The Power of Words: Linguistic reflections on Shipibo-Konibo ethnography

Although studies of linguistic anthropology in the Amazon are increasingly abundant, scholars rarely reflect on the understanding of language from the perspective of Amerindian nations. This article proposes that it is possible to trace certain Amerindian conceptions of language through the interpretation of medicinal practices and some ancestral narratives. From the perspective of the Onanyabo (visionary doctors of the Shipibo-Konibo nation), the word can have a vibratory and realising power, capable of materialising the named, annulling the “metaphysical” distance between the signifier and the signified. In this way, it is possible to trace some principles to start thinking about a “Shipibo-Konibo ethnotheory of language”, which could be part of a more general conceptualisation of Amazonian and Amerindian linguistics.