Entorno

by Camry Gach

The Real Academia Española defines entorno as “ambiente, lo que rodea” (“environment, what surrounds you”). However, from my own experiences hearing the term in Spanish classes and through conducting this study, I have come across instances in which the speaker uses the term not only to describe the physical influences that surround them, but also cultural and cosmological influences. In the last chapter of La navegación prehispánica en mesoamérica: modelo de conectividad entre la costa del pacífico y el altiplano central (2020), Mariana Favila-Váquez affirms just exactly this interpretation of the term: “A través de la evidencia arqueológica, iconográfica e histórica, esta investigación sostiene que las culturas mesoamericanas tenían una percepción del entorno en la que, aunque el agua se distinguía de la tierra firme, no se consideraba exclusivamente como un espacio opuesto, liminal y por lo tanto independiente a la dinámica política, social, económica y religiosa de los pueblos” (17).

[Through the archeological, historical, and iconographic evidence, this research argues that Mesoamerican cultures have a perception of entorno in which even though the water does distinguish itself from the firm earth, it does not consider it to be exclusively an oppositional space, liminal and thus independent to political, social, economic and religious dynamics of the people]. In the following discussion, I will draw from the cosmology of a number of Latin America's indigenous groups to provide some additional examples as to how cultural and social interactions make up the term, entorno, just as much as physical interactions do. Looking subjectively at the term through the perspectives of these indigenous peoples, I will describe some examples of their perceptions and interactions with the natural elements and non-human living beings, as a way of providing critical insight into the meaning of el entorno. In addition to the importance of incorporating the subjective point of view for this investigation, recognizing hidden meanings and the intentionality behind rhetoric used to communicate about nature and non-human beings remains a crucial step in the process of understanding the multi-faceted meaning of entorno, its subjectivity and agency, and how it possesses qualities that can be just as interactive as those of any other living being.

El entorno does indeed describe one’s surrounding physical environment, but at the same time it also serves a social and religious function for many indigenous groups in Latin America. Alexandre Surrallés and Pedro García Hierro draw from the philosophies of various Latin American indigenous groups, noting this abstract, social connotation associated with the term: “La sociabilidad es el marco de referencia de las relaciones con el entorno, de manera que el territorio, más allá de una extensión para la subsistencia y la reproducción social limitada al grupo local que ejerce el control de este espacio, pertenecería al ámbito de lo social” [Sociability is a mark of reference of the relationships with the entorno, in the way that the territory, more than an extension for subsistence living and the social reproduction that is limited to the local group that exercises control of the space, pertains to the social sphere] (17). The native peoples discussed here do not simply define their “entorno” as the space or territory that they occupy, but rather as their social sphere (“ámbito de lo social”), where they find ways of interacting and engaging with their surroundings, especially with non-human beings. In a second book Antropología de un derecho: libre determinación territorial de los pueblos indígenas como derecho humano (2009), the authors offer a focused description of this social sphere from the perspective of the Kandozi people, located in Peru: “De todo ello se concluye que el entorno es sobre todo un espacio de interacción social puesto que además de las actividades para la subsistencia como la horticultura, la recolección y la caza, los diferentes espacios que forman el territorio son lugares para la interacción ritual con estas personas no humanas” [From all this, they conclude that the entorno is, above all, a space of social interaction, given that in addition to the activities for subsistence like the horticulture, the recollection of hunting, the different spaces that form the territory are places for ritual interaction with these non-human people] (84). This definition of entorno as “lugares para la interacción ritual con estas personas no humanas” [places for ritual interaction with these non-human people] directly aligns with two definitions of the very similar term paisaje [landscape], provided by Wendy Ashmore, a notable figure in the field of Mesoamerican archeology: “Los paisajes como medios de expresión ritual y como contenedores de significados cosmológicos y sacralidad” [Landscapes as mediums of ritual expression and as containers of cosmological meanings and sacredness] (Favila Vázquez 12). Adding on to this definition, “el paisaje” offers a sacred space in which indigenous peoples of the Americas carry out rituals, show reverence for nature, and orient their lifestyles in accordance with astronomic patterns they observe through the cosmos (12). To summarize, just as much as el paisaje or el entorno can be considered a space for living and survival, indigenous peoples located in settlements across the Americas also view it as a sphere of ritual and social connection with those living and non-living entities who inhabit the surrounding environment.

The film, El Botón de Nácar [The Pearl Button] (2016) offers a concrete example of this social and ritual connection with nature through the perspectives of several indigenous mariner groups from Patagonia, including the Kawésqar, Selk’nam, Aoniken, Hausch, y Yamana. The film’s clear narration, along with its screenings of expansive landscapes and scenes from outer space, makes the perspectives of these indigenous peoples available to a wide audience who may have little to no prior knowledge of their complex worldviews. One critical cosmological perspective discussed in the film identifies the water element as a key intermediary figure that responds and converses with the events that transpire throughout the cosmos, interfacing with humans, non-humans and all other lifeforms who make up el entorno:

“Cuando el agua se mueve, los cosmos se interviene. El agua recibe la fuerza de los planetas, la transmite al suelo y a todas las criaturas. El agua es un órgano mediador entre las estrellas y nosotros”  (El Botón de Nácar, 8:30).

[When the water moves, the cosmos intervene. The water receives the force of the planets, transmits it to the ground and to all of the creatures. The water is the mediator between the stars and us].

This cosmology almost personifies the water, as it does not only take on its large, physical element, but also possesses the foresight necessary to transmit cosmological messages to the people. Some viewers might even interpret the rhetorical decision of personification as an attempt to invert stereotypical views between humans and nature. By personifying the non-living element of water and identifying “the human” or “nosotros” [us] as merely a recipient of these large-scale cosmological movements, the human becomes just one individual creature amidst the many who participate in these exchanges. The film describes the Kawésquar practice of painting the body using a series of lines and points (see image) as a way for the people to align their very bodies with the celestial. The film does not go much further to explain the practice, but rather shows it in action. However, one might interpret the body paintings as a means of integrating the human body intoel entorno.

This representation of the physical body itself as a canvas where cosmological events occur further depersonalizes the human and supports the interpretation of how the film inverts the roles of the human and the forces of nature.

Towards the end of the film, these cosmological perspectives are applied to modern-day events. During the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, several of the over 3,200 murdered and disappeared Chilean civilians were thrown into the ocean, never to be found again. One of the interviewees, Raúl Zurita, one of Chile’s illustrious poets, describes how this atrocity sends a ripple effect into the surrounding entorno:

“Entonces, cuando suceden cosas tan horribles como las que suceden con tanta frecuencia en la historia, aunque uno no haya participado, no haya tenido nada que ver, también estamos responsables, cuando una familia, un hijo comete un crimen, o qué sé yo, es toda la familia la que se afecta. Entonces, esa parte de la historia, asociada al agua, al hielo, a los volcanes, también está asociada a la muerte, a la matanza, al abuso, al genocidio…Si el agua tiene memoria, tendrá memoria de eso también. Todas las cosas mantienen un diálogo con todas las cosas, el agua, con los ríos, con las plantas, con el rompiente, con los desiertos, con las piedras, con las estrellas. Todo es una gran conversación, un gran mirarse mutuamente” (1:14:30).

[When such terrible things happen, as they have done, throughout history, even without anyone participating, not having anything to see, weʻre also responsible, as in a family in which a child commits a crime, and the whole family is affected. So this part of the history associated with the water, the ice, the volcanoes, also is associated with death, massacres, abuse, genocide…If the water had a memory, it would remember this as well. All things converse with all the things, with the water, the water with the rivers, with the plants, with the reef, with the deserts, the stone, with the stars. All [of this] is a great conversation, a mutual regard].

The massacres of the Pinochet regime did not only deeply impact Chilean families and communities, but the surrounding entorno, especially the water, also felt these deep affects that leave indelible imprints on the spirit of these places. As illustrated here, certain coastal indigenous groups have developed deep cosmological connections with the sea. Next, interpretations of the term will be explored from the perspective of indigenous Latin American groups located further inland, regarding their relationships with other living, non-humans.

Perspectivism as a form of interaction with el entorno

Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s perspectivism, as it incorporates the worldviews of many indigenous Latin American groups, offers a critical outlet to more deeply examine the ways in which indigenous people interact with fellow non-human beings with whom they share an entorno. García Hierro and Surrallés (2004) describe this perspectivism, in essence, as when “Toda especie se constituye como persona humana desde su propia perspectiva” [all species constitute themselves as human people from their own perspective] (15). Perceiving the world through the lens of perspectivism enables indigenous people to cultivate unique relationships with others, humans and non-humans alike, which Viveiros de Castro defines as affinity relationships. He elaborates on the fluidity and nuance of these connections:

“Even a cursory acquaintance with Amazonian ethnography reveals that the ‘wider sociological matrices’ in the region are truly wide, including much more than just other local groups from the same ethnic or linguistic family…The sociological matrices extend as far as the native sociologies go; and the latter muster a very diverse multitude of Others, human and non-human, a multitude that is neither sortable nor totalizable in any clear way…Yet whatever the situations and personae involved, all these relations evoke the same set of values and dispositions,...they are all inflected in the idiom of affinity. Guests and friends as much as foreigners and enemies; political allies and clients as much as trade partners or ritual companions; game animals as much as predatory spirits—all these kinds of people are awash in affinity” (107-108).

By “sociological matrices,” Viveiros de Castro is referring to those affinity relationships that native peoples form outside of their immediate group or tribe, which are usually independent of consanguinity. He portrays these sets of juxtaposed figures as “affines,” tying a sense of equality to the way in which Amazonian peoples perceive them, a perspective that may seem very counterintuitive from a conventional western perspective in which duality dominates. The last juxtaposition, “game animals as much as predatory spirits,” invites the reader to consider how these indigenous perspectives can sometimes blend together the boundary between animals as prey or as companions. In continuing his discussion of the “wide sociological matrices,” Viveiros de Castro concisely summarizes this two-sided relationship that indigenous Amazonian peoples form with other non-humans: “Furthermore, this relational complex spans multiple socio-cosmological spheres: animals, plants, spirits, and divinities, all circulate via myriad channels that both link them to and separate them from humans” (108). Perspectivism and other unique cosmologies of indigenous Amazonian groups have certainly informed the formation of such diverse affinity relationships. I will now draw from writings about two Amazonian groups, the Yudjá from the Xingu river in central Brazil, and the Wari’ who inhabit western-most border of the country, in order to articulate some concrete examples of perspectivism that involve their lived experiences. Exploring these perspectives will provide a useful point of view from which to further analyze how indigenous peoples perceive el entorno through a means of transcending the barrier between the human and non-human.

Tânia Stolze Lima highlights how the Yudjá perceive animals as not only having in common with humans physical and mental traits, but also cultural perspectives. She lists these capabilities, “de relaciones sociales, de conductas culturales y de capacidades para distinguir lo humano y lo animal” [of social relationships, of cultural conduct, and of capacities to distinguish the human and the animal] (67). Stolze Lima cleverly inserts this last element, the “capacidad para distinguir lo humano y lo animal” as a way of catching readers off-guard, forcing them to question how must we distinguish between the human and the animal, when the animal and the human reader might not be able to come to a consensus of who is really labeled as “the human.”

The Wari’ people of the Río Negro-Ociaca in the Amazon perceive non-humans in a very similar way. Through her memoir, Paletó y yo (2020), anthropologist Aparecida Vilaça indicates how the Wari’ integrate perspectivism into their cosmology:

“Siendo chamán, o pajé, Wan e’ tenía otro cuerpo en forma de pecarí (puerco salvaje), que andaba por la selva y debajo de los ríos mientras él dormía, o a veces durante su vigilia. Me explico: puerco salvaje a nuestros ojos, porque los animales se ven a sí mismos como humanos, con un cuerpo humano y una vida social como la de los Wari’. Wan e’ podía verlos así, como personas” (58-59).

[Being a shaman, Wan e’ had another body in the form of a wild pig, that walked through the forest and under the rivers while he slept, or sometimes, when he was awake. He explained to me: wild pig to our eyes because the animals see themselves as humans with a human body and a social life like that of the Wari’. Wan e’ could see the pigs as this, like people].

Indeed, the shaman plays a critical role within perspectivism, as they serve as one of the only people in a tribe who is capable of transcending the boundary that prevents human beings from fully understanding the perspectives of non-human beings, or as so eloquently described by Maciel: “[The shaman] can transition into other non-human subjectivities and thus have access to the different worlds that are expressed through them” (119). The shaman literally becomes one with the animal, as described in the example of Wan e’, as a means of accessing the unknown, sensory perspectives that animals possess. Reading about the practices of a shaman in Paletó y yo provides a special opportunity not only to develop a deeper understanding of their complex relationships with animals, but also to witness how the Wari’ shamans occupy the social dimension of el entorno through the rituals that they perform and the miracles that many of them, like Wan e’, are able to perform (one breathtaking example of Wane e’ performing a cure can be found on pg. 61 of the novel).

Transcending el entorno, starting with an ontological approach

In the literature on perspectivism, ontological references towards non-humans are frequently discussed as an approach to reconfigure how we perceive and identify non-human beings, in addition to the entorno, not as simply an environment, but also an interactive social sphere. For example, in an ecopoetic analysis, Maria Esther Maciel puts into question the stereotypical concept of “person” and how it has the potential to encompass the non-human:

“This is not to say, however, that considering certain animals as persons is an act of anthropomorphism. In [Dominique] Lestel’s words, ‘it is our notion of person that is anthropomorphic’ (Idem). It is up to us, therefore, to learn to think of animals as subjects, individuals, and even as people, starting from a reconfiguration of the concepts of subjectivity, identity, and personality, outside the anthropocentric frame” (120).

Therefore, not only do the words we select to describe non-humans matter, but also the intentions and hidden meanings we carry with them. Maciel also draws on the writings of Viveiros de Castro to defend an animal’s right to subjectivity (as opposed to objectifying them), given their ability to perceive the world in their own unique way. I intentionally use the personal pronoun that Marciel pushes, “their,” instead of “it”, when referring to an animal in order to make this exact point, in an acknowledgement of their subjectivity.

In addition, a study that observes the positive outcomes of creating “Espacios costeros marinos para pueblos originarios” [Marine Coastal Spaces for Original Peoples] (ECMPOs), emphasizes the need for reframing the diction used to care for the Patagonian region, not as an object, but rather as a  subject of conservationist work, “ampliando los ‘objetos’ de conservación y los mecanismos de gobernanza” [increasing the ‘objects’ of conservation and the mechanisms of governance] (Araos, Francisco, et al. 288)]. The quotes around ‘objects’ reveal the writers’ intention in challenging the pre-conceived notion of conservation as an ‘object’ or ‘task’ in need of completing, but rather, an embodied journey and process filled with purpose and intention.

Building off of these proposals of converting conservation work and non-human beings into subjects, as opposed to objects, perhaps the concept of el entorno could also take on a ‘subject’ status. In fact, it seems clear that many indigenous Latin American peoples already apply this same way of thinking to how they perceive themselves within their entorno, integrating themselves as subjects within their own entorno, as opposed to critiquing el entorno from the outside.

Works Cited

Araos, Francisco, et al. “Cuidando La Patagonia Azul: Prácticas y Estrategias de Los Pueblos Originarios Para Curar Las Zonas Marinas Del Sur de Chile.” The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, vol. 28, no. 4, 2023, pp. 286–97, https://doi.org/10.1111/jlca.12695.

Ashmore, Wendy. “Mesoamerican Landscape Archeologies.” Ancient Mesoamerica, vol. 20, no. 2, 2009, pp. 183–87, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536109990058.

Centro Amazónico de Antropología y Aplicación Práctica. Amazonía Peruana: Perspectivismo. 2007.

Stolze Lima, Tânia. “El Dos y Su Múltiple: Reflexiones Sobre el Perspectivismo en una Cosmología Tupí.” Centro Amazónico de Antropología y Aplicación Práctica. Amazonía Peruana: Perspectivismo. 2007.

“Entorno.” Real Academia Española, https://dle.rae.es/entorno.

Favila Vázquez, Mariana, and Johanna Broda. La navegación prehispánica en mesoamérica: modelo de conectividad entre la costa del pacífico y el altiplano central (1200-1521 d.C.). BAR Publishing, 2020.

Pedro García Hierro and Alexandre Surrallés. Anthropologia de un derecho: libre determinación territorial de los pueblos indígenas como derecho humano. Oct. 2009.

Pedro García Hierro and Alexandre Surrallés. Tierro Adentro: Territorio Indígena y Percepción Del Entorno. 2004,

https://www.iwgia.org/images/publications/0331_tierra_adentro.pdf.

Saramago, Victoria, and Luca Bacchini. Literature beyond the Human: Post-Anthropocentric Brazil. Routledge, 2022.

“The Pearl Button.” Botón de Nácar, directed by Patricio Guzmán et al., Kino Lorber, 2016.

Vilaça, Aparecida, and Ingrid Brioso Rieumont. Paletó y Yo: Memorias de Mi Padre Indígena. Fondo Editorial Casa de las Américas, 2020.

Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo, and Roy Wagner. The Relative Native: Essays on Indigenous Conceptual Worlds. HAU Books, 2015.

Photo Citation:

Gusinde, Martín.Sources of Inspiration: Indiginous Body Painting. Photo, 1923, https://www.jangiliam.nl/sources/paintedbodiesimg.html.