Between the root and the stem: on women-plant relations, predation and familiarisation among the Awajún (Upper Amazonas, Peru)

What to do with the problem of predation? This is not only a conundrum for anthropologists working in what has become known as animist societies. The gardening activities of the Awajún people of northern Peru’s high jungle are modelled on the teachings of the original mother of cultivated plants, Núgkui, who granted the Awajún their cultivars. Yet gardening is not an easy matter. The manioc sprouts seek to suck the blood of gardeners unless they are treated correctly. This article explores how predation is constantly kept at bay through familiarisation practices in which garden plants are made into the vegetative children of the women who tend them. Women direct the growth of plants through strategies that impart vital forces to them at planting, by singing ritual songs to subdue their vicious intentions and through strict adherence to dietary regimes that keep plant bodies from manifesting unwanted characteristics. In sum, the friction between a garden and its outside is constantly treated so that the bodily and spiritual disposition of cultivated plants is controlled.