CANNIBAL GOLD AND THE FALLING SKY - A SHAMANISTIC CRITIQUE OF THE POLITICAL-ECONOMY OF NATURE (YANOMAMI, BRAZIL)

Since the 1980's, the discourse of ethnic assertion and the territorial claims made by the new native leaders of Amazonia seems to borrow heavily on the ecologist rhetoric developped by their local or international allies. This article aims to describe, on the basis of a Yanomami example, that this apparent mimetism hides in fact a complex symbolic interplay between traditional cosmology and imposed categories of ethnicity. It shows further how this politico-symbolic ''bricolage'' produces an analytical feed-back into our own cultural construction of Nature.