On the brink of silence: ethnographic perspectives on hunting and forest life among the Awa Guajá in Eastern Amazonia

The central theme of this article basically resides in the relationship established by indigenous peoples between their hunting practices and the forest. Indigenous ways of connecting ‘hunting’ and ‘forest’ necessarily pass through other modes of knowing, only marginally – if it all – dependent on vision. On the contrary, sounds, smells and even dreams are, for many South American indigenous collectives, more trustworthy indices than what the eye sees. This article divides into two parts. In the first, I set out the main ideas related to the anthropological study of hunting in Amazonia at a conceptual level. In the second, shifting toward an anthropology of hunting as lived experience, I develop a reflection based on my own fieldwork with the Awa-Guajá, arriving, finally, at an anthropological (and ecological) critique of the threats to which indigenous territories are now exposed.