The concept of the human, in the Renaissance humanism sense, was a critical colonial tool used to deny indigenous peoples human status so that military and epistemological violence could be justified in the name of “civilization.” While the theological debates over whether indigenous peoples possessed a soul—and therefore humanity—came to an impasse in the Spanish courts in the sixteenth century when Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda and Bartolomé de las Casas argued the issue based on Aristotle’s precepts, the making of human-animal hierarchies resulted in an erasure of indigenous ontological views deemed incompatible with Renaissance humanist discourse. Five hundred years later, the question of humanity and what constitutes the human continues to be deeply rooted in questions of the intelligence, rationality, and spirit of mankind and other entities.

As a counterreaction to this partial view of life, twentieth and twenty-first century indigenous writers have chosen to portray an array of ontologies where animals, humans, and plants are not separated into hierarchies. Rather, the concept of the human is directly tied to recognition and inclusion within a specific community and is thus not determined by a live birth, which is especially true in Amazonian communities where infanticide is a common practice. This example of “perspectivism” as Eduardo Viveiros de Castro terms it, remains most palpable in indigenous mythologies where there is “undifferentiation between humans and animals.” This special session brings together papers that will consider how writers grapple with the question of the human from an indigenous perspective by examining the inter-relatedness of plants, space, animals, and other animate sites such as mountains and volcanoes, and how these are placed into the category of the human. More specifically, each presenter will focus on how indigenous poets manifest their culture’s human-flora-animal-territory belief systems as foundations for community-building, knowledge of the supernatural, protection of ancestral land, and communal governance.

Departing form Viveiros de Castro’s use of “perspectivism”, Gloria E. Chacón’s paper, titled “Beyond Maize as Flesh,” explores how Matus’ and de la Cruz’s poetry centralize iguanas, turtles, trees in a Zapotec ethnogenesis. Chacón will analyze the work of two foundational Zapotec poets from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, Mexico: Macario Matus and Víctor de la Cruz. This analysis brings to light how the poets explore the role of flora and fauna in the birth of the Zapotec people. In so doing, these poets assert an indigenous ontology that insists on an inter-related existence. In other words, they affirm that the iguanas, turtles, tule trees are inherent in the very essence of being Zapotec. While most criticism on Zapotec mythology has focused on oral tradition, Chacón makes an innovative contribution by tackling the question of community-building within a written bilingual poetry that offers a new take on the co-existence and inter-relatedness of flowers, animals, and people.

This question of how indigenous writers grapple with the question of the human in their works will be further considered in Juan G. Sánchez Martínez’s paper “Humberto Ak’abal’s Dance with Fright”, which presents an intriguing analysis of how the renowned Maya K’iche’ (Guatemala) poet incorporates the supernatural as life-like entities in his poetry. Specifically, Sánchez Martínez examines Ak’abal’s poetics through “kab’awil,” and insists it defies the boundaries of the living and the dead. For Ak’abal, specters, i.e. espantos or frights (ghost-like entities), inhabit plants and the bodies of animals and humans. Sánchez Martínez underlines how Humberto Ak’abal poeticizes the Maya K’iche’ understanding of the supernatural functions as a knowledge-making source, considering that poet-like specters and shadow-like entities can communicate with the living, and perform as teachers and councilman.

The third paper, “A Poetic of Territory” by Osiris Aníbal Gómez, takes on the question of territory with respect to communal land ownership. Following the ideas of Mixe theorist Floriberto Díaz, who defines communality as an indigenous understanding of the collective as an interconnected notion of language, territory and communal service (Tequio), Gómez expands on the idea of language as a maker of territory. This spatial conceptualization of language-territory can be understood as an extension of philosophical views grounded in the interrelation of humans and physical space. Thus, making territory also means protecting the sacred (space-religion) both within and outside the community by facing both physical and intangible threats to the community by engaging in dialogue and organization. In this way, Gómez centers poetry as a critical tool with which to confront and make visible the wave of violence caused by the presence of drug cartels, marginalization and poverty that devastate the indigenous communities of La Montaña, Guerrero, Mexico, as presented in the work of Mè’phàà poet, Hubert Matiúwàa. Specifically, Gomez argues the aesthetic values that constitute Matiúwàa’s ceremonial poetics serve as a way of preserving and invigorating Mè’phàà territory, thought, and customs.

Lastly, Sue P. Huglund takes us to a different ethnoscape, focusing on the various aspects of governance as lived by the Dule peoples of Gunalaya, Panama in her paper “Singing Us Into Existence: The Entwinement of Dule Poetry and Governance in “Tinaja” and “Civiliza mi corazón, mamá.” As Hugland features the figure of the sagla (Dule social-spiritual administrative chiefs) who serve as leaders and express their rule through a poetic-like language, Huglund will analyze the poems/songs as interpretative politics, showing how the sagla-poet centralizes and interprets the way politics constitute an aesthetic of governance of Dule lifeworld and epistemology. Hugland analyzes two poems: “Tinaja” by Abadio Green and “Civiliza mi corazón, mamá” by Aiban Wagua, maintaining that these two poets embody and rethink Dule ontology and poetic governance by returning to the lyrical stylings of oratory that summon the historical memory of Dule gods. In this view, the sagla represents the poet who serves the gods, community, and ecological surroundings tying these various vectors into one inseparable entity.

Considering the number of papers included in the panel, presentations will last 10 minutes, for a total of 40 minutes. Gloria Chacón, who will serve as the respondent, will offer 5-minute comments session for the papers. The remaining 15 minutes will be reserved for open discussion.