markedly from the general picture outlined by Overing and Passes. Whereas for
most Amazonian groups, including many Arawakan groups (Heckenberger 2002: 111-
12), the ‘good life’ is achieved within a specific kin and spatially bound group and in
large, settled communities, my informants, as I have illustrated above, demonstrated
both explicitly and implicitly that in order to live peacefully and well one must not live
with others. In this sense, while the broad arguments put forward by Overing and
Passes do have resonance with the Ashéninka, their emphasis on the importance of
‘conviviality’, with its stress on actual ‘living together’, is not of such relevance. To
understand this more fully I now turn my attention to the Ashéninka’s consideration of
consanguinity.

Living with kin

Focusing on the specific example of the Piaroa of the Venezuelan Orinoco Basin,
Overing argues that, for Amerindians, conviviality is expected to turn into something
more. As she puts it, ‘[F]or the Piaroa, the idea is that those who in the first instance are
dangerously “different in kind” (e.g. as in-laws) become “of a kind” through the process
of living together’ (Overing 2003: 300). Overing goes on to show how the Piaroa do not
separate marriage (affinity) and consanguinity; rather, for them, ‘marriage leads to
kinship’:

People who live together are also continuously involved in a process of mutual creation ... that leads
in time to the creation of a ‘community of similars’ ... The political goal relates to the achievement of
harmony in the daily productive and commensal relations of community life (2003: 308-10).

This view echoes the findings of other anthropologists working in Amazonia.

In Northwest Amazonia, for example, the Tukano live in multiple family longhouses
centred on groups of brothers and their in-marrying wives, children, and parents
(Hugh-Jones 1979: 26). In such settlements, Hugh-Jones notes that ‘affinity, highlighted
in the early stages, blurs into co-resident consanguinity’ (1979: 237). Similarly, Uzen-
doski, working among the Napo-Runa in contemporary Ecuador, shows how he came
to be considered ‘a real brother, a true brother’, after marrying a Napo Runa woman
(2005: 105). This suppression of affinity and emphasis on consanguineal kin amongst
coresidents is not confined to Northern Amazonia. The Achuar, a group that live in a
similar pre-Andean environment to the Ashéninka, appear to live very much as the
Ashéninka do, in what Taylor describes as ‘loose, informal groupings of scattered
polygynous households’ (1983: 333-4). Yet, Taylor notes that the Achuar, like the Piaroa,
suppress affinity within the family group, this time through women. She describes how
‘[w]omen act on certain relations as operators or transformers, whereby affinity is
constantly absorbed and transmuted into postulated consanguinity’ (1983: 335). Simi-
larly, amongst the Kalapalo Indians of central Brazil, Basso writes that ‘kinship rela-
tionships are deemed the most important of all social ties’; they are considered as
‘permanent and unbreakable’ and are expressed ‘in terms of personal rights and

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obligations which persist throughout an individual’s lifetime, and which exist even
after death’ (1973: 74). Such descriptions of close consanguineal bonds are usually
linked to the importance of food-sharing in many Amazonian societies. As Basso
writes: ‘The joint preparation and distribution of food is one of the principal symbols
by which members of household and village groups express their solidarity’ (1973: 52).
After reading various ethnographic descriptions of this practice of food-sharing
(see also Gow 1989; McCallum 2001; Rival 2002: 103-5), I had expected to see some-
thing similar occur amongst the Ashéninka. In fact, as I have shown above, the giving
and sharing of food between households is rare. Even close family such as the oldest
daughter of the household in which I lived, who lived with her husband in a house
a short walk from that of her parents, seldom gave or took food from the main
family. This fits with the ideas of independence and self-sufficiency that I outlined
earlier. From this it is clear that the Ashéninka contrast with some of the Amazonian
groups I have described in that they do not share food, objects, or companionship on
an everyday basis. Conviviality, which encompasses a large network of families, is, in
other words, conspicuous in its restricted sphere of influence. My argument is that
the Ashéninka reduce the sphere of consanguinity to cover only their immediate
family: a husband and wife and their children. It is only in such a context that
things can not only be given freely, but, most importantly, can be accepted freely as
well.
While conviviality can be seen as one of the primary centres of social cohesion in
many Amazonian societies, there are a number of other cultural institutions that can
serve a similar function. Alternatives are particularly apparent among groups in central
Brazil such as the Gê, Bororo, and Tapirapé and include ceremonial moieties, name-
sharing, and age-grade groups and men’s groups and houses. For example, Wagley
describes how male-only Bird Societies amongst the Tapirapé are important social
units, organizing categories that ‘cross-cut kinship groups’ (1977: 101). Similarly,
Crocker notes how the men’s house among the Bororo is the domain of ceremonies and
rituals that are ‘organized around bonds of alliance and the particularistic ties of
agnation’ (1985: 33). While such institutions still tend to be based on kinship connec-
tions, and thus might be seen as specific ways of expanding kinship ties, they are
generally perceived by their members as an important alternative to purely kin-based
alliances. In the Ashéninka, case however, even as they downplay consanguineal ties,
there are no such alternative, enduring, and corporate cultural institutions to connect
people together.
Hvalkof and Veber describe the Ashéninka social system as being ‘egalitarian within
asymmetric relationships’ and note that it is a very flexible system where fragmentation
and rupture are common and where momentary union and collective action can have
their place at different times (2005: 226). As I noted above, they suggest that, rather than
seeing social disintegration and fragmentation as abnormal, such characteristics within
the Ashéninka context constitute the normal while characteristics such as incorpora-
tion and aggregation, in turn, constitute something possible and transitory (2005: 226).
Although this assessment links to my own findings about the fluidity of Ashéninka
social organization, the fact is that Ashéninka society can still be said to exist and
individuals do have social relations with other people, both locally and over distances.
In the next part of the article I examine some of the ways in which Ashéninka do form
relations with others. I begin with a discussion of the importance of difference in
Amazonian thought.

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Relations with others

While a number of anthropologists have focused on the importance of consanguinity
and the building up of close intracommunal relations within Amazonian societies,
others have focused on processes of symbolic exchange (including war, cannibalism,
hunting, shamanism, funerary rites, and trade) that cross socio-political, cosmological,
and ontological boundaries. Such approaches emphasize the importance of difference
(alterity/affinity) and separation in Amazonian thought and form an explicit critique
of the notion of societies as closed, self-sufficient units, which is implied in some of the
work I have mentioned so far (see also Viveiros de Castro 1996: 190). For these writers,
Amazonian sociality and identity are based primarily on exchange, rather than con-
substantiality (shared substance). Where other anthropologists emphasize consanguin-
ity, such writers focus on ‘potential or symbolic affinity’ as the key to sociability
(Viveiros de Castro 1995: 14).
It is important to note that there is no disagreement regarding the fact that neither
consanguinity nor affinity can exist without its opposite. The distinction, rather, is
more of a philosophical one over which takes precedence. For Viveiros de Castro, local,
consanguineous communities must be understood as defining themselves against ‘an
infinite background of virtual sociality ... extracting themselves from this background
and making, in the most literal sense, their own bodies of kin’ (2001: 24-5). This is
demonstrated, he argues, by the emphasis that Amazonian groups put on their relations
with ‘others’, all beings who are not like themselves: guests, enemies, and trading
partners, even animals and spirits. From his view, it is these beings, which ‘bathe, so to
speak, in affinity’ (i.e. in difference), rather than consanguines, that are the most
important aspect of ongoing social relations (2001: 23), for without the affinal other,
society cannot reproduce itself. In other words the fundamental rule of this theory of
being is that there can be no relation without differentiation (2001: 25). Taking this even
further, Viveiros de Castro argues that since ‘no province of human experience is (given
as) entirely constructed [and] something must be (construed as) given’, then in Ama-
zonia ‘it is affinity that stands as the given dimension of the cosmic relational matrix,
while consanguinity falls within the scope of human action and intention’ (2001: 19).
Such a view need not stand in opposition to that which emphasizes the suppression
of affinity by consanguinity. Rather it only makes the philosophical point that ‘consan-
guinity is non-affinity before being anything else’ (Viveiros de Castro 2001: 27, original
emphasis). Ashéninka notions of others, in both myths and practice, can also be
understood within this conception of affinity. Further, with their suppression of con-
sanguinity, the Ashéninka appear to prefer for all others to remain in this position of
potential affinity. It is in not wanting for others to be linked to themselves through
kinship that they maintain the essential difference between themselves and others.
Given this, the point of interest thus comes in analysing the Ashéninka’s preferred form
of interaction with such ‘others’, an issue to which I now turn.
Connected to Viveiros de Castro’s emphasis on difference in Amazonian thought is
his own ethnographic experience amongst the Araweté and other societies of central
Brazil. In his seminal work on the Araweté, Viveiros de Castro (1992) showed the
importance of relations of predation in their cosmology and how it was the decisive
relation between different types of beings. This form of relation finds its ultimate
expression in the eating of the enemy-other’s flesh. Similar analyses have been carried
out in other societies, notably by Vilaça amongst the Wari’. Vilaça writes: ‘Ideally, the
Wari’ are those who prey and that is what differentiates them, what characterizes them

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as humans, wari’, and constitutes enemies and animals – both equally prey – as
non-humans’ (2000: 91). Such ethnographic descriptions form an interesting contrast
to the work of those who stress their informants’ emphasis on consanguinity rather
than affinity. Where groups such as the Piaroa or Cashinahua seek to draw others into
close bonds of shared substance, those societies that dwell on the idea of predation can
be seen to separate themselves from others, forming islands of consanguinity that then
stress their distinction from others.
The case of the Ashéninka, I contend, offers an example of another way in which an
Amazonian people can relate to others. While maintaining separations between people,
the Ashéninka prefer to interact with ‘potential affines’, not through the idiom of
predation but rather through particular forms of sociality that allow them to form
relations of amity and mutual beneficence. Thus, while all but the very closest of kin are
pushed into the position of ‘potential affine’, the possibility of interacting with them in
peaceful and mutually advantageous ways is still retained.
Having outlined the main theoretical discussion surrounding the relative impor-
tance and roles of affinity and consanguinity in Amazonian thought, I now wish to offer
a closer analysis of how the Ashéninka themselves appear to deal with the issue of
needing difference, while desiring similarity. As I have shown above, the Ashéninka do
not seek to integrate outsiders into kinship relations, and even reduce their own kinship
connections such that enduring, everyday relations can only be said to occur within
individual nuclear families. Here then, I will examine how the Ashéninka use generosity
and particular forms of sociality to limit the detrimental effects of both kin and affines
while also benefiting from relations with both types of people.

Masato, generosity, and friendship

When I first appeared in the area of my fieldsite, I was clearly the strangest thing that
many of my future informants had ever seen. On first seeing me, many young children
would burst into tears and flee to the safety of their mothers. Even adults were silently
petrified of me, and I later learned that many of them slept with machetes next to their
beds, and even considered killing me when I first arrived.4 Despite all of this, and even
on occasions when a woman was left alone in her house after her children had fled into
the forest on first catching sight of me, if there was masato (fermented manioc beer)
present, I was always offered some to drink. Further, if I stayed for any length of time
and if there was food in the house, I was fed and even reluctantly offered a bed. This,
I believe, attests to the strength of the ingrained importance of generosity, that hospi-
tality was offered to a stranger, even in the face of such seeming danger.
Such observations have led me to examine the cultural imperative of generosity
among the Ashéninka and, in particular, the idea that generosity is used as a means of
controlling dangerous others. Descola (2005) has suggested that Amazonian societies
can be distinguished from each other according to the dominant form taken by
exchange. For him, groups such as the Tukano of Northwest Amazonia are character-
ized by an emphasis on ‘equivalent reciprocity’. He contrasts this with the focus on
predation or ‘unilateral taking’ exhibited by the Achuar, the people with whom he
worked in Ecuador. In turn, the Ashéninka’s and their Arawakan neighbours’ emphasis
on unilateral giving stands in contrast to both of these forms of interaction. While I
briefly discussed this cultural norm in the first section of the article, references to it can
also be found in older literature on the Ashéninka.

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Olivier Ordinaire, for example, travelling in Ashéninka territory at the end of the
nineteenth century, gives numerous examples of the Ashéninka’s generosity towards
him and others (1988 [1897]: 87, 90, 92) and cites their maxim: ‘If you are hungry, I will
share my game, fish and the fruits of my garden with you, because you are Campa and
the Campa must care for each other with true friendship’ (1988 [1897]: 91). In the
contemporary context I believe that the ideology of helping other ‘Campa’ or
‘Ashéninka’ has been extended to include all who are considered to be ‘people’, which
now even extends to outsiders such as mestizo timbermen and foreign anthropologists.
This idea of hospitality and unilateral giving extends to include the cosmological realm
as well. Rosengren discusses how Matsiguenga shamans form close relationships with
‘saangarite’ (‘auxiliary spirits’) that stress ‘similarity, trust, and co-operation’, and
describes how when the shaman visits these ‘friends’,
he is entertained by his spirit hosts, who give him food and drink in the same way that he nurtures his
auxiliary spirit with tobacco. This exchange of food is accounted for not in terms of a reciprocal
obligation but as an expression of the close and intimate ties that unite the shaman and his spirit
friends (2006: 812).

This same idea of generosity, evident in people’s beliefs about the supernatural
realm, is also demonstrated in everyday life, particularly in the context of parents’
education of their children. Every evening as I sat with Jorge’s family enjoying our
daily food, I would watch as the youngest of the daughters, Rosa (aged 2), would take
something from her own mouth and offer it to one of us. I always showed some
hesitation in accepting such gifts, but her parents and siblings always made a point of
praising and encouraging this behaviour. Equally, if one child was given a large bone,
or hunk of meat, they were encouraged to share it with their siblings. Once learned,
this generosity is gradually turned outwards, away from close kin and towards strang-
ers. Thus, while older individuals felt no compulsion to give food to their equally
capable peers, as I noted at the start of this article, visitors were always offered all that
was available.
This worldview appears to be shared by many of the groups closely related to the
Ashéninka. Santos-Granero writes of the Yanesha’s ‘fundamental precepts: unrestricted
generosity and generalized reciprocity ... which ... underlie all prescriptive behaviour
upon which [Yanesha] morality is based’ (1991: 45). However, it stands in particular
contrast to those societies, particularly the Wari’ and Araweté, described by Vilaça
(2000) and Viveiros de Castro (1992), for whom predation is a central idiom. Rather
than taking from the other to assert one’s own humanity and either destroying or
encompassing those different from oneself, as Descola (2005) suggested, the Ashéninka
universe is characterized by unilateral giving. The Ashéninka (and, according to their
beliefs, their spirit counterparts) believe that the best way to avoid intensified antago-
nism is to be generous to others. It is in the institution of the masateada that the
cultural imperative to give unilaterally is most clearly manifest.
Masateadas are social gatherings centred on the consumption of masato. They are
informal, with no ritual elaboration and few associated social protocols. For the oth-
erwise independent Ashéninka they are the main form of socializing and all are
welcome, and encouraged, to attend them. When the household in which I lived held
a masateada, Edith, the mother of the house, would start preparing the beer four or
five days in advance. Manioc was harvested, cut, and boiled, before being mashed
together in a paste in a large wooden trough. Edith and her daughters would then

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scoop up globs of the paste to put in their mouths and chew. The well-masticated
paste was then spat out and replaced by more. Once this process was complete, the
manioc mash was covered with banana leaves and left for several days to ferment.5
The optimal time for its consumption was usually after three or four days, when it
had developed a tall, foamy head and before it became too acidic. At this point it
could be mixed with water, strained, and served. During the fermentation period,
Jorge would visit other households to invite them to come and share the masato on
an appointed day.
On the day of the masateada, people began arriving soon after dawn, with others
turning up throughout the morning. Upon arrival, they were immediately served
several bowlfuls of masato until they had had their fill. Only a limited number of bowls,
and sometimes only one, were used. As the gathering grew, the server therefore went to
each person in turn, proffering a bowl and then waiting until that individual had
drained it before offering them more or moving on to the next person. A meal might
or might not be served, depending on the volition or luck of the man of the house in
the previous days’ hunting and fishing. Throughout the day, masato was regularly
passed around as people sat talking and generally sharing each other’s company. For
people who can go for days or even weeks without seeing anyone but their spouse and
children, these events are anticipated and enjoyed as times when gossip can be shared,
news learned, and pleasure taken in the general sense of companionship that underlies
such gatherings. The gathering would last as long as there was masato, and these
occasions have been known to continue for days (cf. Weiss 1975: 243). In my experience,
however, they would gradually end late at night as people slumped into inebriated
slumbers, disappeared off down jungle paths holding their too-full stomachs, or parted
after a falling out or fight.
Earlier I have shown that, for the Ashéninka, kinship cannot be seen as creating
enduring bonds that are enacted in everyday life and that relationships based purely
on kinship are downplayed. Instead, I believe that it is the sharing of masato and the
holding of, and attendance at, masateadas that form the central link between dispar-
ate nuclear families in a given area. For my informants the important thing was that,
while offering a space in which they could interact with others, these gatherings did
not tie them into any longer or more enduring ties with others. Sharing masato, in
other words, did not have any longer-term consequences, and nor did it carry ties of
obligation.6 The sharing of sociality lasts only as long as the event itself, a fact that is
reinforced when such a gathering ends in recriminations and even violence.
After such a drunken confrontation, two individuals might studiously avoid
each other for days or weeks afterwards, reinforcing their original separateness and
independence.
The fact that masateadas were open to all while not creating enduring bonds was
demonstrated most clearly by the way in which young men from other areas were
treated when they arrived in my fieldsite. Such young men, who had left their natal
homes in search of brides and were travelling either alone or in pairs, were a common
sight in Ashéninka communities. On their arrival in a new place they would be wel-
comed at all of the masateadas in the area and would spend more or less time at various
houses, particularly those that contained young women. It was accepted that such men
were looking for suitable women, and their presence was tolerated without the need for
further clarification or development. There was, however, no pressure either on them or
on young women to establish a relationship. Equally, if newly formed relationships did

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not last, there was neither a sense of recrimination nor a sense of the loss of a new kin
member. Indeed, even when the relationships endured, it struck me that the young
man’s position in the area would change little from when he had first arrived. The
feeling seemed to be that such a man was welcome to stay in the area, build a house, and
cut a new garden, but there was no extra status conferred on him for doing so.
Moreover, there were no extensive exchange networks within which he could be
included, no hierarchies or collective institutions. Such men were free to join any
masateadas they wished to, and to hold their own, but this was equally true for anyone
visiting the area.7
Echoing my own findings is Weiss’s description of the Ashéninka’s political
organization as offering an important ‘individual liberty’ with individuals ‘living
together in an ambience of friendship’ (2005: 29). In a society in which there are no
ritual or ancestral institutions binding groups together, I suggest that this ‘ambience
of friendship’ is maintained through the sharing of masato. Because these events
are voluntary and carry no long-term bond, they consistently allow individuals to
choose how, when, and with whom they want to form connections. When an
Ashéninka couple hold a masateada, they will go around neighbouring households
inviting others to come and drink with them. No one is excluded from this invita-
tion, and the inevitable limit on invitations owes more to the physical distances
between houses than to social separations. These gatherings are open to all but are
also not compulsory, and it is this very freedom that allows the Ashéninka to interact
with the others in the manner in which they wish, with no restrictions on their
personal freedom.
Having shown how the Ashéninka prefer for their relationships to remain voluntary,
limited, and flexible, I will now turn to the one form of relationship that is more
structured and enduring: ayompari trading partnerships.

Reciprocity and ayompari

In their discussion of shared features of many Arawakan societies, Hill and Santos-
Granero include the ‘open and inclusive character’ of their socio-political formations,
which are often underlaid by ‘widespread networks of ceremonial exchange’ (2002: 17).
One such system is the Ashéninka/Asháninka trading system that involves two men,
ayompari, from geographically distant areas forming an alliance based on the trading of
scarce goods. Such bonds have stretched across Asháninka territory since at least
pre-Colombian times, connecting pairs of men together and allowing for the free
passage of individuals and small groups throughout the area. Beyond the practical
aspect of providing individuals with access to goods from other regions, it can also be
seen as drawing the widely geographically dispersed Asháninka and their Arawakan
neighbours (the Yanesha, Nomatsiguenga, and Matsiguenga) into an inter-connected
series of networks. Schäfer (1988) argues that the main reason for exchanges between
ayompari is to establish contacts and social networks, while Renard-Casevitz (1993) has
written compellingly of how individuals involved in this widespread trading helped to
maintain a shared sense of cultural identity and also facilitated the formation of war
parties in defence of Ashéninka peoples. As with my arguments about relationships
based on the sharing of masato being an alternative to kinship relations, Santos-
Granero and Barclay note that in the case of ayompari relationships, ‘the important
thing is not to establish a relation of kinship ... but to establish a relation of friendship
and confidence with individuals who would otherwise be considered as non-related

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and, therefore, as potential enemies’ (2005: xxv; see also Santos-Granero 2007). Follow-
ing Bodley (1981), they note that the ‘exchange of goods does not always follow the same
paths as the exchange of consanguines’, suggesting that, rather than being superim-
posed on each other, the two networks are independent and complementary mecha-
nisms of social inclusion (Santos-Granero & Barclay 2005: xxvi). Bodley has also argued
that, amongst the Ashéninka he studied, the position of ayompari provided strangers
with ‘a legitimate non-kin, non-enemy identity’ (1972: 595).
In my own fieldsites the term ayompari is now used interchangeably with the
Spanish term amigo (friend) and it can be employed in relations with most outsiders,
Ashéninka and non-Ashéninka, and is particularly used with mestizo timbermen (see
Killick 2008b). If, as I argued above, the Ashéninka think that food and other essentials
should be given unilaterally, then the ayompari relation is, in contrast, based on reci-
procity. It is a relationship that emphasizes the debts that exist between individuals and
uses them as a means of strengthening and prolonging the bond between them.8 As the
Ashéninka themselves suggest in their use of the Spanish word amigo, these relations
are characterized by ideas of ‘amity’ and ‘friendship’. Paralleling some Western ideas of
friendship rather than being preoccupied with drawing individuals into relations of
consanguinity or ‘actual affinity’, or viewing outsiders as enemies, the Ashéninka retain
the term ayompari to refer to a distinct, separate, and enduring type of relationship. The
ayompari alliance allows both partners to benefit from the relationship but also to avoid
the deeper complications that come from drawing others into kin relations. While
recognizing the ‘otherness’ of individuals, it creates a space in which they can interact
peaceably.
Viveiros de Castro has suggested that in Amazonia, relations of ‘formal or ceremo-
nial friendship’ should be considered as ‘para-kinship’ relationships, using as they do
the ‘conceptual and practical symbols of affinity’ (1995: 14). Countering this position, I
follow Santos-Granero’s (2007) recent article where he argues that because such
‘friends’ are not then incorporated into webs of affinity or kinship, friendship should be
seen as a distinct category. He further suggests that on special occasions Amazonian
groups want to turn certain kin and affines into formal friends such that the link of
formal friendship takes pre-eminence over pre-existing kinship ties, thus showing that
the relationship has moved onto a higher plane of trust and intimacy (2007: 4).
Santos-Granero further holds that by entering into formal friendships, even with those
who might be considered consanguines or affines, Amerindians emphasize both the
‘freely chosen and consensual’ nature of these relations (against the predetermined
state of kinship relations) and the fact that these relations ‘can be maintained only
through repeated demonstrations of trustworthiness’ 2007: 11). This idea that relation-
ships cannot be taken for granted but rather must be enacted on a regular basis echoes
my analysis of the Ashéninka’s local relations. In this view, the ayompari relation is an
extension of the Ashéninka’s normal relations with those who live nearby, only
strengthened with an aspect of reciprocity to maintain it over a greater time and
distance.
As I noted at the beginning of this article, the historical literature attests to the
Asháninka’s ability to co-ordinate against outside threats (Brown & Fernández 1991).
Renard-Casevitz (1993) has shown how ayompari partnerships have been an effective
means of communication and organization across the wide space of Asháninka
territory. Thus these partnerships can be seen to bring together clusters of families
that share in regular masateadas. The continuing ability of the Asháninka to act

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collectively is attested to by their recent resistance to the guerrilla activities of the

Maoist Sendero Luminoso (‘Shining Path’) and also by the emergence of the
Ashéninka as a political force in their fight for land rights and political representation
(Veber 1998).
In my own fieldsites, ayompari-type relationships were now being entered into with
outsiders, particularly traders and timbermen (Killick 2008b), with whom the
Ashéninka want to form mutually beneficial relationships. Thus, while both ayompari
and local relations are characterized by their flexibility and voluntary nature, they still
connect people together and can be the basis for stronger relations and the formation
of larger political assemblages when necessary. Furthermore, even as Ashéninka indi-
viduals stress their preference for limited social interaction, they are well aware of other
forms of living and may even practise them. This was illustrated in my own fieldsites
where the presence of schools had drawn some families to live in closer-knit social
forms than their own ideal (Killick 2008a).
This suggests a deeper point that even as the Ashéninka form of sociality can be
understood in contrast to other Amazonian societies, it is malleable and both reflects
and is echoed in the social forms of other Amazonian groups. For example, Descola
describes one group of three Achuar brothers who had withdrawn from the rest of
Achuar society to live together, along with their wives. He writes in this case that ‘to live
happily, is to live hidden’ but that, for the Achuar,‘[t]he closing-in of a group upon itself
in this way presupposes an abandonment of ambitions. It precludes any possibility of
engaging upon the politics of affinity so as to become a man of consequence respected
for his manipulation of his brothers-in-law’ (Descola 1996 [1993]: 216). For the
Ashéninka, in contrast, the majority of people can be seen to follow this ‘ideal’, while the
generalized form of their sociality means that no groups become completely isolated or
powerless.
In a contrasting example from Northwest Amazonia, Århem describes how among
the Makuna there is a contemporary movement towards single-family households:

When asked why they had abandoned the communal maloca in favour of the single-family house,
several former headmen and maloca dwellers answered that they preferred living in a single-family
house because it gave them more independence; they felt more at ease in their proper house and
avoided the ‘problems’ and ‘tensions’ ... of the family house (2000: 83).

This suggests that the possibility of living apart is present in other Amazonian societies
even if it is not regularly practised. In this view, Ashéninka social ideas are not without
precedent. Rather, it is the fact that these ideas are at the centre of Ashéninka society that
makes their form of society particularly interesting.

Conclusions
One form of relationship does not exclude the possibility of relating in other ways.
Rather, such comparisons suggest that different social groups emphasize and centre
on particular social forms, while suppressing or minimizing the importance of other
forms of relationship. In the relationships I have been describing there are apparent
echoes of the other anthropological examinations of Amazonian societies I discussed
earlier. A form of commensality can be seen in the sharing of masato and its role in
connecting people. Similarly, the marking out of a separate category of people as
ayompari or friends is a form of differentiation. My intention in this article, however,

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has been to show how these ideas can be separated from particular types of relation-
ships. Consubstantiality can exist without consanguinity, and while differentiation
is an important aspect of thought in many Amazonian societies, the manner in
which such others are thought of and related to is varied. In this way, I have
attempted to move beyond some of the dominant paradigms of Amazonian anthro-
pology with their emphasis on certain kinds of relationships and to show that focus-
ing on particular social ideas such as consanguinity or difference in Amerindian
thought can work to obscure other forms of relationship. In order to ‘live well’, it is
friendship that the Ashéninka find the most useful type of relationship. Instead of
attempting to pull all others into specific kinship relationships, individuals prefer for
all ties to remain voluntary, limited, and flexible. This suggests the more general
principle that there is no single dominant conception of sociality in Amazonia as a
whole.

NOTES
Fieldwork was carried out on the Ucayali River in eastern Peru from August 2001 to July 2003, supported
by the Central Research Fund (University of London), the London School of Economics and Political Science,
and the Royal Anthropological Institute. Earlier versions of this article have been presented in a number of
different oral and written contexts and I am grateful to all those who have commented on it.
1
Fieldwork was carried out amongst Ashéninka people living on the Ucayali River in central eastern Peru.
The Ashéninka are part of a larger ethnic group now known as the Asháninka, and previously referred to as
the Campa. This group, in turn, is part of the greater pre-Andean Arawakan linguistic group which includes
the Yanesha, Matsiguenga, Nomatsiguenga, and Piro (Yiné). The Ashéninka on the Ucayali are the northern-
most population and, according to local oral history, the families here are the descendants of older upper-
river populations that gradually migrated to this region over recent generations.
2
This fact is further underlined by recent archaeological evidence of the large-scale societies that existed
in the region prior to European contact (Heckenberger 2002).
3
In my experience this was the case even for Ashéninka living in more geographically tight-knit commu-
nities where people were still keen to keep their houses from general public view and were careful to cut paths
which allowed them to enter and leave their houses without being seen. This dislike of living in close
proximity appears to be one of the main reasons why such agglomerations have not persisted over time on
the Ucayali.
4
This fear was linked to local ideas of pishtacos or pelacaras, ‘mythical’ white people who come to kill and
steal the fat from indigenous people (see Weismantel 2001).
5
In the Ashéninka case, no analogy is drawn between the process of making manioc beer and the process
of the conception and birth of a child, which is apparent in other Amazonian societies, particularly that of the
Piro (Gow 1989). The metaphor that is widely used connects the sweetness of an unmarried girl’s masato to
the relative appeal of her mouth and genitals. This reference, which is considered to be inappropriate when
made towards married women, echoes the fact that masateadas are important for bringing unmarried people
together.
6
Hugh-Jones has noted a clear separation between ‘food and non-food complexes’ among the Barasana,
arguing that coca, yagé (ayahuasca), manioc beer, and tobacco are contrasted with meat/fish, manioc
bread, and broth and are used as ‘vehicles for different forms of social interaction’ (1995: 58-63). The
Ashéninka seem to make a similar distinction between food and masato, with the latter never being drunk
alongside food. I have argued that amongst the Ashéninka, in contrast to other Amazonian groups, even
the sharing of food appears not to imply the strengthening of relations (cf. Rosengren 2006: 810). This is
the case with masato as well, and while there is the idea that ‘real people’ drink masato, there is little idea
that it creates humans or binds them together through shared substance. The Ashéninka are also known
for their use of ayahuasca (the hallucinogen Banisteriopsis), and it would be interesting to consider how it
was used in social relations in the context of Hugh-Jones’s (1995) observations among the Barasana. Unfor-
tunately, in the area of my research ayahuasca was no longer used regularly so I am unable to analyse its
importance in this context.
7
In drawing this conclusion I note that owing to a preference for uxorilocal residence after marriage, the
lack of kinship networks tends to be more absolute for Ashéninka men than women. However, even while

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women are likely to live nearer to their kin, the underlying pattern of living in single-family households and
having contact with others only at masateadas remains the same.
8
It is notable that ayompari relationships occur predominantly between men. While a woman may ask her
husband to obtain a particular item for her, and the item that he gives in return may have been produced by
both of them, it is the man who deals directly with his ayompari. This is part of a wider feature of Ashéninka
culture: that men deal more with the outside world. However, as with masateadas, these relationships depend
on the productive capacity of a couple, not an individual man.

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© Royal Anthropological Institute 2009
718 Evan Killick

L’amitié chez les Ashéninkas : étude des relations sociales dans une
société amazonienne

Résumé
À partir de la préférence déclarée des Ashéninkas pour une vie isolée en maisonnées composées de
familles nucléaires, l’article analyse les pratiques sociales dans le contexte des débats académiques actuels
sur la réciprocité, la parenté et l’importance relative de la similitude et de la différence dans la pensée
amazonienne. L’auteur avance qu’au lieu de tenter de contraindre les autres à des relations fixes et
strictement prescrites, notamment sur la base de la parenté, les Ashéninkas préfèrent qu’elles soient tissées
à partir de liens d’amitié volontaires, limités et souples. L’auteur montre comment ces relations
sont sous-tendues par un impératif culturel de don unilatéral, manifesté dans les masateadas, des
rassemblements sociaux centrés sur la consommation de bière de manioc.

Evan Killick has a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
His doctoral research focused on the Ashéninka of Peruvian Amazonia and their relations to Peruvian
national society. He is currently a Nuffield New Career Development Fellow at the University of Sussex and
is expanding his research to consider identity, inter-ethnic relations, and the effects of industrial agriculture
among Amazonian populations in Peru and Brazil. He will be taking up a post as Lecturer in Development
Studies in the Department of Anthropology, University of Sussex, in 2011.

Department of Anthropology, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9SJ, UK. E.Killick@sussex.ac.uk

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 15, 701-718

© Royal Anthropological Institute 2009