“I Was Bewitched by an Ant”: A Cosmo‐Ecological Perspective on Human‐Ant Relationships in Indigenous Peruvian Amazonia

ABSTRACT

This article employs a dialogue‐based framework that draws on anthropology, ethnobiology and ecology to explore the multifaceted relationship between the Asháninka people of the Peruvian Amazonia and a group of insects they recognize as ants. Ants play a significant role in terrestrial ecosystems, acting as powerful agents of landscape recycling and transformation. They are viewed ambivalently in various human cultures: being admired for their organizational skills and work yet also blamed for significant agricultural losses. For Amazonian indigenous groups, however, ants are more than just “an ecological force” or “love‐or‐hate” creatures. This article examines how ecological reasoning and moral reasoning are mutually constitutive in shaping the agency with which the Asháninka people endow “ants”. Twenty six names of ethnospecies of “ants” were recorded for which scientific correspondence was established based on the collected specimens. The ethnoclassification of ants falls into two major categories: The type of environment they inhabit and the level of harm they produce. In cosmological animistic terms, some “ants” are attributed with a predatory nature to bewitch and induce illness in people. We conclude that the attribution of harmful faculties to “ants” does not result from ecological reasoning being influenced by moral reasoning, nor vice versa. Rather, ecological observation and moral interpretation are mutually constitutive: the habits and behavior of “ants” are noticed and acted upon because they matter within a relational world in which ants, humans, spirits, and therapeutic practices are continuously engaged.